Filed under: Concerts and Tours
Julian Koster claims to trace his family lineage back through generations of Romanian circus performers, and he's shown a fondness over the years for unconventional tours and concerts. So commissioning a circus tent of sorts as part of the Traveling Imaginary, his latest project with the
Music Tapes, is really just the next logical step. The Music Tapes debuted a version of the Traveling Imaginary Friday night at the Flywheel Arts Collective in Easthampton, Mass., a small DIY space in part of what used to be an old New England town hall. Koster and bandmates spent the afternoon building a venue within the venue, erecting their red-and-white striped tent for an evening performance of music, a movie, stories and games for an audience of a few dozen. The performance included many elements of previous Music Tapes shows, including Koster playing the singing saw on handmade folk songs and, of course, the 7-foot metronome. But seeing it all inside a 32-foot tent festooned with strands of red-and-white Christmas lights was somehow transformative. The tent is less a performance space than a cocoon that offers a warm and inviting intimacy perfectly suited to the sense of open-hearted innocence that radiates from Koster. It's as if he's found a way to preserve the special blend of whimsy and mystery that most people lose as childhood ebbs.
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