Get Up And Jive

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Wic Boyle, A QUEEN WITH SUBSTANCE: John Kelly plumbs the politics underlying Joni Mitchell’s music, Gay City News, March 18, 2004

When we approached 44-year-old John Kelly, the multi-talented musical artist, for an interview, he was shocked.


“Well, the gay press hasn’t paid much attention to me,” he responded. “Earlier on––in the 80s––they paid more attention, when I was doing drag on a bar, but considering the way that gay culture has gone, my work doesn’t really answer to what they are looking for. The gay press of my generation is basically dead. There is this big gaping hole in my gay generation. The culture now is more about what’s happening to those in their 20s and 30s.”


But, Kelly, who launched a month-long weekend gig at Fez on March 5 featuring his stylings of the songs of Joni Mitchell, was happy to chat about the reprise of his performance as the grand dame of women’s folk music. Twice before––in 1997’s Paved Paradise and in 2001’s Shiny Hot Nights––Kelly appeared as Mitchell to wide critical and audience acclaim.


“Sometimes I feel as if my work is considered not out enough, not in-your-face gay man monologues,” he said. “And when my work happens to be drag, it’s not the type of drag that is easily embraced. It’s more complicated; it’s role-playing and performance art, it’s not predictable. It moves people and I think it is very political.”


In fact, it’s a bit jarring to see a drag performer not playing a fabulous diva, but rather an earthy, folk mama know for her poetry, sly wit, and vocal eclecticism. And if you wonder where the politics are in a Joni Mitchell review that includes songs recorded over a 35-year career, head downstairs at the Time Café and find out for yourself.


John Kelly is a performance artist, an actor who has graced theaters from LaMama to Broadway.  Kelly grew up in Jersey City but two decades ago took the downtown art world by storm by dint of his virtuoso performances in music, dance, and theater––not to mention his stunning paintings, an avocation Mitchell shared.


Isn’t that enough to know? Oh no, honey.  Throughout his career, Kelly has always been a consummate and classy drag queen, even in his early days at what was then the “it” bar––The Anvil.  Now, his drag is tinged with politics, because that’s what he sees everywhere.”


“I am a substance queen so I like to clobber people with things,” Kelly conceded.  “This show is really political, because Joni Mitchell’s work began in the era of the Vietnam War and got increasingly political as she got older.  And this piece is a combination of her and me, of her time and the times we are experiencing now.  So the war songs are about the past and now.   It’s a character I am playing.  It is an acting role, but I am present too.  Her music has gotten more and more political has she has gotten older and I sing Slouching Toward Bethlehem,  The Fiddle and the Drum–– it’s not a Chelsea Morning kinda’ concert.  But we do perform many different songs so everyone gets a taste”


The more Kelly talks about the politics in Mitchell’s music, the more he steps forward to talk about his own politics.


“Where my head is at right now is that I am frustrated and angry and I am saying fuck it,” he said in an interview this week.  “I say whatever I want to say, but I do it within the character.  I say it within the confines of being Joni Mitchell.”


Neither Jon Kelly nor Joni Mitchell is on stage as a solo diva––the two are accompanied on keyboard by the wonderful Ezecca Esquibel, who worked with George Osterman and was in the 80s band Get Wet.  Esquibel is in drag as Georgia O’Keefe.  The conceit is not random––it is based on the relationship that the master painter developed late in her life with a pop icon with a love of watercolors.


“O’Keefe and Mitchell––they knew each other, they were friends, and much of the banter that Ezecca and I do is inspired from actual tapes of Mitchell concerts or interviews,” Kelly said.  “It helps for both of us to play off one and other.  It keeps us in character.”


In looking at the long arc of Mitchell’s career, Kelly samples not only her most recognizable folk standards, but also her later, ambitious, even experimental work, that drew heavily on jazz influences.


“I am doing this show on my terms, I am trying to clobber people with the unexpected,” he said. “But I want to do it on terms where I engage, not alienate people ”


Kelly’s focus on Mitchell’s repertoire and its political meaning is but one part of the broad canvas of his career.  He trained at the famed American Ballet and also danced with the Harkness Ballet. He followed that training with a degree in painting from Parsons School of Design.  This fall he will be in residence at Harvard teaching painting and working in a studio in Cambridge.


