Category Archives: Dance

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Namasya by Shantala Shivalingappa

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Howdy!

So I went to see the second of Shantala Shivalingappa’s performances last Friday. This one was all-contemporary all-the-time and as a consequence was not as mystifying to me as her kuchipudi performance a week earlier. This one was a little shorter, about an hour in length, and was made of only four different dances. All with extremely evocative names; Ibuki (breath of life), Solo, Shift and Samarana. Also instead of highly elaborate and fancy saris, Ms. Shivalingappa wore very plain monochromatic costumes that seemed to be made more for comfort than for anything else. Although she was using the same pink toenail polish as she had for the kuchipudi. I presume that she, like Gene Kelly, is a firm believer in the idea of high contrast on and around the feet so as to better direct your eye.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tciT9bmCMq8

Despite it’s name, Ibuki (breath of life) the first dance had nothing to do with the character from the Street Fighter III video game series.

Ibuki from Street Fighter III by Stan Lau
Ibuki from Street Fighter III by Stan Lau

And from my seat (actually the second one of the eve, we had accidentally sat in the wrong seats to start) I couldn’t make the connection to anything related to a set of lungs either, despite the fact that in Japanese, the word ibuki, translates into breath.

But neither point really matters, the title of an abstract dance piece isn’t quite exactly the most significant thing. The more I see them, the more I become convinced that whomever names them, for the most part might actually be in a bubble of their own creation, and have no real concept of the possible broader connotations. Ibuki (breath of life) starts and ends with Ms. Shivalingappa lounging on the stage, in something that looks like a sleeveless white pantsuit, almost as if she was posing for some sort clothing ad. In between those two fashion advertisements she does a lot of slow moving and some fast moving which initially I found very jarring. The music is something flutish by Yoichiro Yoshikawa. Not to belittle the music, but it’s fairly straightforward and typical world fusion. A day later I have some vague memories of something that would be played if I was in a movie and approaching a Buddhist temple. But then later in my notes I wrote “Generic World Fusion Music” which would make me believe that somewhere in the middle some other instruments and rhythms might have appeared. For what it’s worth I don’t remember, but I wasn’t there to hear the music.

I was there to see the dance. Or more precisely, how Ms. Shivalingappa moved. As I expected, she moved exquisitely. There were some points where it looked like she was swimming upstream, others where she imitated a rotating cell phone tower, and at some point I noted how she ran around the stage coquettishly. But all of those paled in comparison to what I duly noted on my pad as “THE HANDS!!!”

It was the same exact movement (or pretty gosh darn close) that she had done with her hands in the kuchipudi performance, last week. Since I’m not going to use as much video, let me see if I can describe it in writing: Take one part butterfly, a large dose of Archimedes’ screw, the perception of air blowing, one of those time lapse photography videos of a flower blooming and apply liberally to your imagine in order to visualize a movement involving both hands together, touching at the wrists and spinning that starts at about waist level and finishes above her head.

At one point my insides turned to jelly as Ms. Shivalingappa looked directly at me. Thankfully it was dark, so I think, despite the start that it caused me she was just looking out into the audience, without really focusing on me. She did this just before doing “THE HANDS!!!” a second time. If I were a 15 year-old boy, I would definitely swear up and down that there was a connection.

It’s a good thing, I’m not a 15 year-old boy.

After she returned to the fashion model pose for the second time, the lights went dark, she scurried offstage and this large blurry video of her in blue and orange sari doing what I presume was some kuchipudi dance was shown while she changed. If there would be anything negative about the performance I would say it was the video interludes (there were two others, of which I won’t write an awful lot). There’s gotta be some better way to pass the time while doing costume changes than making Ms. Shivalingappa’s movements the equivalent of moving wallpaper. Something like an animated graphical presentation of where the dances originated that used pretty colors, or whatever the Indian equivalent of the drive-in interstitial is, or in other words something that is instantaneously recognized as the wallpaper and time killer it is.

http://wwwv.youtube.com/watch?v=q8BHqQamnNM

As long as I’m embedding video, watch this

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSYCSxRvT0I

It was the second piece of the program. Called “Solo” and possibly choreographed with or by or under the supervision of Pina Bausch (the program reads “Choreography made during a residency at Tanztheater Wuppertal-Pina Bausch.” So it isn’t exactly clear, and if you read it fast, you definitely get the idea that some really influential but dead choreographer had a hand in it. (And now after seeing it for the third time, I finally read the title on the video to see that it was Ms. Shivalingappa who in fact did the choreography.)

