WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.580 Imagine the curtain rises at the Royal Opera 00:00:02.580 --> 00:00:04.820 House in London. Right, the classic setting. 00:00:05.019 --> 00:00:07.099 Exactly. You are sitting in the velvet seats, 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.140 the lights dim, and you are, you know, fully 00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:13.939 primed for an evening of pristine classical ballet. 00:00:14.140 --> 00:00:16.620 You're speaking swans gliding across a moonlit 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:20.559 lake. Yeah, swans, or maybe a tragic princess 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.500 in perfect white tights. Tchaikovsky should be 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:26.559 drifting up from the orchestra pit, but instead... 00:00:26.589 --> 00:00:29.070 The stage lights come up on a high -end cafe. 00:00:29.309 --> 00:00:32.049 Just a cafe. Just a cafe. And the humans sitting 00:00:32.049 --> 00:00:34.649 at the tables are being served by waiters dressed 00:00:34.649 --> 00:00:38.210 entirely as penguins. It is the ultimate visual 00:00:38.210 --> 00:00:40.810 whiplash. It really is. I mean, the audience 00:00:40.810 --> 00:00:43.890 comes in with a very specific, elevated expectation 00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:46.390 of what classical dance is supposed to look like. 00:00:46.490 --> 00:00:48.170 You know, usually something that floats comfortably 00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:50.750 above the messy, grim realities of the world. 00:00:50.750 --> 00:00:53.710 Right. And instead, they're handed this surrealist 00:00:53.710 --> 00:00:56.219 painting that forces them to look directly at 00:00:56.219 --> 00:00:59.219 those exact realities. Welcome to today's deep 00:00:59.219 --> 00:01:01.640 dive. We are taking a shortcut to being well 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:04.939 informed by looking at a truly fascinating, deeply 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:07.819 quirky slice of cultural history. Highly quirky. 00:01:08.090 --> 00:01:10.730 Definitely. We are exploring the source material 00:01:10.730 --> 00:01:13.829 surrounding a 1988 ballet called Still Life at 00:01:13.829 --> 00:01:16.150 the Penguin Cafe. Such a great title. Right. 00:01:16.469 --> 00:01:18.730 And our mission today is to figure out how this 00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:20.849 piece managed to collide the traditional world 00:01:20.849 --> 00:01:24.189 of classical dance, wonderfully eccentric chamber 00:01:24.189 --> 00:01:27.170 music, and urgent environmentalism in a way that 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:30.530 feels honestly incredibly surreal even decades 00:01:30.530 --> 00:01:32.969 later. It remains a remarkable piece of work 00:01:32.969 --> 00:01:35.709 because it defies almost every convention of 00:01:35.709 --> 00:01:38.659 its medium. It took a deeply uncomfortable subject, 00:01:39.980 --> 00:01:43.260 mass extinction, and somehow made it demand to 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:45.340 be taken seriously on one of the world's most 00:01:45.340 --> 00:01:47.560 prestigious stages. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.099 To really understand what we're dealing with, 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:52.859 we need to meet the architects behind this beautiful, 00:01:53.319 --> 00:01:55.159 bizarre creation, because you don't just wake 00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:57.140 up one morning and accidentally put a penguin 00:01:57.140 --> 00:01:59.459 cafe on the stage at Covent Garden. You certainly 00:01:59.459 --> 00:02:02.140 don't. The ballet was conceived by David Bentley. 00:02:02.519 --> 00:02:05.700 In the late 1980s, Bentley was the resident choreographer 00:02:05.700 --> 00:02:07.959 at Covent Garden in England, working with the 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:10.840 Royal Ballet. A huge deal. Oh, massive. And he 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:14.020 had this grand, unusual vision for a piece, but 00:02:14.020 --> 00:02:16.360 a ballet is completely tethered to its score. 00:02:16.569 --> 00:02:18.849 Right, the movement needs a sonic landscape. 