Defixiones: Orders from the Dead brings audience to their feet
by DANIEL ARIARATNAM

The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
May 2, 2005 Monday Final Edition

“We should guard our dead and their power, lest by some hour our
opponents disinter them and take them away.”

Those were the opening words of a morbidly toned theatrical spectacle
that culminated in a standing ovation.

Saturday night’s Defixiones: Orders from the Dead concert at Zion
Church saw singer Diamanda Galas engulf the sold out audience with
her death obsessed avant-guarde art.

Galas is known for having one of the most unique voices in new
music. It is neither the voice of a virtuoso pop singer nor that
of a conservatory trained opera singer. It is the expression of
a relentlessly personal vision: a vocalization of solitary inner
expression that forces the audience to confront the music and message.

The tone for the show was set in the opening numbers and from then
on there was virtually no dramatic or musical variance.

Instead, every last drop of life was squeezed from the static death
tone. This mono-dramatic aura completely drove home and blanketed
the audience in the ambience and message: the injustice and human
casualties suffered through the Armenian, Assyrian and Anatolian
Greek genocides.

Musically, the night consisted of several numbers blended together
in a flowing structure that created a cohesive singular whole. The
performance was one long composition consisting of a virtuoso voice
accompanied by tape and occasionally live piano.

Proving less is more, Galas has created a highly theatrical show
by completely stripping down production elements. The music on tape
consisted of ambient soundscape accompaniments, chanting and singing
in exotic languages and repetitive percussive industrial music loops.
The arrangements were neither lush nor cluttered, but orchestrated
to allow the few sonic elements to receive undivided attention.

The stripped down minimal nature also carried over to the drama.

The show was blocked to allow Galas to take only four positions:
stage right, stage left, at the piano and front stage centre. All
her actions, which included walking between the four positions and
putting on sunglasses, were executed to heighten the tempo of the mood:
a grave atmospheric largo.

As a performer, Galas has a carefully crafted presence.

Costumed in a black dress and a black hooded cape, the singer
symbolized a physical manifestation of death. Most dramatic of all,
was when she soloed from centre stage, allowing only her face to be
lit by a single light shone from directly overhead.

Of visual interest was the effective setting of the church sanctuary,
which provided a built in set highlighting Jesus and Mary iconed
stain glass windows and an omnipresent huge wooden cross.