Does anyone remember the Commonwealth Institute towards Hammersmith on Kensington High Street and looming at the back of Holland Park? Does anyone remember the Commonwealth? Since the building closed its doors in 2002 it has been the home only mould and the ghosts of Melbury Road. As part of the InTRANSIT festival (4th year), dancers and musicians lead on audience through its spaces culminating in a dance performance (choreographer Dane Hurst) in the old auditorium to Harrison Birtwistle's Orpheus Elegies (only until Sunday). What newcomers to the building (and to such site-specific performance) is of course hard to tell. But for those of us who lived through a former decade of arts funding cuts, who survived another world only to be thrust into an equally dubious one currently, the experience at last night's preview was very strange and haunting. And it made one think of just how important are actual buildings in relation to the virtual world most people now inhabit.

As much as many would like everything in our daily lives to be controlled 'online' the Common Sounds: touching the void performances (presented by Fruit for the Apocalypse) are a reminder of our inner being. Of how we control ourselves in relation to others - many of the building's passage ways are very dimly lit and while safety precautions are adhered to, the show also seems to be asking us to be aware and take control of our own bodies; that political correctness and control in whatever form does not necessarily makes us happy. That we must find the light in the prevailing darkness. In the windmills of those of us who still have a mind to call our own.
Refreshing change from the hypocrisy of Westminster politics that's for sure...and the Metropolitan Rotton Apple Corps...