Kelly is not one that will ever be predictable.  He insists that he aims to use all the arts and all of his skills to communicate.


“Performance art, it’s spectacle, it’s communication, it’s engagement,” he said.  “Many people don’t know what to make of it, especially in our pigeon holing culture.”


But Kelly seems to know very well what to do.  Through the vehicles of John Kelly and Company and the Dagmar Collective, his non-profit organization, he pursues a wide variety of grants and funding to expand the horizons of his work.


For now, Kelly is focusing on Joni Mitchell, and after that a film project with John Turturro.  When all that’s done he plans to spend some time with his boyfriend, who acts with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  But even as he looks forward to some time off, he took a moment for yet another admonishment for his audience.


“We the public are being manipulated and we are allowing it to happen,” Kelly said, in reference to the political climate today.  “Now we are reaping the rewards of moving toward fear.  Fear could get Bush elected again.  People have to vote––wake up and vote.  OK, that’s all.”


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Jed Ryan, The Performance Artist Talks About His New Show, His Past Body Of Work, And The State Of Gay Culture, March 2004


    WIth a background in visual art and dance--and training in voice, trapeze, tite-rope, and mime as well--John Kelly has become identified with some of the most unique and highly praised multi-disciplinary theater works brought to the New York City stage in the past two decades.  He's created (directing, choreographing, and performing in) over 20 theater pieces since 1984, starting with "Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte", a portrait of artist Egon Schiele.  During that time he's garnered multiple awards, including two Bessie (New York Dance and Performance) Awards and two Obie (Off Brodway) Awards.  He's made three appearances at Carnegie Hall.  According to Jonathan Wald in "American Theater" magazine, a common theme in Kelly's works has been "the role of loss and creativity in artists' lives".  His works are presented in an often unconventional, highly stylized ways: For example, "Akin" (1992) was a piece set during the Middle Ages which drew parallels between the Black Plague and the modern AIDS crisis.  Most of his works have eschewed spoken word for a mixture of dance, music, film, and visuals--occasionally including film.   For "Light Shall Lift Them" (1993), he portrayed French filmmaker Jean Cocteau as well as one of the real-life characters who influenced Cocteau, an American cross-dressing performer named Barbette.  For that show, he re-enacted one of Barbette's famous routines on a trapeze.   His work has frequently been called "different to categorize" and "challenging " for the audience, to which he responds, "I don't like to explain EVERYTHING to the audience.  I like the audience to do a little bit of the work.  At the same time, it's all about communication and I do want to reach my audiences.   It's a juggling game sometimes between wanting to be clear and at the same time not wanting to be mundane--to find a poetic way to describe situations and tell stories."  He's also appeared on Broadway in 1999 in a musical adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead.

    John Kelly will appear at Fez for the entire month of March with a new show, in which he portrays one of folk and pop music's most revered icons, singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell.  His first portrayal of Joni was in 1984, when he performed at Wigstock. For his tributes, he sings in his own voice, and elevates the show to more than simply imitation.   He allows the audience to re-discover her music and her legacy in new ways, and lovingly puts the singer into historical perspective-- while infusing the show with humor.  His two previous tributes to Joni Mitchell, Paved Paradise in 1996 and Shiny Hot Nights in 2001, played in various cities throughout the country and were incredibly successful, even receiving accolades from none other than Joni Mitchell herself, who came to see one of Kelly's shows at Fez in 1997 and was very pleased.   John Kelly has said in prior interviews, "Dressing up like Joni Mitchell is my only brush with pop culture."  The inimitable performer and artist spoke about his new Joni Mitchell show, his past body of work, and the current state of gay culture.

JR: What's the name of the new show?

JK: It's called Get Up and Jive, and it's taken from the Joni song All I Want, from the Blue album: "Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive;  I want to wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive."  I was trying to find a title that had an "up" feeling about it that would appeal to the audience who needs to be entertained.

JR: Get Up and Jive is actually your third tribute to Joni Mitchell's life and music, right?

JK: Exactly.  Each time I do it I give it a new name, and I really do try to have 80% of the material be songs that I haven't done before.  Some people may think that it's the same show, but it's actually not.  Also, there's a book of the show, which is words that I speak in between the songs.   I try to find new anecdotes, and most of them come from stories that Joni has told.  I find them on live recordings of her concerts and stuff-- because Joni does tend to talk a lot in her concerts.  And then, there are my own little stories and improvisations.   But generally, I try to keep it within her world.

