CityLife

Musical Ano Throsko is a world first

Ano Throsko: Musical For The 21st Century in rehearsal

The Cultural Collage World Music Festival - various venues - from May 5, 2011 to May 14, 2011 .
Ano Throsko: Musical For The 21st Century - Dancehouse - May 7, 2011

Next Thursday sees the start of Manchester’s second Cultural Collage World Music Festival, boasting more than 20 events in 14 venues over 10 days.

The opening event is an African Extravaganza at the Ruby Lounge featuring the Kanda Bongo Man band (did you know, incidentally, that the Congolese soukous legend was now resident here?), followed by an African Club Night showcasing new African multi-media drumming band Djembekan.

Other Festival events include the Bisserov Sisters from Bulgaria, Balkan music group Alejandro Toledo and the Magic Tombalinos, an Arabic Cultural Evening with the Nile Band, DJ Mayeva and belly dancer Samara, an acoustic world music evening courtesy of Nomad Cafe, an album launch from Bhangra DJ/producer Gorilla Chilla, a festival party with Ska Cubano, and a programme of world dance workshops throughout the festival.

There’s also the world premiere of Ano Throsko: Musical For The 21st Century, the city’s first musical theatre production to use live world music as its soundtrack, at the Dancehouse on Oxford Road on May 7.

The musical, which draws on music and rhythms from Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia , features a 30-strong orchestra of players and has been composed and arranged by 24-year-old Greek born composer, Niko Paterakis.

The title, he explains, comes from ancient Greek. The word ‘Ano’ means ‘up’ or ‘upwards’ and the word ‘Throsko’, ‘to aim or gaze’, implying intention and motion towards something. Combined they form the word ‘anthropos’ which means ‘human’ and is still used in modern Greek. “Hence, a human being is one who aims higher.”

The musical’s storyline is Orwellian, following the character of One, an alienated resident of a fictitious society called The Construct, who begins a journey of self-discovery.

“For me it’s about the human struggle. You can find similar concepts in films like The Matrix or Cartesian philosophy,” he acknowledges, “and I’ve always liked that idea of what we perceive as reality not necessarily being reality but just a set of rules confining you.

“My own experience of that at various phases of my life led me to write bits and pieces of stories and poems and songs that have somehow found their way into a musical.

“Actually, it’s more like a concept album on stage, rather than this cheesy idea of agents doing the can-can, or something!
“I started a music course a few years ago at the Manchester College, which was a pop music course. They gave me a computer and loads of studio access, which I used to experiment with certain ideas.

“I made a lot of useful contacts there that are actually part of the musical now, although we didn’t know it was a musical until we got into the studio and started working on the tracks that became the Ano Throsko EP.”

Encouraged by the college to go to the annual South by South West festival in Austin, Texas, last year, Niko took 100 copies of the EP with him and had only three left by the end!

Meanwhile, the inaugural Cultural Collage Festival, taking its name from founder Geli Berg’s radio programme, had started to pull together the various world music strands in Manchester.

“So this really started to come together properly about a year ago,” remembers Niko, “when I started sourcing musicians, some of them from college, my own contacts or through Geli’s music agency.

“When we started rehearsing, I had some solid ideas and quite a few vague ones, so you bet the play has changed since then!

“I told the people who wanted to get involved ‘this is your playground’ in the music, or video or the sound effects. People have really taken me at my word so what you’ll see is not my musical anymore, it’s our musical and 30 all get a solo!

“It’s a big undertaking but everyone’s been really supportive. It’s as amazing as it is tiring but it will be recorded on DVD with a view to getting it on elsewhere, especially in other countries. So, if it has a course, I’d like to run it.”

The Cultural Collage World Music Festival from Thursday to May 14.

Ano Throsko: Musical For The 21st Century is at the Dancehouse, Oxford Road, on May 7.

For more information, go to culturalcollageworld musicfestival.org.uk.