Foreign and Terrestrial Hit Parade

Songs to the Gods of the World, a musical performance by Polish students from the AST National Theatre Arts Centre in Krakow, captivated us with its vocal narrative.

They presented a range of basic emotions such as love, passion, and pain from a cross-section of human history in the form of various folk and religious songs. And in several languages: Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish, Swahili, Norwegian and Turkish. Prayer and ritual, greetings and salutations to several entities from around the world contrasted with grandiose vocal delivery. A divine and earthly concert in one.

All for the Gods: for their birth, for their message, for their vision. Accompanied by the piano, drums, and other instruments, sounding mystical and spiritual, the cast communicated fragmented and subjective statements to the viewer. This was mostly through the vocals, which evolved, alternated, and blended in multifaceted tendencies in a multilingual performance. As such, the production did not contain a consistent narrative; rather, it was built on separate images dedicated to different cultures and traditions.

The musical chosen created a harmoniously matched melody that spoke of cultural and civilizational values captured in the flow of history. The minimal movement or vagueness of the action was not such a major factor in the confusion. From a subjective point of view, it was an experiential lesson in basic human feelings through singing.