Now if you watched really closely, you can skip over the next 500 or so words, because now that you’ve seen it, you don’t need to read my description of it. Or if you prefer to skip over the video, thanks tons and continue reading.

First off, the music is by Ferran Savall. If I hadn’t read it in the program I would have guessed José Feliciano. I should also mention that Mr. Savall’s mom died two days before the performance.

Second off, Ms. Shivalingappa kind of dances like the hippy older sister of a friend of mine. I’m certain there are a bunch of allusions in the dance to things that I am unaware of since I haven’t seen all that much dance. Her arm moving like a sweeping second hand and with her body following, the way that she holds her head from teh top while following her hand strike me as being just incongruous enough to the rest of her movements that I would think that they were placed there for slightly stronger reasons than “they flowed.”

At the risk of sounding clichéd “Solo” is dance for dance’s sake. Basic form making beauty, as done by Ms. Shivalingappa. No more, no less. Somehow it makes me think of a painting by Mark Rothko.

The third piece “Shift” was also choreographed by Ms. Shivalingappa – I gotta hand it to her, in this day and age when everything dance seems to be centered around the choreographer, Ms. Shivalingappa is successfully bucking the tide and bringing the focus back to the dancer – and this one says so in the program.

“Shift” starts with Ms. Shivalingappa in a classic ninja pose, you know the one, where they are jumping through the air, their trailing arm raised above their head, one foot fully extended, as if they just finished some humongous kick. Just like that, except she’s not flying through the air, she’s crouched on the ground. From that position she kind of walks/creep across the stage.

The main feature of “Shift” is the A-OK sign she makes with her fingers, her index finger and thumb are slightly pinched together instead of being in a circle.

A OK
A OK

She uses it a bunch of times during the dance. Unfortunately, I have no idea if it has the same cultural meaning in India as it has here. But I do know that in France it is used to signify zero, instead of everything being alright. And what in means in the context of her dance, I have no clue. It kept my attention focused on her hands for the most part of the performance, and while she did not make “THE HANDS!!!” her fingers wiggled a bunch and she made it obvious that she had mastered how to move each digit on its own (and I won’t get into the anatomy of the hand here, suffice it to say that it is complicated). I don’t know who composed or played the music, but for the most part it is just a bunch of hand drumming, although after a very intense period where she continues to move while there is no musical accompaniment towards the end the music starts up again and some steel pans get involved as well. In contrast to the rapid rhythm of the drum, her movements are slow and deliberate, during the show I wrote “zen moves,” “stylized martial arts.”

I think “Smarana,” the fourth and final dance, is a Sanskrit word meaning “the act of remembering.” Sadly, I have no idea if that is the idea that Ms. Shivalingappa is trying to give. My knowledge of Indian languages (besides Sanskrit there’s also Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and dozens of others). It was choreographed by Savitry Nair who also is Ms. Shivalingappa’s mother.

Most of it takes place while Ms. Shivalingappa is sitting (or kneeling) on the stage. There is a spotlight directly above her that causes some pretty cool shadows to be cast. During the performance I tried to write just her moves, almost like a play-by-play announcer during some sporting match. This is what appeared on my pad:

“Sitting middle stage, back to us leaning over, she rises on her knees and wiggles back and forth, One foot extended, and slowly turning, while holding ankle, cross over and turn, spin, fetal position, Roll over, Extend and cross feet, sit up startled, calm, turn around, sweep hand back and around, Upright fetal position, get up on toes, spin around 360, crouched over all still slow, Notice shadow, Back kneeling, arms doing a balancing scale side to side, Faster, then stop wiggle fingers, Raise hand, Kneel forward and reach around, arms akimbo, slowly raise her hand, Slow and fast, A-OK again, looking like a flower, and it slowly fades out”

It was an experiment, trust me the dance was much better and more interesting than my description.

At this point, I’m getting to the limit of even what I can concentrate on. I wanted to explain the choreography of Ushio Amagatsu, Pina Bausch, Savitry Nair, and explain how they are all fairly important, which would lead into a couple of paragraphs on the the similarities between kuchipudi, butoh, and some other dance styles. But I’m going to have to save that for another day.

In closing I can only express my disappointment that it took her so long to get to Montreal and that we got such old shows (both Namasya and Gamaka are more than four years old). She’s been touring internationally since 2005 and has many other performances that could be presented. it kind of makes me feel that Montreal has become some kind of dance backwater, instead of being the leader that it used to be.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Review

Gamaka by Shantala Shivalingappa

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Howdy!