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:22.289 Exactly. So Bentley approached a musician named 00:02:22.289 --> 00:02:26.069 Simon Jeffs. And Simon Jeffs is a legendary figure 00:02:26.069 --> 00:02:28.889 in his own right, operating in a completely different 00:02:28.889 --> 00:02:31.189 musical universe than your typical classical 00:02:31.189 --> 00:02:33.409 composer. Yeah, he was the founder of an ensemble 00:02:33.409 --> 00:02:36.509 called the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Ah, so that's 00:02:36.509 --> 00:02:38.289 where the name comes from. Yes, that is actually 00:02:38.289 --> 00:02:40.610 where the ballet gets its name. Still Life at 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:42.750 the Penguin Cafe is derived directly from Jeffs' 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:46.000 group. Billy didn't just want Jeff to write a 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:48.620 few pieces of background music. I wanted more 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:52.180 than that. Much more. He wanted to build an entire 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:55.520 choreographic world around the highly specific 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:58.780 eclectic sound that Jeff had already spent years 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:01.500 creating. That collaboration brings us to the 00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:04.199 actual premise of the ballet. We transition from 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:06.979 the minds of the creators to the stage itself. 00:03:07.300 --> 00:03:09.539 And we really have to dissect how the show opens. 00:03:09.620 --> 00:03:12.259 Because it is intense. It absolutely refuses 00:03:12.259 --> 00:03:14.560 to ease the audience into the experience. There 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.580 is no gentle overture. The ballet begins with 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:20.340 a spoken voiceover. And it's not just any voice, 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.180 it's Jeremy Irons. Think about the sheer gravity 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:26.349 of that choice. You have Jeremy Irons, an actor 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:29.129 known for this incredibly resonant commanding 00:03:29.129 --> 00:03:32.509 delivery, speaking into the dark theater. And 00:03:32.509 --> 00:03:35.169 he isn't introducing a fairy tale. No, he is 00:03:35.169 --> 00:03:37.870 delivering a literal eulogy. Yeah. He delivers 00:03:37.870 --> 00:03:40.469 a monologue describing in stark terms how the 00:03:40.469 --> 00:03:42.750 Great Ock was very recently driven to extinction 00:03:42.750 --> 00:03:45.560 by man. It's heavy. That is your opening tone. 00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:47.699 You came for a night of elegant entertainment, 00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:49.860 and you were immediately hit with the permanent 00:03:49.860 --> 00:03:52.580 death of a species. And that eulogy transitions 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:55.240 instantly into this highly stylized visual setting. 00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:58.520 The lights come up on the cafe. The famous cafe. 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:00.460 Right, you have several human characters, the 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:03.599 patrons, sitting at tables relaxing, and they're 00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:06.360 being attended to by these penguins dressed as 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:09.159 waiters. The setup reminds me of some kind of 00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:11.840 absurd high -end dinner theater. But instead 00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:14.419 of a jazz trio or a cabaret act coming out to 00:04:14.419 --> 00:04:16.899 entertain the diners, the floor show for these 00:04:16.899 --> 00:04:19.759 human patrons is a poignant dancing showcase 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:22.500 of endangered species. It's a brilliant structural 00:04:22.500 --> 00:04:25.029 choice because of the sheer contrast. Yeah, you 00:04:25.029 --> 00:04:28.149 have the sophisticated, relaxed, cafe setting, 00:04:28.670 --> 00:04:31.750 a place of leisure, luxury, and human indulgence. 00:04:32.329 --> 00:04:34.449 And the entertainment provided to them is the 00:04:34.449 --> 00:04:37.370 grim reality of the Great Ox extinction and the 00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:39.769 precarious existence of all these other creatures. 