Storytellers

As a child I had a book set of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Stories (translated into Korean, of course). And I dreamt of royalty and fantasy, while learning human emotions and moral lessons through very excruciatingly violent cases, in which the mermaid princess threw herself into the ocean for her love, a little match girl froze to death on Christmas eve, and a foolish emperor who wore his birthday suit around his village.

But my favorite was always The Red Shoes. To me it was the most grotesque premise ever. The protagonist, a young girl, just wanted to have fun...dance, be the belle of the ball. She coveted something beautiful. And she got punished, and punished hard. She had to live the rest of her life as an amputee with no feet. Catholic guilt had no comparison to it. But I love Faustian tales of wagering one's soul to the devil. It's prurient and sexy.

Here Kate Bush tells the story through one of her magical song+video masterpieces. I can tell you about thirty good reasons why I love Kate Bush, but besides her quirky eccentricity, it's the fact that she loves to tell stories through her music and dance. It's nice that there can be substance, beyond a composition of musical notes or movements.