Gheorghe Zamfir

Today I was at Het Veem theater, talking them through, the future things to be developed. With things I mean that I will perform, next year, reading a filmscript with (wo)men who look like me. The filmscript: Picnic at Hanging Rock. The theme: girls disappearing. A timeless tragedy one may say, thinking about the political worldly stage nowadays. The film plot deals with those days of certain social class superiorities from times way forlorn.

That was then, that was them, today they are gone, today is me bringing them, fictive as they are, back to life, while I am sitting in an office, drawing circles in the air, squinting my eyes, blinded by the sight of the expanding numbers on the bright screen. This production will cost some real cash. There’s no way around it.

Of course there will be a flute playing hommage to the pan flute one hears one time two times too often in Picnic at Hanging Rock. Whoever saw the film, remembers this flute, played by the then über famous Gheorghe Zamfir. I think playing this kind of flute was quite the seventies thing to do. Carefree, sentimental, exotic. Of course it gives everyone now the creeps. I can imagine that pan flute music to man of today is what the voice of Anthony (from Anthony and the Johnsons) wil turn out to be for man of tomorrow, say the culture loving folk of 2050. If earth hasn’t exploded by then. Besides, some people are already creeped out by the sound of the voice of Anthony (from Anthony etc.).

Gheorghe Zamfir is an old man now, born in 1941. He lives in Rumania.

I think that in my performance, if this flute idea will stick for real, I will keep this flute playing person close, stumping him in the stomach very now and then, making him whistle with startling joy.

In eleven months from now it will happen, I will perform on stage with a group of (wo)men who look very much like me. There will be a flute player. His name will not be George that’s for sure.