00:04:40.029 --> 00:04:43.089 What's fascinating here is the specific categorization 00:04:43.089 --> 00:04:47.899 of this piece as An eco -critical ballet. Eco 00:04:47.899 --> 00:04:50.300 -critical? Yeah, that term is crucial to understanding 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:52.920 Bitly's vision. By placing this narrative in 00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:55.879 a refined human social setting, you know, a cafe 00:04:55.879 --> 00:04:58.759 where you sit back, relax, and are served, the 00:04:58.759 --> 00:05:00.860 choreography is holding a massive mirror up to 00:05:00.860 --> 00:05:02.560 the audience. Because the people in the theater 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:04.579 seats are doing the exact same thing as the people 00:05:04.579 --> 00:05:07.959 on stage. Precisely. Bitly forces the human audience 00:05:07.959 --> 00:05:10.060 in the theater to watch the human patrons on 00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:12.800 stage. And those patrons are, in turn, literally 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.740 sitting and watching the consequences of their 00:05:14.740 --> 00:05:18.000 own actions performed for them. Wow. That's so 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:20.339 layered. It is. It strips away the comforting 00:05:20.339 --> 00:05:22.360 distance we usually maintain from environmental 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:24.550 destruction. We are turning the very things we 00:05:24.550 --> 00:05:27.209 are destroying into a spectacle for our own amusement. 00:05:27.509 --> 00:05:29.550 It's like we are watching ourselves ignore the 00:05:29.550 --> 00:05:31.490 end of the world while waiting for an espresso 00:05:31.490 --> 00:05:34.129 to arrive. Exactly. Which naturally moves us 00:05:34.129 --> 00:05:36.490 out of the cafe seating and onto the dance floor 00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:38.769 to the performers that these humans are watching. 00:05:39.350 --> 00:05:42.170 The specific endangered species that make up 00:05:42.170 --> 00:05:45.290 the cast of this ballet. And the cast is amazing. 00:05:45.529 --> 00:05:49.009 The sources detail the original 1988 royal ballet 00:05:49.009 --> 00:05:52.220 production. And the cast list is just wonderfully 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:56.199 bizarre. It is a highly specific, eccentric menagerie. 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:59.000 The choreography demands that classical dancers 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:03.060 embody these distinct non -human movements. We 00:06:03.060 --> 00:06:05.000 already mentioned the great awk. Right. Which 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.000 was danced in the original production by Nicola 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.220 Roberts. You can almost picture how a dancer 00:06:09.220 --> 00:06:11.939 would try to capture the tragic, grounded nature 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:14.819 of a flightless bird that no longer exists. Yeah, 00:06:14.939 --> 00:06:17.319 the weight of that. Then the performance shifts 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:19.810 to the Utah Longhorn Ram. brought to life by 00:06:19.810 --> 00:06:22.569 Deborah Bull with Guy Niblett acting as her ram 00:06:22.569 --> 00:06:25.329 partner. Then we have the frantic nervous energy 00:06:25.329 --> 00:06:27.750 of the Texan kangaroo rat. Oh, I love that one. 00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:30.170 Danced by Bruce Sansom. And then the spotlight 00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:33.470 shifts to Humboldt's hognose skunk flea. Danced 00:06:33.470 --> 00:06:35.290 by Fiona Brockway. Wait, hold on. Let's stop 00:06:35.290 --> 00:06:37.129 right there because I really have to push back 00:06:37.129 --> 00:06:40.310 on this concept. We are talking about the prestigious 00:06:40.310 --> 00:06:43.470 Covent Garden, the Royal Ballet, and we have 00:06:43.470 --> 00:06:46.750 a classically trained dancer cast as a skunk 00:06:46.750 --> 00:06:50.370 flea. A skunk flea. I understand a majestic ram 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:53.910 or a tragic bird, but how is an audience supposed 00:06:53.910 --> 00:06:57.430 to process the extinction of an insect, a microscopic 00:06:57.430 --> 00:07:00.170 parasite no less, through the medium of classical 00:07:00.170 --> 00:07:02.990 ballet? It's definitely a choice. Right. We usually 00:07:02.990 --> 00:07:05.490 reserve this art form for sweeping romances, 00:07:05.689 --> 00:07:08.129 not fleas that live on skunks. It seems completely 00:07:08.129 --> 00:07:10.310 absurd on the surface, but that absurdity is 00:07:10.310 --> 00:07:13.829 exactly the point. By elevating a flea, specifically 00:07:13.829 --> 00:07:16.910 Humboldt's hognose skunk flea, to the exact same 00:07:16.910 --> 00:07:19.709 premiere stage as swans and princes, the ballet 00:07:19.709 --> 00:07:22.589 is making a profound ecological argument. An 00:07:22.589 --> 00:07:24.870 argument about what we consider valuable. Yes, 00:07:24.990 --> 00:07:27.329 an argument against aesthetic hierarchy. Yeah. 00:07:27.449 --> 00:07:29.250 Human beings are very good at caring about the 00:07:29.250 --> 00:07:31.910 extinction of majestic, beautiful, or culturally 00:07:31.910 --> 00:07:34.389 significant animals. We like pandas and tigers. 