Harry ready to cast a spell on Christchurch
Billed as a ‘‘doer of things’’, Harry Giles is a lover of language, words and games.
The Scottish performer, poet and game-maker, in the country over the next week for performances in the lower North Island, Wellington (as part of the New Zealand Festival) and Christchurch, confesses to getting excited by the magic a poetic performance can wield.
‘‘I became interested in performance rather than writing first,’’ Giles says while out for a walk in the wilds of Taranaki.
‘‘It was the way that it could kind of capture an audience – like a spell or ritual.’’
Of course, in New Zealand, Scottish poetry and rituals usually only mean one thing – Robert Burns’ Address to a Haggis. Giles greets this information with a sigh.
‘‘Every country has its national poet who is as much a curse as a blessing and you kind of struggle against them and struggle to escape their shadow, but you can’t help but define yourself a little bit in terms of them.
‘‘But Burns is a little bit less of a tricky thing for me because I’m from Orkney in the north of Scotland and we were colonised by Vikings way back.
‘‘We belonged to Denmark until the 16th century.
‘‘But I think, at this point, Scottish poets have a respect for Burns and also an appreciation for his talent, but at the same time, most of us react very violently against this touristification of Scotland, which was really kind of an invention of the Victorian era. We’re trying to make something more contemporary and relevant to our lives.’’
For Giles, that means making art about protest and protest about art, as well as musing on everything from science-fiction to Scotland’s continuous political limbo and popular Scottish whisky Laphroaig.
Admitting to having visited New Zealand once before ‘‘when I was 18 and stupid’’, the now early30s Giles remembers Wellington fondly and is looking forward to exploring the city this time around.
Speculation has been rife that they may lead to some walking games for NZ Festival goers, although the trouble Giles had in getting here, thanks to a massive snowstorm in the UK, has altered such thinking.
‘‘Yes, it actually took me around 48 hours to get here. So now I’m trying to think of a game you could play in an airport to make the experience of being stuck there slightly less soul-crushing.’’
❚ Harry Giles will perform tonight at St Asaph St’s Space Academy. See dashtickets.co.nz