JR: So, what can the audience who's seen Paved Paradise and Shiny Hot Nights expect that's different in Get Up and Jive?

JK: A new frock!  (Laughs) And some new songs:  All I Want, which I just mentioned; and Morning Morgantown, which is an early song from the Ladies of the Canyon album; For Free, which is also from Ladies of the Canyon; Borderline, which is a political song from Turbulent Indigo, her 1994 album; Refuge of the Roads, which is from Hejira, which is about being on the road and the freedom that comes with that; and Harry's House from the album The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which is kind of her talking about suburbia and the kind of bogus marriages that occur all the time between men and women.

JR: So, it sounds like you've taken not only some of her classics, but also some of her material from when her albums became a little more political and experimental.

JK: Exactly.  She got really quite political.  So what I try to do is, I try to have a cross between songs that people really recognize like Circle Game and Woodstock--which I sing as Wigstock--to the more esoteric songs.  I try to balance.   I don't want to just do all her hits because that's...well, boring!  Not really "boring", but I like to turn people on to her music, and I do: both baby boomers who kind of stopped listening to her after Court & Spark, and young kids who come up to me and say "Oh my God, what amazing music...I'm going to go out and buy her albums now!"  So, I told Joni that I should get a cut! (Laughs)

JR:  Your Joni Mitchell shows have been the most commercially successful, but your past body of work is very vast and very diverse.  In 1993 The New York Times reviewed your performance piece Light Shall Lift Them, and that same article also profiled your long career.   Do you see a different audience for your Joni Mitchell shows versus your older, more original shows?

JK: Yeah, I get a lot of people who know me just from the Joni shows, and they don't even know that I do this other work, which is kind of frustrating.  And then I get people who obviously know the other work, either by just having read about it in The Times or having seen it.   But generally, the audience that comes to see the Joni show is beyond the performance art audience.  It's the cabaret audience, it's the drag audience, the baby boomers, the rock 'n' roll kids; it's really a huge cross section of both age and aesthetics. So that's kind of great.   It would be nice to have those people experience my other work as well-- but, you know, that's cool.

JR: Have any of the show's attendees told you that they've become more of a Joni fan since they've seen the show, or that they've learned something about her from the show that they didn't know before?

JK: Oh, yeah.  Absolutely.  All the time.  People go out of their way to tell me that, which is great.  It makes my job more fun because I know I'm reaching people and turning them on to all this other music that they didn't really know about.   So yeah, that's a really great part of it.

JR: Joni Mitchell's music is definitely timeless.  If you listen to a song like Both Sides Now, it sounds just as good now as it did back when it was originally heard.

JK: Well, she's a great songwriter.  I think that in time--I mean, she is acknowledged NOW--but in time, I think that more and more people will really acknowledge her mastery both as a poet and a musician, and the way she kind of is able to give voice to her feelings and her urges and her experiences.   It's really quite an astonishing body of work.  I see them as being art songs.  As good, if not better than, a lot of the classical songs that are being written now.  Judy Collins made Both Sides Now into a really huge hit--and also, Joni wrote that song when she was 20!  Which is kind of amazing, because there's such wisdom in that song. It's such an objective take on life experience-- love and all that stuff.  That's pretty wild for a 20-year old to have such an objective take on all that.

JR: In your past shows, you've resurrected some famous people in history--like performer Barbette and the artists Egon Schiele and Jean Cocteau.  Is there another personality that you would like to pay tribute to in a performance--like, someone who needs their story told or who had a fascinating life?

JK: That I WOULD like to?

JR: Yes.

JK: I've been toying with the idea of doing a piece about Caravaggio, the Renaissance painter.  He had such a strange, turbulent life.  He was gay, he was accused of having murdered somebody...he just seemed to attract trouble, and at the same time he was this revolutionary painter who didn't idealize everything--but rather, he really painted the grit in people's fingernails and all that.   His life experience he poured directly into his work.  So he was quite unique and revolutionary for the 1500's.  He died fairly young. So, dramatically, it's a pretty amazing story.  And that period, of course, was so beautiful.  But more than anything, it's the idea of kind of feeling an affinity with somebody over the centuries or whatever.  People really haven't changed that much.  That's the only character I have possibly waiting in the wings at this point.  I'm kind of on a bit of a hiatus right now; I'm a little burnt out on performing!   So I don't know.  I may do a really minimal solo piece with kind of a text narration on tape, and that text being either from an existing text about a character or a person--but with a way for me to choreographically illustrate the words that are being spoken.  So that's what my next piece may look like.  But I don't know what the subject matter is yet.