Last week I went to see the first of two very different (or what I have been told will be very different) shows put on by Shantala Shivalingappa. From the promotional material produced by the promoters, Danse Danse, I got an idea that the first show was going to be some kind of Indian Classical Dance. But like Brian Seibert I haven’t seen much Indian Classical Dance. However, as I read his review before going to see Ms. Shivalingappa (normally I try to avoid doing things like that, tabula rasa, low expectations, etc.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDLC8M4R28

I got kind of excited, as I imagine anyone holding tickets to a performance would feel after reading the review. And after seeing Ms. Shivalingappa I can kind of understand what Mr. Seibert saw and why he got so excited, although I think I need to develop some sort of deeper understanding of Kuchipudi before I end up going overboard like he did.

These are excerpts from the program I think that he saw. As far as my memory (which shouldn’t be trusted, and my notes which should) there were changes made to the program for the performance in Montreal.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDp5cDZzLpA

Since it is unlikely that I am going to instantaneously develop a deeper understanding of Kuchipudi (go on, say it outloud, it’s a great word, way better spoken than read) I’m going to have to rely on what I can find on the good old internet. Here, and here with video examples, unusually, the wikipedia page is useless.

In a nutshell, it’s old, very old. It got saved from obscurity by this dude Vempati Chinna Satyam, there are very specific movements that have lots of significance. And to my eyes it shares an awful lot with folk dancing.

I could probably spend the rest of my life studying Kuchipudi, but I think it would be better spent, at least in the near future, by actually trying to describe Ms. Shivalingappa’s movements and more importantly what her movements made me think and feel.

Because in doing the research, I realized that the way that I normally approach dance was completely bassackwards. Where I normally try to go in with absolutely no expectations, refusing to read the program or press releases until after the preformance, I should not have done that this time.

Each and every one of Ms. Shivalingappa’s dances told a story, but stupid me, didn’t pay attention while the story was being explained, so where she was trying to make it fairly simple for me to understand, I instead insisted on keeping my blinders on, being pigheaded and insisting that I knew best.

Yeah, right! Remind me next time.

Since I refused to follow the stories, all I had left was trying to understand the movements, which in and of themselves are incredibly simple. So simple, that I am convinced, 100% certain that my almost two year old nephew could do them. Just in case you missed it the first time around, go back and watch this video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDp5cDZzLpA

You see? There isn’t anything terrible complex. Some moves like she’s telling me that she’ll call me, a couple of others like a football player blocking, or when she extends her arms from the blocking position, like a football cheerleader (minus the pom-poms).

But then if you compare it to another Kuchipudi performance

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfR7LOxV-A

You can pretty much completely glom what makes Ms. Shivalingappa’s performance and by extension Ms. Shivalingappa special. I can talk all I want until I am blue in the face about execution, but unless you can see and compare for yourself, all I’m going to be, in the end, is blue in the face (although since I’ve stopped smoking, it takes a lot longer…)

Now to go back a little bit, there was one point in Out of White where Francine Liboiron did something incredible and amazing with her legs while lying on the floor. While I am incapable of describing what she did (somehow, “twisting and turning her legs” just doesn’t cut it) I can remember the sensation (sort of like a combination of my breath just stopping, my chin hitting the floor and wiping my eyes after it was done to make sure I was not seeing things).

httpv://youtu.be/tDp5cDZzLpA?t=5m28s

Well it happened again. And again, “twisting and turning her hands” just won’t cut it. But this time I found myself cursing the cameraman who just was too slow to catch the moment. Thankfully I got to see it in person, and it did take my breath away, I have the bruise on my chin and my eyes did get rubbed. If you have a chance run, don’t walk to see Ms. Shivalingappa do her Kuchipudi thing.

And while Kuchipudi, to my eye, doesn’t have or do anything terribly complex, as I said, it’s kind of like folk dancing. But after having spent weeks, days, hours, a little bit of time doing some research on the internet, I gotta admit the head, neck and eye moves involved in Kuchipudi really turn my crank.

I know how to shake my head from side to side, normally I do it about seventeen dozen times a day (despite being a positive person, historically my first response is always “no.”) but one thing I have never been able to figure out is that side to side head shake where your head doesn’t pivot on your neck, but more, slides along your shoulders. It is a stereotypical move for Indian Dance, although I have no freaking clue how it fits into the Kuchipudi tradition. Well, anytime, any y-chromosome challenged person does that head slide, I get all weak in the knees, my body pretty much turns to jelly and I will gladly follow she who can slide her head along her shoulders just about anywhere. That all being said, Ms. Shivalingappa’s head slides just about had me melting into my seat.

