Neoskosmos.com.au
The following article was borrowed from
http://www.neoskosmos.com.au/051003/nkew/feature/
feature_index.shtml
Diamanda in the rough
"Every time something happens to the Greeks it's really trivialised and
I'm really sick of it and I get very brutal, I get very violent about
it"
Diamanda Galas back in town to ruffle some complacent musical ears.
'One of the most
confrontational performers to ever take the stage' (The Independent,
UK), Diamanda Galas, is returning to Australia. She recently spoke to
Argyris Argyropoulos.
Years ago while chatting with friends at a back yard bbq someone
mentioned the name Diamanda Galas. I admitted I'd never heard it but was
informed she was an extraordinary American vocalist and musician, and
after a small pause, 'awesome' was thrown in followed by 'icon' - just
for good measure.
'I must have stumbled on the Galas fan club,' I thought, but did indulge
in some of my own research only to discover my friends had actually
undersold Galas.
World press reviews were unanimous: Galas was 'phenomenal,' 'unique' and
'gripping,' the 'Maria Callas of our generation' and 'The bride of
Satan!' The bride of Satan?
A month ago, I was offered the opportunity to have a long-distance chat
with Diamanda Galas who is performing two shows during the Melbourne
International Arts Festival that begins this week. Because I wasn't all
that familiar with her music, I felt more comfortable and more
interested in learning who this woman was. After a brief introduction, I
admitted to Diamanda that I was feeling a little bit daunted.
"Relax," she said and burst into a sort of self-mocking laughter that
echoed over the long distance line.
"I'm delighted to come back to Australia - was here a few years back at
the Opera House and I'm delighted to talk to you - especially since I
was told you're of a Greek background."
Galas herself has a diversity that extends beyond nationality. She sings
in English, French, Spanish, Greek and Italian. She sings blues,
boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, rebetika (amongst an array of screeches and
screams) - rather, versions of these that she's turned into her own with
her inimitable style and virtuosity.
Born in San Diego her Greek parents seem to have a puzzling background
drawn from a scattered Greek world. I've heard Armenian, Syrian,
Egyptian.
"You know why people say Armenian Greek for my parents' background?
Cause I said 'Anatolian' Greek. Nobody knows what Anatolia is or where
it is! They say 'Anatolia?' well that must be Armenia and I say nooo...
Trebizond, and Smyrna is not that far away and there were many Greeks
there especially near the Black Sea!"
We both agree that geography was never really a strong point for
Americans.
"Well, oh my God, they are so appalling and we usually see the worst of
them when they do Greek tragedy...When they decide that they know what I
am it's just absurd! But I also have to say that some of my father's
family are from Alexandria like Cavafy - it's like all Greeks we have a
very rich background."
Galas as an international vocalist, composer, and performer was first
seen in Europe at the Festival d'Avignon in 1979. Since then her work
has focused on a range of topics and she's taken on a personal concern
for many causes: AIDS (of which her artist brother Philip Dimitri Galas
succumbed to in 1986), to isolation, political imprisonment, alternative
morality and historical issues. It seems that to a certain extent her 'Greekness'
has played a role in these manifestations. She has increased awareness
and given causes weight - even such ones as genocide, like the Pontian/Armenian/Greek
chapters she refers to in her work.
"My Greek background has been extremely important in my career," she
says.
"It's raised understanding levels with my audience making Greeks 'seen.'
As a matter of fact, 'invisibility' is a big issue for Greeks especially
in the USA (maybe not so much in Australia). It's ridiculous because
people do not know 'what' Greeks are. Maria Farantouri once went into a
city store in Santa Barbara and she was thrown out and they said to her
'we don't want you in this store, we don't want any Palestinians here!'
She said 'do you know what is a Greek?' She had a laugh telling me this
story and I said it's probably because a lot of us look very similar."
The connection Greeks have to the Middle East has, after all, a strong
historical context. It's a point Diamanda acknowledges as being a major
factor for the Greek government deciding to abstain from new Middle
Eastern adventures and not siding with the coalition of the 'willing' in
the Iraq wars.
"You know, when I was in Greece they were saying 'we don't want to go to
Iraq,' and why should they want to go to Iraq? In fact our music, our
culture, our background has very much in common with the Middle East and
Iraqi people - certainly a lot more in common than it has with Anglo
Saxon culture! It's funny how people consider it miraculous that Greece
was not attacked during the Olympics, but Greeks had no intention of
going into Iraq! It's amazing to me because Americans have no concept of
the fraternity Greeks have with the Middle East. They don't understand
it, they think Greeks sell souvlaki and all this shit; they think there
are three ethnic groups in America - Black, White or Hispanic."
