Background

Over the past year, Peter Gabriel has been working with a team of people to create The Millennium Show, the central attraction at the heart of the Millennium Dome in Greenwich. This year has seen intense activity and determination to bring the show to life and marry the technology and many varied skills of the creators and performers.

The show combines specially developed and created show equipment: rocketing bungee stilts and sail diver rigs that enable amazing feats of skill and daring, designed to thrill and amaze the audience. Every few hours, a crowd of up to 12,000 people will gather in the central arena, a vast entertainment space the size of Trafalgar Square at the heart of the dome, one of the largest undercover performance spaces in the world.

As they gather for the 20 minute preshow, they will be entertained by performers moving amongst the audience inside incredible contraptions, while the crew move the equipment into place, in readiness for the show to begin. What follows is a 28 minute live aerial and acrobatic spectacle that involves 61 performers at any one time, utilising the full 50 metres of the dome's interior height. The show has been conceived for the dome by Mark Fisher and Peter Gabriel.

Impressive Structures

A unique feature of the Millennium show is the impressive architectural structures that dominate the space, becoming vehicles for the characters and the story. Three moving lightweight aerial mobiles will enable performers to inhabit the air and establish a link between the earth and the sky. As the human drama unfolds the narrative is communicated through the cast's physical movements and dramatised by Peter Gabriel's powerful music, specially composed for the show.

The story, designs, costumes and music for the show have delved deep for their references - from the past, the present and the future. Fisher and Gabriel have created a timeless piece of visual storytelling, a contemporary fable.

The Music

As well as drawing on many references within our own folk traditions, the music also draws on the cultural origins of the many peoples that now comprise contemporary British culture. It layers Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Australian and European elements against a mostly contemporary British backdrop. From 12th century hurdy gurdy to didgeridoo, from the pulsing rhythms of the Dhol Foundation and the nostalgic brass of the Black Dyke Band, from Arab laments over drum and bass to meditative moments with string section - the soundtrack is a really eclectic mix. It is also a story of forbidden love.

"I have really enjoyed working with the singers, all of whom have added a lot to the music. Elizabeth Fraser, Paul Buchanan, Alison Goldfrapp, Iarla O Lionaird and Richie Havens are some of my long time favorite voices and I was delighted that they were willing to take a part. Their performances covered a real range of emotions that brought the OVO family to life."

Music Makers

Richard Chappell and Richard Evans talking about the show two weeks prior to it's first public viewing. Originally published in Real World Notes #9.

"When we started off eighteen months ago, the original plan was to work on Peter's record and to do the Millennium music at the same time. Initially the work was split between Richard Evans and me - Richard was going to do the Millennium stuff and I was going to carry on working on the album. The projects had been crossing over for months. But we found that, from a concentration point of view, it became easier to just work on the Millennium stuff together. That was about a year ago, in November '98.

We were spending a lot of time auditioning different music - stuff that we'd worked on that hadn't been used, songs from the archive, work in progress, that sort of thing. It was paramount for Peter and Mark Fisher to write the story for the show and they spent a lot of time in meetings figuring it out. The first piece we finalised, which came together in March, became the last piece in the show. We sort of worked in reverse order. From there on in, we've been working on fitting in music around the story."

Something Different

"We knew we were dealing with three acts, each act representing a different time in history and evolution. We auditioned the music for each act, and by a process of arbitration and elimination, distilled the choices down. Mark supplied us with a 3-D animation of the show and we used that like a rough-cut, to work to. Then we started matching our chosen pieces to the show, working with Micha, the artistic director. He was running bar charts and putting timings and cues in place for the performance; at that point it was a bit like working on a film score.

What have I been doing? Ask my counsellor! Seriously. My role has been mainly co-ordination and programming and working on the music for Act 2, the industrial score. Richard Evans has been working on Acts 1 and 3 mainly, and doing a lot of playing. (You might want to speak to his counsellor too.) No, it's been interesting to be involved in something really different; it's a live-action show, nothing like working on a record."

Massive Production

"I think it would have been easier if we'd actually had the studio set up in the Dome, working more directly with the choreographer and the performers. When Peter was working on the 'Last Temptation' soundtrack with Martin Scorcese, he had the studio set up in New York in the suite where Marti was editing the film, so the whole thing was pretty organic, and very immediate. The problem with the Dome is that it's a big, cold, noisy tent, with people welding and banging all day long, on the side of the Thames, five hours away. There is an absolutely massive production team there; you feel a bit lost. But it wasn't until we finally got to the Dome and started working there with the performers that I actually understood what we've been doing. Suddenly, it turned into a show.

