It was an expedition alright. An expedition of minds and in your mind, as the many voices of Simon McBurney and recordings of others' enter your head through the headphones from left and right, breathe on your neck and circle around as if your head actually is as big as the stage where McBurney plays with the head-shaped recorder and multiple microphones. “The Encounter” uses technology not just because its fun (but oh how fun it is!) but because it correlates with the story told. The story of a photographer meeting the Mayoruna people of Amazon, and especially one of them who still remembers the old language that needed not to be spoken as it could be heard in one's mind. The Mayoruna also believe that time is circular and it is possible to go back to the beginning, to get rid of everything we have (done) and start again from scratch. A notion many of us would like to believe, looking around what's happening in the world today. “The Encounter” is a crowd-pleaser in the most positive meaning of the word, albeit the story told is a tad too long and the breaking into the political statement redundant as the story of Mayoruna underlines the white man's greed itself.
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