00:07:34.769 --> 00:07:38.250 Exactly. We love the charismatic megafauna. But 00:07:38.250 --> 00:07:41.170 ecosystems do not rely solely on the beautiful 00:07:41.170 --> 00:07:44.829 creatures. They rely entirely on the microscopic, 00:07:45.350 --> 00:07:47.670 the parasitic, the things we might label ugly 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:49.670 or insignificant. That makes a lot of sense. 00:07:49.970 --> 00:07:51.949 Extinction doesn't discriminate based on human 00:07:51.949 --> 00:07:54.970 preferences. Every lost thread, even a flea, 00:07:55.189 --> 00:07:58.110 unravels the larger tapestry. Bentley is forcing 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:00.730 the audience to mourn a parasite with the same 00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:03.089 reverence they would mourn a swan. That actually 00:08:03.089 --> 00:08:05.389 reframes the entire piece for me. The tragedy 00:08:05.389 --> 00:08:07.810 of the flea is the tragedy of the entire ecosystem. 00:08:08.069 --> 00:08:10.430 It's all connected. It is all connected. And 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:12.750 the ballet extends this concept of interconnected 00:08:12.750 --> 00:08:16.089 loss beyond just wildlife. The cabaret continues 00:08:16.089 --> 00:08:18.290 with the Southern Cape Zebra, danced by Philip 00:08:18.290 --> 00:08:20.649 Brumhead. OK. And the Brazilian Woolly Monkey, 00:08:20.990 --> 00:08:23.389 danced by Stephen Jefferies. But interspersed 00:08:23.389 --> 00:08:25.689 with all of these animal performances are the 00:08:25.689 --> 00:08:28.879 rainforest people. Ah, right. danced by Tracy 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:31.180 Brown, Jonathan Cope, and Michelle DiLorenzo. 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:33.519 The inclusion of the rainforest people is the 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:35.879 ultimate synthesis of the ballet's ecocritical 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:40.019 theme. It's a stark necessary reminder that environmental 00:08:40.019 --> 00:08:42.399 destruction doesn't just wipe out flora and fauna. 00:08:42.539 --> 00:08:45.399 It affects humans, too. Exactly. It displaces, 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:48.340 impacts, and ultimately erases human cultures. 00:08:49.139 --> 00:08:51.580 Indigenous populations whose entire existence, 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.899 language, and history are intertwined with those 00:08:54.899 --> 00:08:57.679 ecosystems are pushed to the brink alongside 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.840 the animals. Wow. The ballet treats the erasure 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:03.799 of a human culture with the exact same choreographic 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:06.259 weight as the extinction of a species. Here's 00:09:06.259 --> 00:09:08.440 where it gets really interesting. Because now 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:10.600 we know exactly who is dancing on that stage, 00:09:10.740 --> 00:09:12.679 from the Great Auk to the Rainforest People. 00:09:13.340 --> 00:09:16.080 But to fully grasp the atmosphere of this piece, 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.620 we need to understand the music they are dancing 00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:21.419 to. The music is key. And the highly unusual 00:09:21.419 --> 00:09:23.500 way that music came to exist in the first place. 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:26.740 The musical score is where Simon Jeffs' contribution 00:09:26.740 --> 00:09:29.360 becomes entirely unique. Because the music for 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:31.820 Still Life at the Penguin Cafe wasn't actually 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:33.899 written for a ballet. Which breaks basically 00:09:33.899 --> 00:09:36.019 every rule of classical choreography, right? 