Sedna and the Selkie
The seal woman’s skin has been stolen, stranding her on a reef of rage and tragedy. Can she find her true home, freeing her voice? Fay Roberts (Other Voices, Allographic, Hammer & Tongue) navigates a modern mythological sea voyage of hiraeth, poetry, music, and storytelling in this haunting solo show. Today, Little Wonder is delighted to present “Sedna”, one part of “The Selkie: A Song of Seven Waters” filled with beauty, betrayal and loss. Dog men, deception and the first time in your life you’ll be scared of hair. Take a listen.
Who is Fay Roberts?
Fay Roberts is a percussive performance poet and classically trained signer. She has been involved with the Cambridge chapter of Hammer & Tongue since 2010, hosting it since January 2012; frequently performs across Central and South-East England; and is part of a Cambridge arts collective calling themselves Pressed Art. She set up Cambridge arts label Allographic in 2011, hosting live events and producing poetry anthologies, pamphlets, and books. She has been the Artistic Director of Spoken Word at The Free Fringe in Edinburgh, and host of critically-acclaimed Fringe show “Other Voices Spoken Word Cabaret”. In 2014, she “won” the Edinburgh Fringe Anti-Slam (where the worst poem and performance with the lowest points wins a terrible prize), as judged by Mark Grist, Rachel McCrum, and Oh Standfast. In 2017, her first solo show, “The Selkie”, was shortlisted as best spoken word show of 2016-17.
What do other people say about her?
“Fay performs her poetry with confidence, passion and an intimate, hypnotic vibe.” – Elaine Ewart, Fenland Poet Laureate 2012-2013
“Fay Roberts… never disappoints and often amazes… She uses words with judgement and economy – a whisper instead of a shout, and always a smile…” – Young Dawkins, Scottish Slam Champion 2011-2012, host/ compere of the BBC Slam at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
“… an artist who can incorporate the funny, the emotive and the surreal into a single set… a valued part of the UK scene.” – Russell Thompson, London Programme Co-ordinator, Apples & Snakes
Little Wonder’s Review of Sedna Alone
I liked it in spite of myself.
You want the truth? When I opened up my copy of audacity to work through Sedna review I groaned. It is 13 minutes long, which for someone with a baby due to wake up at any moment, and who has arbitrarily decided he likes neither performance poetry nor solo spoken word, seems like an eternity. I have hours of sound-editing I need to get finished, like, yesterday. And that was the yesterday before I wrote this. So, with a sigh of regret, I clicked play…
… and suddenly to the piece was ending, and I was filled with questions and regret and sadness and some rather creepy images that are still hanging round in my head. My “Review of Sedna” note paper was completely empty. Sometime after “whatever you consider beautiful to be”, when I’d rolled my eyes and thought “oh dear these are going to be shit jokes” then, well, promptly starting laughing because the follow up jokes were so good, Fay’s shifts in rhythm, pitch, style and just bloody good storytelling had captured me. Some part of me is still in the water, waiting for the fish to come home.
Should it be this funny?
So, is it any good? The short answer is yes. Fay has taken a classic story and made it entirely her own. You’ve never heard a version of Sedna like this and you’ll never hear one again. She has loaded it with contemporary meaning and fit it within her wider story arc. She makes you feel like she’s sitting in the room with you, finding the story together, both in the delightful moments of narrative hesitancy and the genuine expressions of shock as the story twists and turns. The mix of music, her exceptional vocal range, and toying with narrator as character and voice as personality are all magnificent.
You can hear her smiling as she tells the story, which is perhaps surprising given how grim the topic, but she will make you laugh even as the sense of encroaching doom, well, encroaches. Perhaps my only hesitation is that sometimes her desire to please lightens the tone at the expense of her text: that the little vocal embellishments should sometimes be relaxed, her voice allowed to slow and become more clean, to let us better hear the strength of the poetry (because, while you’re being carried away with the storytelling [a very good thing], underneath it is some really fucking good literature.)
That being said, I’m not sure I’m right – Sedna is really fucking dark, and if Fay had opened her range a little more to embrace longer, cleaner sections it might have tipped this over into ‘no, no, no, I don’t like this any more I’m off to re-watch Buffy.’ Perhaps this will be the advantage of owning the book as well – so you can enjoy the words in their purest form. Meanwhile, Fay’s instincts for humour keep the darkness light. But what I do hear is an artist whose confidence grows within the piece, and it makes me hungry for more of her work. Also, I’ll never think about hair in the same way again.
But what about the man pain?
Another regret: husbands and dads don’t come out very well from all of this[i]. Quite often it feels like their actions are just because, well, men are a bit shit, right? But then, this is a fairy tale, and fairy tales are more about breadth of imagination than depth of character – and that the motivations of the antagonists are alien, hostile and bizarre enhances the wonder of the piece. Plus, to be fair, Sedna mostly seems interested in combing her hair – not exactly a dazzling sophisticated motivational structure – so it’s just a wee bit possible I’m being a bit sensitive because I listened to this while watching my little girl sleep and was feeling some heavy Dad empathy[ii].
Besides, for all us man-babies complaining that after centuries of pieces where women are just wives and girlfriends there’s a story that occasionally relegates men to “ignorant hostile villains”, well, whenever we need our feelings of patriarchy reasserted we’ll always have the original trilogy[iii]. And, actually a bit like Star Wars, we have stories like Sedna to ignite our imaginations and fill our minds with pictures. Part of my wonders if dog-husband might have turned out to be a terribly nice chap. Again, it wouldn’t be a fairy story without people making universally terrible choices!
Shut up and listen to the beautiful pictures.
Most importantly of all, I’ll end where I started: Sedna was so good I forgot to take any notes, forgot I was sitting cramped over my laptop, forgot I had a million things to do before the baby woke up, and just listened. This is a wonderful story. Just listen.
I love this as well! Where can I get the rest?
Fay is currently crowfunding to get “The Selkie: A Song of Many Waters” to Edinburgh Fringe and pay for a beautiful book accompanying CD. To help make this happen, please go to http://bit.ly/selkie18 and pick a reward!
[i] Hey, us husbands and dads are fragile, special snowflakes that need lots of care and attention. That’s supposed to be a joke. Given the state of modern politics its more of an exasperated sigh.
[ii] Spoiler Alert: There is no way, no way, no, no fucking way (don’t read any further if you haven’t listened yet) – there is just no fucking way I could ever cut off my daughters fingers. Nope nope nope nope nope. And I’m pretty evil.
[iii] That’s a Star Wars joke, for those of you too cultured for Star Wars jokes. Basically: I felt like the men lacked rational motivation at times, but it’s a fairy tale so that’s ok, and besides, it’s not like we’re lacking in material where only the men get motives!
