The Zimbabwean writer Tendai Huchu visited Linz recently and read from his acclaimed book ” The hairdresser of Harare”. We concluded this inspiring encounter with handing over a DVD documentary of Parade which Tendai commented on after viewing it:

Peter,

I’m sorry it has take so long to write you since our encounter in Linz. Thank you so much for you and the missus, for coming to see me at the reading. It was so wonderful and thoughtful of you, especially since it came with a DVD (the Parade Documentary)!

Watching the DVD brings so many strange thoughts in my head. Naturally I had thought I would see a concert and so it was hard for me to grasp the concept of what was happening because it looked so chaotic. It is only when I saw Goddard explain the concept that I think I grasped it better. He explained that he did not care where the artists came from or their origins and the performance was a deconstruction of the parade (a parade being organised, uniform, with militaristic origins).

From this perspective I could see the performance as psychogeography (a fairly popular concept in the UK and one I use in my next novel where a character tries to colour alien landscape with music). In this way you possessed the landscape of Linz and brought the world to it with music and dance, the physical act of movement, motion through space, this to me was more powerful than a static performance in that with a static performance, only people interested in the event attend and are affected by it, but movement allows for a greater diversity of encounters. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience and I hope you have more like it.

Thank you for your wonderful gift and kindness.

Tendai