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:38.419 Yeah. Usually a choreographer commissions a composer, 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:40.440 they sit in a room together, and they write a 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:43.220 score meticulously tailored to the specific narrative 00:09:43.220 --> 00:09:45.860 beats of the dance. That is the standard practice. 00:09:46.379 --> 00:09:48.679 But in this case, the music was drawn from several 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:51.100 standalone pieces that Jeffs had composed well 00:09:51.100 --> 00:09:53.539 before this ballet was even a concept in David 00:09:53.539 --> 00:09:55.940 Bentley's mind. Oh, really? Yeah, we were talking 00:09:55.940 --> 00:09:58.059 about music and proposed over a six -year period 00:09:58.059 --> 00:10:02.360 from 1981 to 1987. And crucially, most of these 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:04.779 pieces were originally written for very small, 00:10:05.159 --> 00:10:08.039 intimate ensembles. Like, how small? Maybe just 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:10.460 a violin, a cello, a guitar, and a piano playing 00:10:10.460 --> 00:10:13.159 together in a room. I look at Jeff's process 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:16.019 here as a massive feat of musical upcycling. 00:10:16.580 --> 00:10:19.399 He is taking these intimate, whimsical, highly 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.779 acoustic tracks and blowing them up to absolute 00:10:21.779 --> 00:10:23.779 IMAX proportions. Sounds a great way to put it. 00:10:23.860 --> 00:10:26.379 He took these small chamber pieces and orchestrated 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:28.620 them specifically for the scale of a ballet. 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:32.100 So in that 1988 Royal Ballet production, these 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:34.039 little tunes were suddenly being blasted out 00:10:34.039 --> 00:10:36.779 by the full orchestra of the Royal Opera House, 00:10:37.159 --> 00:10:39.659 Covent Garden. conducted by Isaiah Jackson. Right. 00:10:39.820 --> 00:10:42.320 The acoustic scale shifts dramatically, going 00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:44.679 from a handful of instruments to dozens upon 00:10:44.679 --> 00:10:48.139 dozens. But the eccentric, slightly arf -kilter 00:10:48.139 --> 00:10:51.970 heart of Jess's music remains completely intact. 00:10:52.409 --> 00:10:54.850 And you really see that personality shine through 00:10:54.850 --> 00:10:57.590 in the strange original titles of the musical 00:10:57.590 --> 00:10:59.669 pieces that ended up paired with the dancers. 00:11:00.149 --> 00:11:02.250 The pairings are so delightful to look back on. 00:11:02.490 --> 00:11:05.230 For example, Bruce Sansom's Texan kangaroo rat 00:11:05.230 --> 00:11:07.769 dances to a frantic musical piece called Long 00:11:07.769 --> 00:11:09.929 Distance, which actually had the original title 00:11:09.929 --> 00:11:13.269 Horns of a Bull. And returning to our debated 00:11:13.269 --> 00:11:17.259 friend. Humboldt's hognosed skunk flea. The flea! 00:11:17.480 --> 00:11:19.879 That particular dance is set to a musical piece 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:23.580 famously titled, Pythagoras's Trousers. Pythagoras' 00:11:23.779 --> 00:11:25.820 Trousers. It just sounds playful, a little bit 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:27.919 mathematical and slightly jerky, which weirdly 00:11:27.919 --> 00:11:30.240 fixed the frantic, bounding energy you'd imagine 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:33.100 a jumping flea to have on stage. Exactly. Then 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:35.200 you have the Southern Cape Zebra dancing to a 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:37.539 piece called White Mischief, and the Brazilian 00:11:37.539 --> 00:11:39.639 Woolly Monkey segment, which is set to a track 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.279 called Music by Numbers. Though we should ensure 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:44.379 we note from our sources that this specific track 00:11:44.379 --> 00:11:47.059 was co -composed by Jeffrey Richardson. If we 00:11:47.059 --> 00:11:49.480 connect this to the bigger picture, the very 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:52.799 act of how this music was assembled, perfectly 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:55.340 mirrors the core theme of the ballet itself. 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:59.139 How so? Think about what Chefs did. He took older, 00:11:59.659 --> 00:12:03.190 disparate, small scale pieces of music. isolated 00:12:03.190 --> 00:12:05.590 little creations that were floating around independently. 