JR: Does that mean that you would want to have less dialogue?

JK: Well, the thing is that I don't use very much dialogue in my work--at all.  You know, in my performance art pieces, it's non-verbal storytelling--'cause I was trained as a dancer and a visual artist.  So it's basically choreography.  I love telling stories, but speech isn't really my first choice of options.   If I was able to kinetically, physically illustrate a story that was being told literally that same moment, THAT appeals to me right now.  I've generally stayed away from words, even though words are really useful in theater for giving information and for kind of unifying a piece.   So now I'm gravitating more towards words, and I'm not sure why.  It's like the last option for me; I've done everything else!

JR: And that was something that The New York Times commented about.  In The Paradise Project in 2002, you used more words than you've ever used before.

JK: Exactly.  I think partially because I'd been at Sundance where there were all these playwrights. I was the "playwright" making this piece but usually my pieces, as I've said, don't have many words.  So, I wound up assuming that stance and really writing a script for the first time.   And it was ironic because it was a piece about a mime.

JR: Someone who normally wouldn't use many words! (Laughs) You've said that one of your earliest performances was at The Pyramid Club and you did a drag show as Maria Callas.  I imagine that would have be considered a bold choice back then, and even today.   How did the audience react?

JK: They loved it.  It was at 3 o'clock in the morning at The Pyramid Club, and here's a guy lip-synching opera.  It kind of worked in 1984 because it wasn't expected.  In drag you would normally expect, you know... Cher or Donna Summer.  And it was quirky, and strange... and I looked really pretty!   It had a lot of things going for it, but it was also pretty visceral.  When I was young in the early '80's, it was a pretty raw time, and I really felt that.  That really did infiltrate my work-- that kind of edgy Reagan era at the beginning of AIDS.   It was a difficult yet amazing time.

JR: You mentioned that it was kind of an epiphany of sorts for you at the time.

JK: What, hearing Callas' voice for the first time?

JR: No, IMITATING her for the first time!

JK: Yeah, exactly.  Because I had quit performing and I was just trying to be a painter.  I think I had taken LSD one night and I was lip-synching in the mirror, and I mesmerized myself.

JR: The New York Times has been pretty supportive of your work.  Has the mainstream media ever approached you about a specific part or a project that you'd be perfect for?

JK: You mean, suggested something to me?

JR: Yes... like, a producer, perhaps?

JK: No.  Producers seem to stay away from me 'cause my work is too difficult to sell to their audiences.  You know, it's between dance and theater and visual art, and it seems to get more and more difficult for producers to take chances.  It's not a good time culturally.   So the only thing that's really been approached by producers has been the Joni Mitchell show.  As successful as I've been in my work, I never really fit into an existing category.  They aren't really strictly dance, and they aren't really "plays" per se.   So in a way, my uniqueness worked for me in that it put me on the map; but it worked against me in that people had a hard time grappling with it and figuring out ways of presenting it to audiences.  I fault THEM for that; actually, I don't fault them, but it's nice when people take chances.

JR: Is there an older show of yours that you would like to revive-- one that you feel would work if you brought it back?

JK: It's funny, because the piece that I just did at The Joyce Theater...

JR: The Skin I'm In?

JK: Yes, The Skin I'm In.  That was a bit of a retrospective of my work.  I had a trapeze accident a year and a half ago.  I broke my neck--fractured two vertebrae in my neck--during a training session, and that really got me thinking, 'Do I want to keep doing this same type of work for the next ten years or whatever?'   'cause, financially it just does not work.   As successful as I am, financially it's a bust.  You work really hard, and in the end you're lucky if you break even.  Also, I've done a lot of the things I wanted to do in terms of performing.   I still want to sing and make music, but I started off life as a visual artist, so I've been painting recently.  I picked up the paintbrush again.  I like that because it's tangible.  I don't have to be attached to it; I can send it out to the world.

