Budge Like An Egyptian

On Friday night, after Thanksgiving, I went to the Egyptian performance,"Psalms of Ra", at the DeYoung. It was fortunate that I had decided to go that evening, since it was the last performance of the year by the DeYoung's artist in residence, Gregangelo, and the Velocity Circus. I had wanted to go to an earlier performance, but some event (I don't remember which) prohibited such revelry. Despite the attractive cost (free) of the event, I had some hesitation. I had not been to anything with "Circus" in its name since I burned out on the pretentiousness of Cirque du Soleil several years ago.

Like a fanboy at a Dan Brown conspiracy movie, I took my copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Budge's edition) with me. I have been reading it occasionally lest I forget my hieroglyphic writing. The transliteration (as opposed to translation) of Ancient Egyptian is contentious and involves rapid evolution. The net result is that Budge's system of transliteration is quite different from that which I learned last spring at San Francisco State University, which in turn varied slightly from the version I had learned back in 2000.

I ate dinner in the dip between the DeYoung and the California Academy of Sciences where the seals used to live and read my Book of the Dead, although I used the academic pronunciation which I had been taught, as far as I could. I may be an Egypt geek, but even I was not going to lug my Middle Egyptian dictionary to the park with me. After I had supped, I went up to the DeYoung and walked through the exhibit of the artist in residence. This did nothing to alleviate my skepticism, since it was all glitter and illusion - fun but not as thought-provoking as traditional art. Gregangelo appears to enjoy creating portmanteaux, since his exhibit shared that feature with his stage name. At least there wasn't any of the Black Athena nonsense, and my ability to read hieroglyphs did impress my companions in the entrance line.

The performance itself, viewed from the perilously steep seating arrangements of the theater, was a mixed bag. The incorporation of Mongolian hand dancing was inevitable, given the provenance of three of the members of Velocity Circus, but I found it hard to accept until I had thought about it after the performance. Several of the rather short numbers featured the transcription and translation of the Egyptian lyrics of the dance number, but were there presumably for visual sitimulation alone, since I could not read them before the screen changed. I suppose I have been spoiled by the supertitles at the opera One of the later pieces was too flush with neon; overall, however, I enjoyed the performance. My attitude is that I have come to enjoy a show and I will! When it comes to performances with themes of ancient cultures and languages, sometimes you have to be grateful that they exist at all.

But I suppose I'll have to write the Etruscan language mob drama myself.