Theatre Review: Bjork’s Cornucopia Asks For An Environmental Utopia
With an Icelandic, children’s choric singing hymns of unity, harmony, and, ultimately, fantasy, Bjork’s Cornucopia, immediately, sets up a level of childhood magic, which makes sense at is her kid-like dream. Surrounded by fairies that play flute around her and with images of flowers ebbing and flowing to her music, Cornucopia feels like a dreamed manifestation of Bjork’s music. A dream that is playing at The Shed until June 1.
The stage is set like a slab of terra from a different planet, which, again, follows Bjork’s environmental scheme. Though colorful, it looks dry, cracked, and patched; an appearance more of our earth might gain in the future. With a speech by Greta Thunberg as its ends, Bjork show makes a powerful point; we need new ideas. We must stop revamping the old or using classic ideas as if the past has not led our present to its doomed future. Although I am terrified to say it, Climate Change is a real threat to the human species, and, for Bjork, Earth will live but our race will not. This truth made Bjork’s music feel like a magical capsule of what love was to humanity.
Ugh, I cannot believe that one, possibly soon day, the human species will be a past tense, if such a frame exists anymore because, technically, time is a human construct. With this in mind, Bjork sang her song like a glam, retro Ice Queen. She did not seem like Bjork as much as a mystical character singing to the desire to give herself to another but the dreams that got away. Such a dynamic drove Climate Change discussion as a necessity that always gets steam-rolled by man’s powerful desires. It is as if there are those who do not care about a future they will not see as much as they do not care about a people they do not look upon. For some, there is no point at looking at imaginations and ideas when they are grounded by money.
If there is one thing that you walk away from Bjork’s Cornucopia, it is that she is frustrated with the world’s lack of vision and she, herself, is a creative genius. This residency feels like Celine Dion got together with Cirque Du Soleil to do their own, avant-garde version of Disney’s Fantasia. It is art and activism beautifully bridged to bring hope. Click Here To Buy Tickets.