00:12:05.669 --> 00:12:08.750 Yeah. And he orchestrated them together, forcing 00:12:08.750 --> 00:12:11.870 them into one massive unified space for the ballet. 00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:14.309 He gathered them all up. Oh, that is a brilliant 00:12:14.309 --> 00:12:17.009 parallel. He gathered all these isolated musical 00:12:17.009 --> 00:12:19.809 tracks onto one stage, just as the ballet's narrative 00:12:19.809 --> 00:12:22.590 is about gathering all these isolated, vulnerable, 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:25.149 endangered living things and forcing them to 00:12:25.149 --> 00:12:27.970 share one space. Confronting their shared precariousness. 00:12:28.110 --> 00:12:29.830 The structure of the music is the structure of 00:12:29.830 --> 00:12:32.509 the story. It really is. The idea of gathering 00:12:32.509 --> 00:12:35.470 everything into one unified space leads us directly 00:12:35.470 --> 00:12:38.830 to the climax of the ballet's storyline. We've 00:12:38.830 --> 00:12:40.950 gone through this entire cabaret of extinction, 00:12:41.409 --> 00:12:43.669 watching the patrons sip their drinks, and we 00:12:43.669 --> 00:12:46.029 arrive at the conclusion. Which is set to a musical 00:12:46.029 --> 00:12:49.549 piece quite starkly titled Numbers 1 to 4. The 00:12:49.549 --> 00:12:53.409 conclusion is a sudden, massive downpour. A deluge 00:12:53.409 --> 00:12:56.330 hits the stage. And all of these characters we've 00:12:56.330 --> 00:12:59.080 just met. the animals, the rainforest people, 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:02.299 they have to withstand this torrential rain by 00:13:02.299 --> 00:13:04.639 gathering together on an ark -like boat. It's 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:06.919 a very striking visual. I really want to pause 00:13:06.919 --> 00:13:09.139 here and ask you, the listener, to chew on this 00:13:09.139 --> 00:13:11.559 imagery for a second. Think about the symbol 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:15.200 of an ark in our culture. Usually an ark symbolizes 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:18.820 hope, right? Yeah, salvation. Exactly, it's salvation. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:21.279 It's a promise of a new beginning after the storm 00:13:21.279 --> 00:13:24.539 washes the old world away. But when you look 00:13:24.539 --> 00:13:27.340 at it in the context of this ballet, is it actually 00:13:27.340 --> 00:13:29.840 a tragic symbol? That's the question. Is this 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:32.159 crowded little boat an admission that the world 00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:35.019 as we know it has already drowned? Is this ark 00:13:35.019 --> 00:13:37.559 just a floating tomb for the final remnants of 00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.879 a failed planet? It's a haunting ambiguity that 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:43.720 Bentley leaves the audience with. Yes, the animals 00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:46.080 and the people survive the immediate downpour 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:48.389 by getting on the boat. but they are displaced 00:13:48.389 --> 00:13:50.769 forever. They can't go back. No, they can never 00:13:50.769 --> 00:13:52.710 go back to the cafe or the forest or the plains. 00:13:53.110 --> 00:13:55.809 They're essentially refugees of a changing planet, 00:13:56.049 --> 00:13:58.710 adrift on a stage. So what does this all mean? 00:13:59.129 --> 00:14:02.669 We have this beautiful, strange, bleak and somehow 00:14:02.669 --> 00:14:06.549 hopeful ballet from 1988. What is its lasting 00:14:06.549 --> 00:14:09.409 legacy and how do we even interact with it today? 00:14:09.690 --> 00:14:12.149 Because it's a live performance. Right. The inherent 00:14:12.149 --> 00:14:15.429 tragedy of a ballet is that it's live art. Once 00:14:15.429 --> 00:14:17.809 the curtain drops and the dancers go home, the 00:14:17.809 --> 00:14:20.350 art is gone. That fleeting nature is usually 00:14:20.350 --> 00:14:23.690 the reality of dance, but still life at the Penguin 00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:26.629 Cafe has a surprisingly diverse and robust history 00:14:26.629 --> 00:14:28.669 of physical media preservation that has kept 00:14:28.669 --> 00:14:31.620 it alive. It wasn't just left in the 80s to be 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:33.580 forgotten. It lived on. It actually premiered 00:14:33.580 --> 00:14:35.960 in the United States a few years later in 1991, 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:38.360 continuing to spread its message. But the way 00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:40.980 we captured that original 1988 performance is 00:14:40.980 --> 00:14:43.080 a fascinating journey through the evolution of 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:45.580 technology. Thames Television actually filmed 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:48.559 the ballet that very year, cementing it on tape. 