JR: You've also been on Broadway...

JK: Yeah, I did the actor thing too.   With that, I have mixed feelings. People keep telling me I should get an agent, and get more film work.  I did a bunch of films in the early '90's-- mostly European films--but I didn't really ever study acting, so I'm a little bit insecure about that whole mechanism even though I know I can do it.   Also, I've grown slightly tired of performing.  Maybe I just need a break from it!

JR: So then, what do you do for fun?

JK: For fun?  Gee, that's a hard question. (Chuckles) Well, now I have a new boyfriend, so that's fun!  Also, I do movies, museums.  When I travel, I go to museums in different cities and stuff, which is great.  But in New York, it's so hard to...relax!   And I've been in New York my whole life-- I grew up across the river.  Jersey City, specifically.  So I'm really a bit burned out on New York at the moment.  I like being OUT of New York right now!

JR: When you're in New York, is there a favorite place that you like hang out?

JK: Not anymore.  If I go out it all, it's to a place like Phoenix in the East Village.  I live in Chelsea now, but I lived in the East Village for about 16 years, and I moved out about four years ago.  The East Village had changed a lot, but the whole City's changed a lot.   It's gotten expensive and it's difficult for artists to be there--or for ANYONE to be there--and it's just gotten really hardcore.  It's lost a lot of it's wonderful bohemian quality and mystery.  It is what it is.  It's nice to get off that treadmill of New York every once in a while!   But it's hard when you're there, 'cause the energy just permeates every part of your life, unless you have a huge loft or a house in the country to get away on weekends; I find it hard to really relax in New York.  I'm trying to have a bit more of an "average" life just so that I can savor my life more.   The trapeze accident got me really...I mean, I came really close to being a cripple.  I'm really lucky.  And, I hadn't had a relationship in a few years, so that feels good.  I'm trying to slow down life a little bit, and appreciate it more.   That's what I'm doing right now.

JR: In the past, you've made some shrewd comments about the state of gay culture.  Where do we stand now?

JK: Oh God!  Well, one of the big problems is that there's a whole generation-- my generation-- that's not here.  They died of AIDS.  So there's a big gaping hole in the culture.  Men in their 40's and 50's or whatever, if they'd been around now, they would be the sages and, in a way, the guiding light.   They would be appealing to Madison Avenue and advertising because they would probably have a good amount of expendable income.  But what's happened is that in their absence, guys in their 30's are the thing being pandered to by advertisers, and it's exacerbated by the youth culture generally.   The gay culture doesn't really speak to me now.  It feels a little--I don't want to use the word "shallow"--but rather... predictable.  Maybe I 'm just wired for a deeper penetration, so to speak, or a darker sensibility or a broader sensibilty...I don't know.   But I have a hard time with certain aspects of gay culture right now.  There used to be things like a magazine called Christopher Street which was a literary magazine, and a lot more stuff like that in the '70's into the '80's.  I guess it's impossible for those types of publications and things to stay alive.   Also, everything seems to be about pandering to an audience to make money.  A lot of great art doesn't get done.  A lot of great ENTERTAINMENT may get done, but a lot of great profound art doesn't get done.  Angels in America is a great piece of work, and the film is amazing.   Mike Nichols did a great job.  So every once in a while, something amazing will come along.  Take, for example, the Will and Grace thing. It's a very good show, and we've made a lot of strides in terms of the culture.  But at the same time, I guess the work that penetrates the culture has to be appealing to that "entertainment sensibility".   So, it has to be predictable...

JR: Some would say "dumbed down".

JK: Exactly.  I mean, I love Queer Eye For the Straight Guy.  I think that's great, I think that's amazing.  And when you think about it, since Stonewall, there have been major strides happening.  At the same time, there have been major catastrophes like AIDS.   We're still on the list of things to make fun of and hate.  It's politically correct to make homophobic slurs and gay jokes on TV or whatever.  It's still accepted.  That indicates the fact that we still have a long way to go even though we've made major strides.

JR: I know that it's very difficult to get people to try new things or to appreciate more abstract works of art.  But in a way it, almost makes something of a legendary quality about your work.  When I was reading about some of your earlier performance art works, I was like, "Oh, now THAT'S something I'd really like to have seen."   You also have a book (a 2001 autobiography, John Kelly) which was highly praised.

