Kali - Ritual Dancer, Mother Goddess
"Adyasakti - the primordial active female principle in which no duality exists and all opposites are reconciled"
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Rockbitch - Coventry, December 2001 |
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| Watch for this perfect moment near the end of Shanghai Express (1932) : Marlene Dietrich steps from the corridor into her darkened compartment, slides the door closed behind her and leans back against it; her hand goes to the light switch, but her head is bent forwards and the light shows us nothing but darkness and deep shadows. And then, in an act of simple and unsurpassed magic, she tilts her head up and back, and light floods her face, we see its burnished oval framed within the shadows of her hair; her hand with the cigarette at her mouth is trembling - "because you touched me, doc" - but the face is poised, reposed, it glows from an inner calm, she knows - though no words have limned its truth - that what she seeks she has achieved. That shimmering image encompasses an alchemy that turns her doubts to certainty, irony to knowledge, her self-deprecation to pride, it expresses a strength that comes from containing these and other antitheses without destroying them, and it expresses all this through the chiaroscuro of a woman's face. No photographed image has touched me more than this one has - it holds our gaze on the screen for perhaps fifteen seconds before it fades to black - nor has any haunted me more. |
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| And now the faces of these women of Rockbitch have come to haunt me too and perhaps for some of the same reasons. Though the intoxication of the beauty of their bodies will wear off in the dark streets outside - for I know that I can, that I will, go back for more - yet the magic wrought by their eyes, the terrain - terra incognita - of their faces stays with me, frets me, plies me with unexpected questions about motivation and achievement. Is it coincidental that these faces, like Dietrich's, attest a sexual desire for other women, acknowledge their own desirability in return? | |
Kali - Ritual Dancer, Mother Goddess
"Adyasakti - the primordial active female principle in which no duality exists and all opposites are reconciled"
| Kali follows the band out for the opening ritual, the embodiment of her iconographic image - Durga, Candi, Kali, the Inaccessible, the Fierce, the Black One - naked, a belt of severed limbs around her waist, a garland of skulls around her neck, protruding tongue, yoni lips prominent and shaved. She comes close to us, so close that I feel I should step back, the intimacy feels intrusive, but I can't. And I force my gaze from her body to her face, and with that change of focus the ritual moves suddenly to a different plane; no longer mere representation, no longer just histrionic, in the strength of her face as it moves into and out of this garish and vulgar light, the gels harsh red and yellow, I see the reflection of an experience felt and lived, I see a composed and inner beauty refracted through the sombre sexuality of eye and lip. And I wonder again what impels her and them to this baring of the soul and the body, of what pilgrimage nights like this form the essential waystations. | ||
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Kali [with Erzulie beyond] - The Opening Ritual | |
| "And now the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro.. taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods... For the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the drapery appals.."
"The Masque of the Red Death". | ||
| Kali - The Opening Ritual |  | |
| That there are nights when these women are forced to draw on resources deep within themselves I have no doubt. In this late night gig at Coventry, two miles out along the Foleshill Road, there may be no animosity, but neither is there real empathy nor much attempt to understand. They have supporters here but many more are treating the affair as mere sex show, galvanised only when one girl goes down on another, when fingers touch cunt; some indeed seem too drunk to give it much thought at all, can scarcely avoid subsiding onto the stage or the floor. Kali looks down to offer a snapped rebuke as a hand insolently touches her thigh; Nikki sashays slim and elegant to avoid lascivious fingers as she comes naked, heart-stoppingly defenceless and beautiful, from her half-hidden keyboard enclave to the centre of the stage, her distaste palpable only in the sudden tightening of the muscles behind her mask-like visage; Erzulie can find no woman here to come on stage for Eveline; Julie's exasperation finds by the end of the evening verbal expression - this is, she says, "thank goodness" the last song.. | ||
