Photo by Ryan Bertoldi
Another topic on ‘Unrepentant Geraldines’ is age. You turned 50 last year and I read you said that there were some people who helped you see it in a different way. Was it like a magic number or a symbolic middle that has marked a point where you started becoming retrospective instead of looking to the future?
It was both. There were Rae Smith, the stage designer of The Light Princess (editor’s note: musical with music and lyrics by TORI AMOS), Paulie Constable, the lighting designer, and Marianne Elliott, the director. They collected all the creations that we had done individually and made the scenery. So in life you take all of your creations and you make it part of your shape. That is what you are and it’s not just your outward appearance. You collect that to get to 50 and then you are able to make all kinds of shapes for the next forty years, if you are able to create that long. It’s a different way to approach age. It’s finding the power of it. Because it’s very easy to get caught up in society’s projection of what 50 looks like.
I think that women from the age of 40 up aren’t visible enough in the media and therefore ‘disappear’ from society as well. Of course we have to blame those who are responsible for the pictures we see everyday. But how can women themselves contribute to not disappear?
We have to find a way to not submit to the projection. Actors around 50, like Johnny Depp or Daniel Craig, are stepping into the best roles of their lives and a lot of young people find those men sexy. Wisdom and the power of age are aphrodisiacs. Women of the same age are not necessarily seen as sexy. We define women as sexy, unless you’re Helen Mirren, if they have a certain body type and a certain age. So we’ve got to break something in our culture. We have to find wisdom in other women attractive as well, we should value it and we have to find sensuality by what a woman is able to think and to inspire. I don’t mean it as a sexual response but as an attractive. Women have to accept their age. If we are not accepting, then how can we expect anybody else?
If a fairy would have appeared at the birth of your daughter and would have said ‘I can give her either passion or hope as a present’ – what would you have chosen?
Passion. I think if you have the fire of passion, then of course you have hope.
TORI AMOS – Unrepentant Geraldines Tourdates 2014:
May 5 – Cork, Ireland – Cork Opera House
May 7 – Dublin, Ireland – Olympia
May 8 – Dublin, Ireland – Olympia
May 10 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy
May 11 – Manchester, UK – Apollo
May 12 – Birmingham, UK – Symphony Hall
May 14 – Nottingham, UK – Royal Concert Hall
May 15 – London, UK – Royal Albert Hall
May 17 – Paris, France – Le Grand Rex
May 19 – Frankfurt, Germany – Laeiszhalle
May 20 – Berlin, Germany – Tempodrom
May 22 – Oslo, Norway – Scentrum Scene
May 24 – Copenhagen, Denmark – DR Koncertsalen
May 25 – Hamburg, Germany- Laieszhalle
May 26 – Rotterdam, Holland – Concertgebouw De Doelen
May 28 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
May 29 – Amsterdam, Holland – Het-Concertgebouw
May 31 – Zurich, Switzerland – Volkshaus
June 2 – Rome, Italy – Auditorium Parco della Musica
June 3 – Milan, Italy – Teatro Nazionale
June 4 – Padova, Italy – Geox
June 6 – Vienna, Austria – Konzerthaus
June 7 – Linz, Austria – Brucknerhaus (Opera House)
June 9 – Stuttgart, Germany – Hegel Saal
June 10 – Munich, Germany – Philharmonie
June 11 – Prague, Czech Republic – Congress Center Prague
June 12 – Warsaw, Poland – Sala Kongresowa
June 14 – St. Petersburg, Russia – Music Hall
June 15 – Moscow, Russia – Crocus Hall
June 17 – Kiev, Ukraine – Oktiabrskiy
June 19 – Bucharest, Romania – Arenele Romane
June 20 – Sofia, Bulgaria – National Palace of Culture, Hall 1
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