Galas would be the first to agree that public perceptions were immensely
difficult to alter. Greek cultural stereotypes still linger in the
States ('Big Fat Greek Wedding' comes to mind) and the general public is
often reluctant to venture outside its comfort zone. The problem
sometimes is trying to discover alternatives, which is a major
preoccupation of Diamanda's personal and stage character.
"I think the film [Big Fat Greek Wedding] was very funny and I laughed
but I felt it's not Vardalos's fault that Greeks are perceived in a
certain way. It's the fact that nobody wants to take the time to think
about any other 'way,' apart from the funny comedic approach.
"For example look at the horrible thing that happened in Cyprus recently
[Helios airline disaster]. Newspapers here said 'Greek tragedy,' and you
know that's really cruel because it's like everything is 'Greek to me.'
If you look at the Italian equivalent they'll say 'It's Turkish to me' -
which is one very good reason to like the Italians!" She laughs loudly.
"Every time something happens to the Greeks it's really trivialised and
I'm really sick of it and I get very brutal, I get very violent about
it."
So do political perceptions in America change with each local or
worldwide tragedy? Has American song and music adapted to these changes?
"Definitely. It has now! There are some of us that are completely sick
of it and we do not want to be invisible and we're not having it and
we're not people that get written about by such publications as
'Odyssey' [a glossy English language magazine for Diaspora Greeks
focusing mainly on America] the 'touristiko' magazine, the 'oxtapodi
fisherman f... magazine.' It's so sickening! Which reminds me of what I
went through when they asked me to do the Olympics - and then asked me
not to. I went all the way over there I told them I wanted to do
'Defixiones' ['Defixiones: Orders From The Dead' is a work inspired by
the events of the Armenian, Assyrian, Anatolian and Pontic Greek
genocides that occurred between 1914 and 1923], and they said 'You know
we're afraid of the Turkish reaction to your work,' and I said 'Oh for
Christ's sake you ask me to come all this way on a stinking Olympic
Airways flight that smells like a f... goat barn..."
I couldn't help but laugh at this point while Diamanda continued
launching a tirade of other epithets:
"You know when I was in Greece I could swear like a f... truck driver -
no body gives a f... over there... I love that about the Greeks! And
then you come to America and everybody says 'please try to keep it down
we're trying to run a restaurant...Why don't you go and f... yourself!
"You know Americans have a very narrow view of the world but people are
becoming less accepting of what they are being fed. There are, of
course, still the 'red states' as they are known here. These are people
who don't understand anything at all about the cultures they are trying
to obliterate. For starters they don't even understand the language!
Here you have all these CIA and FBI agents who can't speak or understand
a word of Arabic and still they believe they know it all. They know
nothing about Greece and yet what really pissed me off especially before
the Olympics was how they arrested all these professors and gardeners,
or whatever they were, and declared that November 17 had been busted to
clear the way and make it safe for the Americans... Many Greeks are
saying we're not interested in your policies or being separated from
people we have much in common with... we were raised with Arabs,
Syrians, Armenians and all these people and we are not now going to be
castrated by America."
Diamanda obviously had an interesting view of indigenous Greeks which
swayed from the glowing to the contemptuous during our brief talk. But
in America she is seen as an 'outsider' amongst the Greek community.
Galas never related well to the more conventional realm of traditional
Greek values and was soon ostracised by organised Greek communities.
"Well it's like this. These guys go to Greek Orthodox church and sit
there with their big stomachs and they don't give a damn about anything
but their banking jobs. They hate women and they hate homosexuals and
all marginalised groups and I'd really want to say to these people
wherever they exist that you people are really f... koutamares because
the people that have been the biggest organisers for anything that was
of major - of mortal import, were the gay communities in the United
States; and for people to say to gay men 'you can't be Greek you're just
a fag,' that's really stupid. Those people organised gigantic medical
efforts for the gay community in this country and have saved thousands
of lives. These apparent Christians are exclusive of others and
discriminating and I find them repulsive. I really don't like them and
they don't like me and that's fine!"
Maybe this is endemic of migrant societies, I muse.
"Well, probably, but it's so stupid. You know the 'rebetes?' These
people tell the truth. When they sing amanedes, we're talking about
something completely different that comes from a very ancient sense of
paganism and 'man as god' and 'man as aspiring to godliness.' And then
you have these morons creating this artificial concept of good and evil
and it's a very recent one and it has nothing to do with our culture and
I find it incredible that they buy it like they're nice Catholics or
something."
This woman can bend steel with her words and voice. Miss her and you'll
be damned!
Diamanda Galas is appearing on October 7 and 10 at Hamer Hall,
Melbourne; October 13: Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane; October 16:
Adelaide Town Hall, Adelaide and October 21: State Theatre, Sydney.