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:50.960 And from there, the ballet essentially rode the 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.019 wave of changing home media formats. It was commercially 00:14:54.019 --> 00:14:56.519 released on laserdisc in 1991 by a label called 00:14:56.519 --> 00:14:59.320 Linden Deka. The legendary laserdisc. You cannot 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:02.220 get more early 90s audiovisual prestige than 00:15:02.220 --> 00:15:05.100 a massive heavy laserdisc. It was the premium 00:15:05.100 --> 00:15:08.740 format of its day. And then, as technology shifted, 00:15:09.299 --> 00:15:12.159 it received a VHS tape release by Polygram Records 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:15.299 in 1992. Naturally. Eventually, it made the leap 00:15:15.299 --> 00:15:17.860 into the digital age with a DVD published by 00:15:17.860 --> 00:15:21.399 Arthouse in 2008. What is fantastic for preservationists 00:15:21.399 --> 00:15:23.659 is that both the original laserdisc and that 00:15:23.659 --> 00:15:26.919 later DVD release contain a 50 -minute documentary 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:29.919 focused entirely on the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:32.419 So the context, the eccentric musicians who built 00:15:32.419 --> 00:15:34.970 the sonic landscape. survives right alongside 00:15:34.970 --> 00:15:37.049 the choreography. And speaking of the music, 00:15:37.169 --> 00:15:39.669 the score didn't just stay attached to the video 00:15:39.669 --> 00:15:41.690 footage. None at all. The music for the ballet 00:15:41.690 --> 00:15:43.990 was released as a standalone album under Simon 00:15:43.990 --> 00:15:46.700 Jeffs' name. And what makes that specific album 00:15:46.700 --> 00:15:48.799 release so special is that it didn't just include 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:51.840 the ballet score. It also included an 18 -minute 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:54.720 suite called Four Pieces for Orchestra. It's 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:56.799 incredible how much life these compositions took 00:15:56.799 --> 00:15:59.019 on. What was actually in that 18 -minute suite? 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.639 It was comprised of lush, orchestral recordings 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:05.240 of earlier Penguin Cafe orchestra tracks. Pieces 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:07.899 with wonderful titles like Perpetua Mobile, Southern 00:16:07.899 --> 00:16:11.360 Jukebox Music, Oscar Tango, and Music for a Found 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.490 Harmonium. Oh, I've heard that last one. Yeah, 00:16:13.570 --> 00:16:16.610 it's quite famous. That CD was released by Polygram 00:16:16.610 --> 00:16:20.330 Records in 1991 and it featured the BBC Concert 00:16:20.330 --> 00:16:23.970 Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. Even 00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:26.570 though the physical CD is out of print now, the 00:16:26.570 --> 00:16:28.950 music remains available as a digital download 00:16:28.950 --> 00:16:31.549 today. And for the people who don't just want 00:16:31.549 --> 00:16:34.110 to listen but want to physically recreate the 00:16:34.110 --> 00:16:36.669 art themselves, the music was preserved on paper. 