There are these videos of Ms. Shivalingappa from eight years ago

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITnAVWw9uo

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-OuF2u0Rw

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGIy6aYKiu4

I’m not certain where I was in 2003, but I wish I would have been there. As it is, I’m going to have to satisfy myself by wishing that I could write as well as Joan Acocella; not only does she know scads more about Kuchipudi and Ms. Shivalingappa, but I wish I could describe a sari half as well as she does.

And then finally, if you’d like some background on why Ms. Shivalingappa does what she does so spectacularly, there is this interview with her mom

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYYFIM99kk8

For what it is worth, I’ve got some expectations about her non-classical Indian dance performance coming up.

Art, Dance, Montréal, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

J’aimerais pouvoir rire by and with Angela Laurier

Howdy!

I’m not certain which “Family Affair” is more appropriate. The one by Sly and the Family Stone

Or the one starring Brian Keith, Sebastian Cabot, Kathy Garver, Anissa Jones and Johnny Whitaker.

Or It’s Just Wrong from the Howard Stern Show.

OK, let me backtrack a little bit. Last Wednesday I went to Usine C to see a performance by Angela Laurier. She’s a contortionist, who also used to be a child performer on TV in Canada

In between being a child performer on TV in Canada and mounting her second traveling contortionist stage show she worked for a bunch of different circuses (circii?), did some Shakespeare for Robert Lepage and a whack of other pretty impressive stuff that I did not know until after the show.

This was/is the third show (I think) that she has made having to deal with her family (I didn’t see Mon Grand Frère, but I did see Déversoir [spillway for the squareheads in the house] and there might be others that I am not aware of) but the first with her family. Besides Ms. Laurier, her brother Dominique acts in it, her sister Lucie directed it, and another sister, Charlotte did some filming for the show.

Apparently most of this is common knowledge to fans of Quebecois theatre. But as I am a bloke, it was all news to me. I’m not a big fan of theatre to begin with, and French theatre even less so. I’m not certain how to handle it. On one side, I’d like to think that each and every performance stands on its own merits and is independent of anything else, and as a consequence I’ve almost kind of been able to to train myself to to go into any performance without any expectations. On the other side, I’m kind of miffed, or maybe surprised, at myself. I would have figured that I would have been more aware of Ms. Laurier’s ranking within the galaxy of Quebecois vedettes. But obviously I don’t.

But enough of the backstory. What about the show itself?

I was surprised that it wasn’t a full house, I’ve kind of gotten used to the concept that opening nights for dance shows (of dance-like shows) have fannies in every seat. I’m not certain what to think. Is it a case where they couldn’t find people? Or did they decide that paying customers were more important? The stage was covered in some sort of white cloth with what looked like two skate ramps at either end. Which I promptly forgot when the lights went down. Because my notes read: “smoke machine, way cool.”

In retrospect the Laurier sisters had come up with a “way cool” effect. One of the “skate ramps” was something like in industrial fan, which then blew air underneath the white cloth, making it ripple quite fast, which in turn in the darkness made it look like smoke from dry ice streaming across the stage. I need to remember that for the next time I do something on stage.

I identified eight separate parts. I’m not certain if I would go so far as to classify them as scenes or acts. Perhaps if I wanted to get fancy, vignettes. But I think I’m most comfortable with “parts.”

In the first part, Angela Laurier is underneath the cloth on one of the things that I was calling a skate ramp. In this case it wasn’t a fan either, but a pedestal with a recessed spotlight, so the shadows cast as Ms. Laurier contorts underneath the cloth are not only quite dramatic, but also not that easy to decipher. Kind of like a living x-ray, if you get my drift.

Angela Laurier in J'aimerais pouvoir rire, phot by Gilles lefrancq
Angela Laurier in J'aimerais pouvoir rire, phot by Gilles lefrancq

In the second part, she comes out from underneath the cloth and continues contorting. (Unlike dance, where I know the words like plié and pirouette but don’t quite know how to use them to describe the action on stage, I don’t even know a single contorting term, so you’re just going to have to bear with me on this.) For some reason or another, I thought she kind of looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor photo copped from toptenz.net
Elizabeth Taylor photo copped from toptenz.net

But now upon looking at pictures of Elizabeth Taylor, I think I should modify it slightly so that the word “glamorous” is involved as well.

She alternates between underneath the cloth and not underneath the cloth moving and contorting in ways that I would have never thought off. At one point she “walks” with her legs straight up in the air, kind of like you’d imagine a double amputee would “walk.” There’s another time where she balances on the edge of the pedestal upside down. In between there are moments where it looks like she might be masturbating, or posing like a bodybuilder.

