At Baan Bardo Stage: Performances curated by Black Turtle
“I was born into it,” Harry Einhorn, aka ‘Black Turtle’, says when asked about his entry into Buddhism.
I thought he meant it in a spiritual way.
“No, no, my parents were practicing Buddists and my Dad managed various Indian musicians; there was always someone hanging around our house in New York growing up.”
We’re perched on a wooden Takht overlooking the Baan Bardo stage at four in the afternoon on the third day of Wonderfruit. On stage, renowned Chang Jing plays her Guzheng, whilst Harry and I chat, soon to be joined by Nepalese Charya Nritya (a traditional Buddhist dance form that has been preserved for centuries by the Newar Buddhists of the Kathmandu Valley) practitioner Punya Sagara, dressed immaculately in traditional dress, accompanied by her “assistant”, “aka my son”. She’s performing the next day, one of the few times she’s performed outside of Nepal. “I’m bringing the whole of the Kathmandu valley with me,” she says.
Harry finishes his cigarette and exclaims, “I’m a theatre kid at heart,” telling me that he studied in Chicago. Black Turtle and Harry’s other artistic and spiritual endeavours have been a part of Wonderfruit for four years, but this is the first time he’s been invited to curate the Dhyana (Buddhist rituals, workshops, performances and meditations) dimensions of an entire stage, for the entirety of the festival.
I suggest that it must be a dream for a “theatre kid” and he looks me in the eyes and excitedly proclaims, “Oh yeah!”
As for how Harry curated the program, which is vast and varied—meditation sessions, multisensory rituals and sacred offerings during the day, then DJs and a heavier program after dark—Punya Sagara steps in and answers, “That comes from a lifetime.” A statement that Harry concurs with. Before politely excusing himself to get ready for the ‘Rave’ later, insisting that Clear Light Rave was something not to be missed, without explicitly saying that he, Harry, would be part of the show.
A few hours later, I was with a mob of friends at the Moonlight dancing to funky house music elsewhere when my wife (and photographer) informed me it was time to return to Baan Bardo. Having spent the last half hour drinking back-to-back Negronis out of my stainless steel waterbottle, I can’t say I was overly looking forward to what I assumed would be some sort of ‘meditation’. Little did I know, I was walking into the best party of the weekend.
Moments later, the bass is shaking the concrete floor of the Baan Bardo stage. The floor is packed with an audience divided by multicoloured string screens cascading down from the roof.
After a fairly light warm-up of a drag queen dressed in black latex dancing to Dead or Alive’s 1985 classic ‘You Spin Me Round’, being spun by a young DJ dressed in a white string vest, Black Turtle enters the stage dressed like an Indonesian Barong on it’s wedding day—all white—encouraging the audience to, “Scream with Me…”
The audience screams, and then the real show starts: a techno-Buddhist nightmare in the best possible way. Prodigy in the Temple, complete with a seven-foot (in heels, naturally) drag queen dressed in a technicoloured, skin-tight body suit that sparkles like fish scales, whipping foot-long braids in all directions.
The bass thumps, the dividers go up, then the party escalates. At some stage, I spot Punya fleeing the scene with her fingers in her ears. I’m guessing she was as unprepared as I was for Clear Light Rave.
The show ebbed and flowed beautifully, shades of Bjork, Dune on acid, angels, demons and everything in between.
Eventually, Black Turtle exclaims on stage, “I am re-born,” and then the party kicks into fifth. The performers all joining the crowd for a good old fashioned dance off.
The last I saw of Harry, he was maskless, shirtless, dressed only in a white, frilly wedding dress, raving like it was 1985.
The next time I spotted him was the next day, prepping for a day of mermaid meditations, vegetable orchestras and a variety of meditations and performances.
Baan Bardo. A worthy, diverse addition to the Wonderfruit stable, and one not to miss next year.