Now we're on the last leg, getting the final performances and putting things into shape for the mixing. That's Dave Bottrill's job, bless his cotton socks."

Deadlines Approach

"It's two weeks now until the first live performance. At this moment we're in the ultimate stages of the music for the show, waiting for the lyrics and getting ready to record the final vocal performances. They're not all confirmed yet, but I think that Iarla O Lionaird will sing one of the main parts, with Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins and lately, Massive Attack), and we're hoping to get Ray Charles as well.

There are some good songs; one very long piece that Simon Emmerson has done some production work on sounds a bit Afro-Celtish, interjected with a Gabriel song. There's a piece called 'Father and Son' which makes every bloke we've played it to cry - that's just piano and vocal at the moment, but we're going to record it with the Black Dyke Brass Band. There's a song which is currently called '64' (it's song number 64 of 120 we've been working on) which is the favourite for a single. Song '18' is finished; it came out of one of the pieces that didn't get completed for the US album, called 'Feed the Flame'. It's got Tony's bass and Manu's drums and I think that Iarla will be singing it for the finale of the show."

High Expectations

"My role has been a bit vague - I turned up eighteen months ago for a three-month gig and I'm still here. I've spent most of that time generating options, parts and random directions. And playing - it's been fun; it's given me a lot of freedom and opportunities to play guitar, bass, flute, mandolin, whistle, bits of keyboards, that sort of thing.

There have been technical problems, due to the ambitiousness of the project. Allegedly, the Dome is an advert for British innovation and achievement, so everybody involved has been pushing the boat out technically. And as usual, cutting edge technology has a tendency to break down; luckily that's something that we've got used to, working with Peter."

Music Makers

"Now we're making final musical decisions before we send it all to the Dome, where Dave Bottrill will mix it on the Sony desk there. It's a pretty complex acoustic, big long reverb, but by luck (or acoustic design), more like a concert hall than a car park.

It's been pretty scary; this is complex and high profile and the knives are out. Being British, everyone is looking for reasons that this should fail. And it's been difficult working in that atmosphere. I think we might just pull it off."

N.B. Richard Evans would like to disclaim all knowledge of counsellors.

The Story

The show tells the story of three stages of our evolution, through the lives of three generations of a family. It is the story of a family in transition, divided by internal conflict and by the great changes going on around them. It is also a story of forbidden love.

A father who loves the earth and everything that grows from it finds a way to work with nature, even though he only knows one way - his way. The mother, who sits at her loom and sees the future emerging in the patterns she weaves, is unable to reconcile her feuding family and eventually turns against her own son.

The son, with a passion for machines, starts a revolution, which was designed to liberate his people, but ends up enslaving them. And the daughter, whose quiet and enchanted childhood ends when she falls in love with one of the mysterious skypeople, an outsider, eventually defies both her father and brother for the Skyboy's love. The Skyboy turns from romeo to rebel, as he watches his people being excluded and oppressed. Their baby, OVO, born in the time of the flood, is sent in a floating nest that sails the sky, into an uncertain future.

Ovo Quotes

"There have been immense challenges connected to creating such an emotional and powerful show, both in the round and largely in daylight - so the story is told in the style of a very large piece of physical street theatre - it's a really high energy experience - everybody is pushing at the boundaries of what has been done before. That's exciting."

"How do you turn virtual reality into real reality - take it off the page and find a language for the performers; that's been the challenge. Although we're working in a huge space, nobody is so far away that they won't be able to see the expressions on the performers faces. The emotional content is clearly read and understood through the language of movement and electrifying physical performance."

"Mark and I were asked to do something that reflects a bit of the past, the present and the future, so we thought we would do this in 3 acts. In Act 1, nature is the focus and it is set in agricultural, prehistoric times. Then in Act 2, there is the industrialised period and finally Act 3 moves into the future and integrates nature and technology. With the music, I'm doing something that I've never done before - both looking back towards a whole range of folk references and then looking forward to the future, bringing in industrial elements, so from my perspective I'm pushing into areas I haven't explored, which I'm really enjoying."