Vane WomenLight and DarkMonday 22 SeptemberVane Women entered enthusiastically into the horror-tinged aspect of the Literature festival and came up with an evening dominated by the themes of light and dark. Elegant in black and white - and quite a lot of glitter - and led by their twin muses they took turns in coming to the microphone and reading their poetry. Joanna Boulter's The Taxidermist's Tale (from Running with the Unicorns), though written a decade ago, seemed to have been composed for this evening. Diane Cockburn closed the first half by putting on the white coat of Dr Frankenstein's assistant and had the audience in stitches, which was approporiate given her subject matter. |
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The theme of light and darkness could be applied to a wide range - there were poems about love going wrong and about friendship going right, there were poems about culture from Vicki Thomas's Film Noir to the lilies in the David Hockney Gallery at Salt's Mill, in Saltaire. Pat Maycroft described the northern lights with a photographer's eye and made us see them. The whole universe could be covered by the theme of light and dark, which weren't always easy to distinguish, as was illustrated by SJ Litherland's Dark Matter which was, she explained, the 95% of the universe that is invisible. The Vane Women who performed on this occasion were Lindsay Balderson, Pat Maycroft, SJ Litherland, Vicki Thomas, Diane Cockburn, Anne Hine, Joanna Boulter, Annie Wright and Marilyn Longstaff. |
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Vane Women will be launching their new book Rewriting the Map, written in collaboration with Shore Women from the Isle of Wight, at Ottakars Bookshop, Cornmill, Darlington, on Thursday, October 16, at 7 p.m. More information, and extracts, on Vane Women's own website.
The Durham Literature Festival Light and Dark event is one of a series of themed evenings performed by Vane Women. This started with a Valentine Day's "love in" reading and on Wednesday, October 29 at Darlington Arts Centre, the team will be in the Garden Bar performing something for Halloween. The reading will be called Bewitched and they'll do their best to raise spirits. "So be there", they say. "Broomsticks parked in the corner."
