THE CELTIC CONNECTION • MARCH 1993
Page 7
ABEGAEL FISHER-LANG AND ERIC GORDON
Storytellers who express and elevate romantic love
Ancient Romance
Weaving Threads of Love
By LAURIE O'CONNOR
VANCOUVER — Roots & Wings' Storytellers' annual valentine's concert is becoming a seasonal landmark expressing and elevating romantic love to where it should belong — not in the card shops, florists or chocolatiers, but in the roots of our feelings and wings of our passion.
Abegael Fisher-Lang and Eric Gordon, a married couple whose love story began with story telling, have created the annual "stories of love: sacred, crazy and otherwise" for the past three years. This year's concert was well-received at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.
On a stage beautiful with flowers and five-foot tall candelabra, Abegael and Eric, attired in medieval garb, began the evening with a fiery "lovers' dialogue of scorn and reconciliation from Renaissance Italy. Eric quipped afterwards that the evening began with "the middle ages, because we are all approaching our own."
Medieval love rituals were explained, including the offering of a lady's sleeve to her gallant knight, giving rise to the common saying "wearing one's heart on one's sleeve." Abegael removed a detachable sleeve from her gown, offering it to Eric, and suggesting that ladies of the audience do the same!
The evening's program was filled with humorous folktales
on the wiles and whims of love, a powerful telling of the ancient Celtic legend — the wedding of Gowain and Regnell. The crowd was especially captivated by an interweaving of two erotic poems / like my body by E.E. Cummings and / love it when by Sharon Olds.
Treasa O'Driscoll was a featured guest at this year's concert, and her soul-filled recitation of the poetry of Yeats, Raine, E.E. Cummings and Vancouver poet Anne McMurtry brought a richness and beauty to the evening.
She told a lovely, impressionistic story of the meeting of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the moving 'Molly Bloom' monologue from Ulysses, and sang several Irish love songs.
The audience was particularly moved by her 'keening' piece. Keening was an ancient custom practised in Ireland to assist souls in transition from this world to the next.
The evening was well accompanied by Joseph Danza, a multi-instrumentalist and "world music" master, who enhanced the poems and stories with haunting melodies and powerful rhythms on a variety of instruments, including flute, sitar, guitar and drums.
Indeed, this was a "weaving of the many-hued threads of love into an enchanted tapestry" as the posters promised. Thank you, Abegael, Eric, Treasa and Joseph, for a real love-potion!
A Last Remainder of the Gaelic Culture
By KEVIN McFADDEN
In order to understand any community, one must first of all consult its history. The Rosses, in Ireland, consist of approximately 52,000 acres and extends from Crolly Bridge in the North to Gweedore Bridge in the South. They embrace all the intervening coastline and penetrating inland as far as the Derryveagh Mountains and the Alpinesque village of Doochary.
The Rosses derives its name from the Irish 'Na Rossa'—from the five headlands that stretch out like searching fingers into the sea. All of the offshore islands, which play a most important part in the life of the Rosses, are also contained within it.
Their importance is shown by the fact that, in the Rosses, one goes 'into the island' and 'out to the Mainland'. In other parts of Ireland one goes 'out to the Island' and 'into the mainland'.
Certain characteristics mark off the Rosses from the remainder of Ireland. From the western seaboard to the mountains which guard its eastern border, the land is patterned with 129 splendid lakes which in recent times have been developed by an active Rosses Anglers association, based at Dungloe.
The broken character of the long Rosses coastline results in innumerable cliff-bound headlands, bays, inlets and safe unspoiled sandy beaches. The geologist will find much to study in the
unusual topographical features of this area, and the botanist will delight in the variety of wild flowers on the hills, moors and 'rocky foreshores.
During the Famine (1845-47) the Rosses did not suffer as much as other areas, possibly because of its proximity to the sea and to Rutland, being the trading centre of the West. The Rosses has produced many persons who have made strong contributions in commerce, education, literature, politics and music.
Today in the Rosses, there live a soft-spoken people, who, as of yet, still contain much of that Old World charm, courtesy and friendliness, which is so rapidly disappearing in a more highly-urbanised world.
Buddy MacMaster ON VIDEO
"The Master of the Cape Breton Fiddle "
Cape Breton Island, N.S., long the stronghold of Gaelic culture in the new world, has to this day maintained the old Highland style of fiddle music... This is a highly entertaining profile of the master of the Cape Breton style of Celtic music...the camera follows Buddy through the Highlands of Scotland and Cape Breton, tracing the origins of the music. Lots of great music, insights., .and beautifully shot. 1 HR VHS TAPE — $37.00 CAN. ($32.00 U.S.) Includes tax and mailing. Send cheque or money order to: Seabright Murphy Video Box 1801, Antigonish Nova Scotia, Canada B2G 2M5
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