Last night Herbst Theatre hosted the performance of Neighbor Tones, a collaboration between Chanticleer and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. The title refers to the fact that both groups are based in the Kanbar Performing Arts Center, making them “neighbors.” The evening got off to a rough start with the revelation that all program information would be delivered only to cell phones that processed a QR code. Given the rich approach to written content that I have encountered in past Chanticleer offerings, the idea of providing anything usefully meaningful through a cell phone medium seemed ludicrous; and I was not surprised that, from my vantage point, I could not see any member of the audience following the program with a cell phone.
The fact is that most of the useful content was relatively modest and was not always easy to negotiate even with a PDF file on a desktop screen. This was particularly the case in dealing with following the text in a foreign language while trying to keep track of the English translation at the same time. While I appreciate that a performing arts organization lacks the budget for a Human Factors Department, there was an overall opacity to the program content that even the best performance skills could not overcome.
Mind you, this was not the first time that Chanticleer impeded listeners from following program book content. The first half of the December Christmas program took place in candlelight, making it impossible to identify composers and content for the first six works being performed. That amounted to prioritizing “theatre” over the music; but one could appreciate that, in this particular case, ritual served as the core of the performance. Last night could have provided a rich introduction to a diversity of a cappella compositions; but, as each piece ran its course, there was little sign of either music or words registering with much impact on even the most attentive listener.
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