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:40.820 In 2002, Peter's edition LTD in London published 00:16:40.820 --> 00:16:42.899 the sheet music featuring arrangements for the 00:16:42.899 --> 00:16:45.779 piano done by Henry Roche. This raises an important 00:16:45.779 --> 00:16:48.500 question. When we look at this massive list of 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:52.019 media, we are tracking how incredibly meticulous 00:16:52.019 --> 00:16:54.220 human beings can be when it comes to preserving 00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:56.389 art. Oh, definitely. We have transferred this 00:16:56.389 --> 00:16:59.330 ballet from a live stage performance, to a television 00:16:59.330 --> 00:17:02.750 broadcast, to a laser disc, to a VHS tape, to 00:17:02.750 --> 00:17:06.349 a DVD, to a CD, to a digital download, and all 00:17:06.349 --> 00:17:08.269 the way to publish piano sheet music. We've covered 00:17:08.269 --> 00:17:10.569 all the bases. We have fought tooth and nail, 00:17:10.789 --> 00:17:12.910 utilizing every technological advancement we 00:17:12.910 --> 00:17:15.289 have to ensure that our representation of the 00:17:15.289 --> 00:17:17.970 great awk and the kangaroo rat survives the passage 00:17:17.970 --> 00:17:20.349 of time. We will move heaven and earth to save 00:17:20.349 --> 00:17:22.849 the DVD of the skunk flea, but we won't save 00:17:22.849 --> 00:17:25.549 the forest the actual flea lives in. It is the 00:17:25.549 --> 00:17:28.250 ultimate glaring paradox of human culture that 00:17:28.250 --> 00:17:31.450 this ballet exposes. We are perfectly capable 00:17:31.450 --> 00:17:34.569 of revering the memory of nature, sometimes fiercely 00:17:34.569 --> 00:17:37.009 protecting the art about it, while remaining 00:17:37.009 --> 00:17:39.990 entirely apathetic to nature itself. That is 00:17:39.990 --> 00:17:42.710 a heavy, entirely necessary realization. It brings 00:17:42.710 --> 00:17:44.630 the whole eco -critical mirror right back to 00:17:44.630 --> 00:17:47.910 us today. As we wrap up this journey, we have 00:17:47.910 --> 00:17:50.890 traveled from the resonant Shakespearean eulogy 00:17:50.890 --> 00:17:54.609 of Jeremy Irons, mourning a flightless bird stepped 00:17:54.609 --> 00:17:58.069 into a surreal high society cafe staffed by penguin 00:17:58.069 --> 00:18:00.309 waiters, watched a skunk flea perform classical 00:18:00.309 --> 00:18:03.329 dance, exactly, and finally weathered a torrential 00:18:03.329 --> 00:18:06.069 downpour to crowd onto a survival arc. It stands 00:18:06.069 --> 00:18:08.690 as a profound testament to how boundary pushing 00:18:08.690 --> 00:18:11.680 David Bentley and Simon Jeffies truly were. They 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:13.440 didn't just make a ballet to entertain an elite 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:15.720 crowd for a few hours. No, they didn't. They 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.440 constructed an ecological warning disguised as 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:20.559 high society entertainment. And I want to connect 00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:22.900 this directly back to you, the listener. It is 00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:26.029 so easy to consume art. passively, to think of 00:18:26.029 --> 00:18:27.970 it just as a reflection of reality, something 00:18:27.970 --> 00:18:30.630 pretty to look at or a nice melody to listen 00:18:30.630 --> 00:18:33.109 to while you go about your day. Right. But still 00:18:33.109 --> 00:18:35.670 life at the Penguin Cafe reminds us that sometimes 00:18:35.670 --> 00:18:39.630 art is a vibrant, bizarre, and absolutely necessary 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:42.769 alarm bell ringing in the dark. It uses beauty, 00:18:43.390 --> 00:18:45.730 absurdity, and humor to make us look at our own 00:18:45.730 --> 00:18:48.690 capacity for destruction. which leaves us with 00:18:48.690 --> 00:18:50.369 a final thought to mull over as you go about 00:18:50.369 --> 00:18:52.890 the rest of your day. We discussed how the ballet 00:18:52.890 --> 00:18:55.609 begins with the already extinct Great Auk and 00:18:55.609 --> 00:18:57.950 ends with the remaining vulnerable animals huddled 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:00.509 together on an ark in a massive storm. Yeah. 00:19:01.009 --> 00:19:03.690 If David Bitley and Simon Jeffers were choreographing 00:19:03.690 --> 00:19:07.250 this exact ballet today, decades after its 1988 00:19:07.250 --> 00:19:10.769 premiere, which new animals, or perhaps which 00:19:10.769 --> 00:19:12.930 human cultures, would be waiting in line to board 00:19:12.930 --> 00:19:15.779 that boat? Next time you are sitting in a cafe, 00:19:16.119 --> 00:19:17.980 sipping your coffee and scrolling on your phone, 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.660 take a look around the room, and matter the waiters 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.759 serving you are penguins. And ask yourself what 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:26.160 consequences we are comfortably watching perform 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:28.599 right in front of us. Thanks for joining us on 00:19:28.599 --> 00:19:30.539 today's Deep Dive. We'll catch you next time.