JK: The book was wonderful.  It's nice to have a tangible item that will live on.  With performance, all you have left is photographs, videotapes, memory, and myth.

JR: Would your work translate to film?

JK: Well, actually, my work is highly visual, and I think it would translate really well into film or videotape versions of it.  It's just that...that never really happened.  I have documentation of all the work on video, and it's generally pretty good--but I've never had somebody say "Let's produce a video or film version of this for PBS."   I never quite made it into that echelon.  But what I'm going to do is take my video documentation and kind of fuss with it on final cut pro and really bring it up to snuff as much as I can, with titles and still images, and cutting out dark sections and really just trying to make it as viewable as possible.   'Cause that's my legacy.  A lot of it is up at The Library of the Performing Arts in the Dance section.   That's what left of my work--these videotapes.  And that's the glory of performance: It's ephemeral in nature.  That's also it's downside.   When it's gone, it's REALLY gone.  But the moment is so heightened, and that's what's so great about it.   But whatever I do with this performance work, I'm definitely going to keep making music.  I also did a thing with a band a few years ago where I sang a bunch of covers of '60's and '70's tunes, and that was good.   I want to keep doing that kind of stuff.   And I'll keep doing "the Joni thing"!

Get Up and Jive: Even More Songs of Joni Mitchell runs March 5-27, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00pm. This show sounds like a "can't miss" for both Joni Mitchell groupies and any potential new fans. Tickets are $20. Fez is located at 380 Lafayette Street at Great Jones St. For reservations or more info, call 212-533-2680 or go to www.SpinCycleNYC.com.


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CULTUREBOT, Woman Of Heart And Mind, May 21, 2004


I got an email today saying that I should go see John Kelly’s new Joni Mitchell show Get Up and Jive that has recently been extended at Fez.  Well, I’ll take any opportunity to see John Kelly, regardless, but the email continued by saying that Ms. Nicole Kidman would be in the audience and, well, darned if she wasn’t sitting right there in one of those booths in the back.

Five minutes into the show I was already enrapt by Mr. Kelly’s voice and presence, as usual.  I leaned over to take a sip of my drink only to see Ms. Kidman stroll quietly into the Fez, every bit as stunningly gorgeous in real life as on the screen.


It is a testament to John Kelly that even the distractingly beautiful Ms. Kidman could not divert attention from his performance. His voice is in fine shape, the arrangements are wonderful and the accompaniment by Zecca Esquibel as Georgia O’Keeffe was brilliant.

And of course the songs are magnificent. We don’t do reviews here (well, we try not to, anyway) but if there is anybody left in the Western World who is unfamiliar with Mr. Kelly’s interpretation of Joni Mitchell, then you MUST GO SEE HIM NOW. It is a tonic and antidote to the bleakness of these times.

The beauty, eloquence, humor and vision that John Kelly brings to Joni Mitchell’s songs is transporting. After the show I turned to my companion and said, “Seeing him is like an Oasis in the desert.”

These days it is so rare to see a performer who leaves you feeling opened up, who makes you feel bigger, wider and somehow more than you were before. It’s not even that it’s so rare as that sometimes it seems that we aren't even trying to get there. And if we as a culture are going to make it through, if we are going to resist the destruction of our society by the conservative barbarians currently in power, then we must cherish and nurture our visionaries, our Cassandras in Drag.

But back to Ms. Kidman.  Strangely, the presence of celebrity seemed to add yet another dimension to John Kelly’s already intricate, complex and multilayered performance.  Whether it was the lyrics of For Free, in which a successful star reflects on a street musician making good music for love & not money; or the song Cactus Tree in which Joni Mitchell agonizes over placing career before love, the songs resonated differently.  Because in the context of celebrity, or rather in the context of the “celebrity narrative”, I found myself wondering, “What do these songs mean to someone who lives life in the public eye?”  And of course, how weird must it be to be an Icon watch a performer interpret an Icon?  (Although in some circles John Kelly is, deservedly, an Icon!)

All the meta-meta-cultural and performative implications aside, ultimately it is about John Kelly and his brilliance and courage.  From the haunting beauty of Blue to the sadly still-relevant lament The Fiddle and the Drum to the silly but joyful sing-along for Circle Game, Kelly brings us on a journey of mind, soul, spirit and heart that is to be treasured and shared.