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| And yet there is cause for celebration even in ignorance and adversity; the women take strength from it, at some level perhaps they welcome it; they've been offering each other a lot of support tonight, much private interaction behind the music in half-heard words, shared smiles, covert glances. Though the barbarians are (always) at the gates, this is proof that civility yet has sway within. And at the heart of this civility lies the music, the communality of the creative act; each time I watch this band my sense is caught by a different aspect of this interplay; tonight as my attention focuses on drums and voice, the more manifest is it how Jo lives in and for the making of this music, her attention never distracted, the intensity of her concentration mesmeric; I'm entranced anew by her lead-in to the libation ritual, an unending, fearsomely exposed, hypnotic, solo incantation on drums, amalgam of chant and march, rhythmic stability under a fluid surface, tension building till the strained air seems to snap in a moment of chilling silence into which Babe intones the words "Whore of Satan", the symbolic crux and poetic heart of the evening. | ||
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Julie | |
| And Julie's presence, vocal and visible, is ever at the heart of what this band is doing. Never more than a few inches from the nearest of her audience yet she maintains her poise, characteristically motionless, remote behind her heavy makeup; though she bares her breasts she preserves her mystery, she remains inaccessible, if she chooses to partake it's on her terms, and it's on the other's body that her sexual pleasure is sought and played out. At one moment her face is composed and radiant, at the next our gaze is captured and held by the wild fury in her limpid eye; and tonight as I watch her face and cannot turn away I feel the momentary clutch of a new and real terror as she screams her silent, relentless incantation into the darkness, summons the dragon from these disparate and inchoate elements that have threatened to submerge her. | ||
| Julie - A moment of repose |  | |
| The evening ends long after midnight with the girls huddled at the back of the stage; they're waiting for the bouncers to clear a path through the crowd back to the dressing rooms. Then suddenly they pass through us in a quick, straggling crocodile, holding hands single-file like a group of school-children in the street, not wanting to speak or be spoken to, to be gawped at, groped or hassled. The crowd thins, I get another whisky, the music through the sound system is almost as loud as when the band were playing. There's a solitary girl dancing alone, a strange, lopsided, graceful movement, in a space of her own towards the back, long-legged, ignoring us all; she's only the second or third girl I've seen in the audience tonight. Chloe is still at the merchandise stand; the DVD by now pretty well into post-production, she's even prettier close up than she used to seem onstage with the camera. Sam is sweeping up the broken glass and the spilt beer beneath our feet. So they, and we, have reached our Ithaca afer all ... | ||
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But then, ten minutes later, most of the band re-appear in the room, heading for the stage to pack up. The tension's gone now, the clouds have lifted, the smiles are relaxed; the sound system plays Essex Girl from Motor Driven Bimbo and a couple of the girls take it up ironically, sing along, wriggle their hips. Dressed demurely enough now - except for Babe, deliciously bra-less in a transparent top - they have time enough and more to stop and chat to those who have hung around.
And suddenly, watching these girls from a distance, warming again to their spontaneous generosity, I remember that there are many different levels to a Rockbitch evening, and that so far I've hardly thought about the sex. But I doubt whether the girls could say the same thing : |
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Kali approaches Luci.. Enigmatic Luci, eyes downcast, her face ever hidden by the cascade of her long black hair. But won't she just stop playing that guitar for a few moments ? | |
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.. and prepares to get even closer.. Ah, yes, the music or the sex? Life presents you with hard choices when you're a Bitch on the road. But I think Luci's chosen wisely .. and I know Kali has. |
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| All the photos on this page were taken during the first three songs at Coventry, with the permission of the band. I have tried not to distort anything. As far as possible, courtesy of Ektachrome, these images show it as it is ... ... except that the real thing is more beautiful. |
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| Copyright: Makaris, January 2002 Corrections, reflections and alternative views would be welcomed by email. |
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| Back to the Home | Page |
| Rockbitch at Bristol, UK | September 2001 |
| Rockbitch at Leamington Spa, UK | October 2001 |
| Rockbitch at Breda, Nederland | October 2001 |
| Rockbitch at Kingston, London, UK | November 2001 |
| Rockbitch return to Bristol, UK | January 2002 |
| The final show at Worcester, UK | July 2002 |
| The Rockbitch Gallery | August 2002 |
| Or just go to the Next | Page |
