It's up to us to offer Octavia E. Butler's sower fertile ground in the @hollandfestival

First of all, the chairs have to leave the auditorium of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Then some discomfort, those two hours that Octavia E. Butler's The Parable of The Sower lasts. At least it would make for some shared sorrow, and possibly some awkward swinging. Because the way things were going, that first night of Toshi Reagon's debut at the Holland Festival, you wouldn't wish that on anyone.

She came up, and saw a hall as colourful as a thrifty baker's currant bread. A hall full of people who came for a concert, and possibly a modern oratorio. People you'd expect at the most prestigious festival in the Netherlands, interspersed with a few lost people of colour, some hipsters, and a school class. Then when your name is Toshi Reagon and you had actually just thought of a cosy sing-along-storytelling evening, it's hard work. For both.

Open canvas

This audience is not going to clap along, and applauding in between songs of the lightly-composed piece is called an 'open curtain' in this world, and it is only handed out on rare occasions. Moreover, if a large part of the repertoire consists of variants on spirituals praising God, of course you won't get the unbelieving audience to sing either. Then people still think: yes, but let's talk about that first. God is not in our system.

Which, of course, is quite a shame when you perform a piece deeply rooted in black American history like this. Because Octavia E. Butler's Parable Of The Sower could be quite fine in this musical, colourful version, if the venue were different. When the audience could more easily overcome the dignified diffidence of diving into a world of dystopian make-believe with the singers. Thus, the story of a not-so-distant future (2024), in which drug crime is destroying youth, the climate has turned against humanity and a president promises to make America Great again, after which a young prophetess leads a small group of the damned to liberation, would go down better.

Soul

Perhaps that story was too little fiction now, with Trump in power and children's camps on the border with Mexico. Unthinkable in 1993, now reality, and so Butler's science fiction now came across as almost naive. That doesn't help either. Courtesy of Trump.

Perhaps this also made it more noticeable that the music does very often have the slow rhythms we know best from the legendary Solomon Burke, with whom Toshi Reagon also shares the outward appearance. Like that greatness of soul, she sits on a chair because gravity would otherwise get too much hold on her, and like Burke, she is assisted by high priests and a very fine band.

Sure: the singers are less skilled than our conservatoire students and the acting comes across as amateurish. But that is not the purpose of this performance either. Here, two worlds sat opposite each other being very diverse, without any real unity.

Disapproving looks

I thought that was a pity, because I would have liked to have silently swayed and clapped along without the neat lady next to me looking disapprovingly my way all the time, and without the hipsters in front of me undershooting the whole thing, or the people behind me noisily leaving the venue. So my personal circumstances at the venue may have played a part. Indeed, others reported that they had found themselves in a colourfully swirling swinging mass. Which, in turn, I missed.

Back on the train to Utrecht, at the Arena, the train filled up with fans of Beyoncé (and Jay Z). A swirling and thoroughly colourful crowd. All in friendly calm. Though it was not a cosy mixed gathering. No one spoke to anyone other than their own little club. As soon as the train started moving, everyone bent over their mobile phones to check their self-made images and share them with supporters. Far away.

Tonight (21 June 2018), audiences at Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower have the chance to be fertile ground for the seed of optimism that Toshi Reagon is sowing. I'd love to hear how it was.