Resurrecting Control Freak!
My name is Kulu Orr, and for the past 19 years I have worked intensively on making a crazy dream come true: Creating unique 1 hour solo, "Control Freak", that will be unlike anything I've yet seen on stage.
In this show I would control everything, simultaneously and single handedly, without technicians and without playbacks: Playing live music while performing circus tricks as I simultaneously control lights and video, and at the same time interacting with the audience and doing much much more.
The concept was not entirely sane. At many points along the way even I lost hope of accomplishing what I set out to do. But despite countless failures, malfunctions and moments of despair, every time I decided to push on through and to keep striving to make it happen.
It ended up taking almost two decades: I started work on this crazy project in the year 2000, and finally, on June 2018, came the premiere in BE Festival, UK.I was quite uncertain how it would be received, as it was so much unlike any other show I’ve ever been.
It turned out to be a hit! The show won two prizes in that first festival, received excellent reviews, and started touring internationally with growing success.
All through this amazing last year I kept working at it: Tuning, tweaking, improving and extending. The show went from 40 minutes to over an hour long, with versions in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Work even begun on a version in Chinese.
It seemed to be a wonderful reward for all these years of hard labor, faith and obsession. Below, at the bottom of the page, you can see a 1 minute clip with some review quotes and bits from the show, to give an idea.
But as I arrived at Barcelona airport on July 25th 2019, on my way to perform in Spain, I was targeted by thieves. The stolen equipment comprised years of intensive, original work, and also some extremely expensive apparatus.
For a while I was broken. In a state of despair. Unsure of whether I could rebuild this show. Gradually I picked myself up, and decided to make my best effort to raise "Control Freak" back from the ashes. I started working ceaselessly to re-code, re-make and re-shoot every piece of software, equipment and footage the show needs in order to live again.
It feels unnatural for me asking for this help. In every community I was ever part of, I was always lucky enough to have been on the giving, the helping side. However, I realize that without assistance I won’t be able to make this happen.
I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for helping.
And of course I would be more than happy to invite you to the next performance Control Freak 2.0 near you!
Control Freak is not dead, and thanks to you, is yet to be resurrected!