The Living Record Festival was an eclectic mix of content available earlier this year which was interesting and intriguing, and I would say something for everyone in the offer. Some of those pieces like the excellent Finney’s Ghost are still available on the Living Record Productions website and later in May, they will be hosting content for the Brighton Fringe Festival. It is a lucky dip with a wide range of topics, production styles and performers. My latest dip into the offer was Adam Kammerling’s twenty-two-minute piece called Seder. He is promoted as a poet and artist examining intergenerational trauma and celebrating the rituals we make for connection. It asks how history connects us, and considers, through the annual Jewish custom of the Seder, how all of us can celebrate our survival.
I knew nothing about the Jewish Passover ritual feast marking the first and often second night of the Passover, which began on 27th March this year in which families gather around the table to retell stories of liberation of Israelites from slavery in Egypt as told in Exodus. Kommerling uses the event and the table setting in his home as the springboard for a series of short poems and recollections accompanied by Antosh Wojeck on the drums and Bellatrix on strings and vocals which are used to underscore his words or provide strange musical interludes.
