Nude Edinburgh show ‘spectacular’

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 22

Nude Edinburgh show ‘spectacular’

NZPA staff correspondent London A “spectacular” nude performance by a Christchurch music lecturer, John Cousins, drew wide interest even though it was held in the middle of the night at , the Edinburgh Festival Mr Cousins, earlier branded the festival’s "first genuine piss artist” in one controversial newspaper article, performed in front of a number of radio, television and newspaper representatives, as well as about 100 onlookers. The Canterbury University lecturer was naked and urinated during the 6%-hour show, which started at 10 p.m. on Sunday and ended at 4.30 a.m. on Monday. Named Membrane, the show was inspired by dripping water heard in a New Zealand canyon, and Mr Cousins’ urine dropped on to rubber membranes which

made a sound like a drum. Mr Wystan Curnow, curator of the New Zealand exhibition, said that there was a “tremendous atmosphere.” The show went without a problem in spite of earlier worries that publicity would attract too many curious passers-by and spoil the “tone” of Mr Cousins’ performance. Mr Curnow said that it “worked beautifully” and “visually was very spectacular.” He said that the “authority of the work” established the mood, and the floodlighting of Edinburgh Castle — fully framed by a studio window — enhanced the act Fog came up in the middle of the night to add to the effect in the tall, narrow room where Mr Cousins performed. “It was a very meditative piece; people even snoozed off in the middle of it,” Mr

Curnow said. An article in the London “Guardian” a week earlier by its arts correspondent, Nicholas de Jongh, included the “piss artist” description of Mr Cousins and sparked a controversy at the festival Mr Curnow said on Friday that onlookers would be escorted by attendants and the doors closed if numbers were too large. He was also ecstatic about another New Zealand performance early this week. The experimental percussion music group, From Scratch, was getting a “very enthusiastic response,” he said. Audiences were not big, said Mr Curnow, but they were critical audiences and the three-man Auckland group of Wayne Laird, Philip Dadson, and Don McGlashan was receiving tentative offers of more festival work in Britain and Europe.