During the festival, clusters of Kurono clones wearing pale blue dresses, black wigs and glasses will intercept iconic sites throughout Melbourne, climaxing in an imploding mass of dance, abstraction, poise and presence. - from a press release for a FRINGE eventWhat does that MEAN??
Clusters. Fine. Not too terrible a choice. Obviously it could easily be replaced by groups, but I won't chastise them for trying to be a little more creative with their synonyms. Clusters seems to try and legitimise the whole thing by using a term most commonly used in science and mathematics. Sometimes I get the feeling the perverted language they use does this a lot, that maybe they're trying their damnedest to convince themselves they aren't useless members of society. Same can be said of the word clones, used instead of impersonators or costumes or some other more appropriate word.
Intercept. Intercept iconic sites? Surely they mean gather or congregate at? How exactly does one intercept an unmoving site? Intercept means to move into the path of something, to cut it off from its intended destination. Maybe Federation Square is going to be transforming into a tan-tile-o-bot and go for Government House, and these Kurono clones will intercept and engage it in a vicious cock fight to take it down? Or, maybe someone's trying to inject more excitement into the proceedings than there actually will be...
Climaxing. People in cos-play congregating around Flinders Street Station results in the sexual, frenzied or very highest point of the event? Usually it results in a great deal of business people weaving around rather dispirited looking emos and goths sitting on the steps. Usually it's just annoying. Will the dancers be writhing around on the ticket machines perhaps?
Imploding. Mass. Why didn't they just use exploding? Imploding means completely the wrong thing here. It's so clearly an attempt to sound smarter, more pretentious. That's the root essence of this stupid fine arts language. It's as if they wrote the sentence in normal English, then flicked open a thesaurus and grabbed the third suggestion for each adjective or verb. You can't have an imploding mass of dance, abstraction, poise and presence. How does that work? Implode means to burst inwards. Will all the dance moves be focussed predominantly on thrusting towards the centre of a circle? If mass implodes, it sucks itself in. A mass of dance? That's an odd collective noun. Unless they mean it religiously, in which case, I see a Japanese bishop holding a communion that blows up and makes the church fall in on itself. An imploding mass of poise? Poise is equilibrium or dignified balance. For it to implode negates the meaning altogether. Presence? An imploding mass of presence - presence is such a passive noun, I can't wrap my head around how it would implode. Seriously people. Think before you type. Keep it simple. Say what you mean, not what you think makes you sound more intelligent. You just come off foolish.
Hire someone who knows how to use words, and you stick to choreography and having anime characters blow you backstage.
*note: any mistakes I made were on purpose and for sardonic irony, of course!
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