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TRIBUTE PAID TO JAN FAIRLEY Theatre drector Toby Gough shares his memories of The List’s world-music expert Jan Fairley, who has died aged 63
Jan Fairley was an amazing woman: an exceptional writer, broadcaster, academic, festival director, champion and defender of human rights, maker of pilgrimages, loving mother, grandmother, and devoted to her hens. She was the preeminent ethno-musicologist and music journalist responsible for introducing the music of Latin America and the Hispanic world to new listeners and readers, and was an expert in the music of Spain, Chile, Venezuela, and Cuba. Jan was also very proud of being the fi rst female Latin DJ in Scotland. Above all she loved to dance and sing. She championed causes,
standing up on Anthony Gormley’s plinth in Trafalgar Square, dressed in a home-made cape, like a superhero, to speak out for those who had politically ‘disappeared’ in Chile. She kept in touch with forgotten people who the rest of the world had abandoned. I watched her family grow up
over the years, as Jan would come down to watch the promenade productions in the Royal Botanic Garden, with Rachel, Tom and Fran traipsing through the undergrowth, her smile and infectious enthusiasm beaming through the rain. Jan was very proud of performing in two of the productions – and she was always unforgettably, madly brilliant. Jan loved Cuba with a rare passion, and Cuba dearly loved her. I watched the musicians of the Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Ruben Gonzales, and Juan de Marcos respond to Jan as if she was a long lost sister. Recently on tour, with the Buena Vista show, I phoned and asked Jan what song they should play for her. And she replied, ‘Nothing sad: something funny, sexy, full of life. . . Manicero!’
She told me she had a fear of
meeting St Peter at the Pearly Gates. She would ask, ‘Can you put
me in the part of heaven with the Cubans musicians, Ibrahim and Company?’ St Peter would look down at his list and say, ‘Jan Fairley, no, you have to be with the journalists and the roadies.’ ‘But St Peter,’ she would say in
return, ‘I am here to sing!’
10 THE LIST 21 Jun–19 Jul 2012
What a score
This July artist Craig Coulthard will create a football pitch deep within the Scottish Borders as part of Forest Pitch, for the Cultural Olympiad
W here did the idea for the project come from? It came from playing football as a child, deep within a German forest near where I lived, and then playing as a teenager at Cathkin Park in Glasgow, where the concrete terraces were filled with trees rather than fans. I was in a plane looking down on the spruce plantations in the Borders and wondered who wanders through the forest tracks and why; why are the trees planted in such rigid formations? It was from this viewpoint that I began to question the ‘nature’ of Scotland’s landscape.
What makes the Borders such an interesting site for this? I liked the idea of a large art work for the Cultural Olympiad being somewhere away from the central belt. The spruce [at The Bowhill Estate] is roughly half-way through its life, which allows time for the site to develop in the way I wanted. Also, it’s near Gala Rig (purportedly Scotland’s oldest racecourse) so there is a real mix of land use and history nearby.
the crowd will have an active role in documenting the games, with film cameras which I’ll be handing out, and secondly, in helping to spread a ‘myth’ of what actually happened on the day of the games. I will also be asking some spectators to ‘keep score’ for us. Once the games are over, the site is to be replanted with trees along the lines of the pitch, so there will only be a trace of its use. What do you hope to achieve as an artist? I hope to create a memorable and inspiring day, and an environment and occasion which enables those present to question certain notions they may have had. In the long-term, I hope to achieve the creation of a site which grows and develops into something beautiful in the depths of what is otherwise a dark and suffocating monoculture.
What do you hope the audience can take away from it? I hope the audience take away memories which will stay with them. I hope they question the environment around them and their understanding of its role, and their own role within a society.
Can you talk a bit about the audience interaction with the project? As in any football match, the spectators contribute to the atmosphere. But some of Forest Pitch takes place on Sat 21 Jul. See forestpitch.org
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