While all of this is happening she’s dressed in a pair of skin colored shorts and the soundtrack is for the most part some sort of looped guitar.

Then she hops off the pedestal and rolls it off stage. A video that is some kind of family photo album (a sure sign that it is a new and different part) starts. Her brother (or what I presume is her brother as I have never spoken to him) talks over the video, explaining himself. There are some humorous moments (there are nine Laurier siblings) and an early ballet recital by Ms. Laurier. The video is projected on a scrim and as it finishes there are these large shadows projected on it just before it drops, and Ms. Laurier and her brother Dominique are seated and clothed. There’s a second scrim behind them where it becomes possible to see a band playing. And then it starts to get weird.

Ms. Laurier and Mr. Laurier start walking around in circles, sit back down, she moves the chairs loudly, and then starts spinning her hands around like a windmill. As she’s spinning her hands they begin to get very red. Unfortunately I can’t find any video to accurately give you an idea of what she does with her hands. And I have no idea if it is due to something having to do with all the blood in her arms moving to her hands because of the centrifugal force. Or if there is some sort of fancy lighting effect being used (Richard Croisé gets credit as the lighting director, and he is pretty gosh-darn good). She then continues in what I noted were probably extremely difficult movements.

There’s a duet of sorts between Ms. Laurier and Mr. Laurier, which strangely enough got applause from the audience. And then another video, this time not some family slide show, but of Ms. Laurier heavily oiled up and contorting. It’s a very disorienting video, where I found myself not always certain of what body part I was looking at. Some more people walked out at this point (I didn’t note down when the first couple left, sorry).

And then it goes over the top. As I wrote, Ms. Laurier is “in a sheet with dramatic lighting and a reverse shadow time lapse something or other.” No, even now I have no clue what it was that I actually saw. I’m convinced that it was interesting and well done. I just for the life of me can’t figure out what exactly was happening as it was happening. (I told you Richard Croisé was pretty gosh darn good at what he did.) There’s something where Mr. Laurier is drawing on something where Ms. Laurier is moving, but you can see something else that might be Ms. Laurier, or might be something else. Suffice it to say, I was both very impressed and very confused. And then it’s over.

I’m not quite certain what J’aimerais pouvoir rire is exactly about, other than family is complicated. (And sorry, for the squareheads reading, I should have translated the title much earlier; it means “I’d like to be able to laugh.”) I’m always transfixed by Ms. Laurier’s productions for a variety of reasons. One is the extremely simple fact that contortionists are like the proverbial three-headed goat. You gotta look. The second is that for the most part I’ve been brought up to view contortionists as part of the “freak side show.” This is due to the three-headed goat effect, and because there hasn’t been any tradition of using contortion to tell a story. Much like a statue, contortionists are there to be looked at. However, Ms. Laurier’s productions are not “freak side shows.” They definitely have a story to tell, it’s just that I haven’t quite figured out how to interpret the method that she is using to tell the story. Almost like listening to someone read a poem out loud in a foreign language, or using your hands to understand a sculpture.

Art, Dance, Performance, Ramble, Review

Sylvain Émard’s Fragments – Volume 1

Howdy!

Last Friday I finally got around to seeing Fragments – Volume 1 choreographed by Sylvain Emard and danced by Monique Miller, Laurence Ramsay, Manuel Roque and Catherine Viau. I’m kind of glad I did, not because the dance was mind blowingly phenomenal (it wasn’t, although there were parts that kicked-ass) but because it kind of gave me some insight (or what I think is some sort of insight) into the inner workings of quote; high Quebecois Culture, unquote.

But first things first, the dances. In short, it’s fragmented, as you might suspect. If you don’t know the dancers personally, you gotta take the press release at face value (always a dangerous proposition) that it was inspired by the personalities and concerns of the performers. Catherine Viau one of the dancers (and to quote from my notes: “she is very very good”) kept some of her own notes as to how things went during practices (one, two, three and four) with nary a word about how it connects to her personally, which is not to say that it doesn’t, ‘cuz I don’t know her at all, just traded emails a couple of years ago, but you figure… although now that I’m going down this tangent, it also could be that I don’t have the vocabulary or knowledge to recognize certain movements that are based on emotions or thoughts, and what I call a “cheerleading kind of move” or “marching band” is in fact coming directly from some history that I am completely unaware of. Continuing to quote from my notes “I could watch her all night.” But I digress.

Catherine Viau dans Fragments - Volume 1 par Sylvain Émard. Photo: Robert Etcheverry. Source: Sylvain Émard Danse.
Catherine Viau dans Fragments - Volume 1 par Sylvain Émard. Photo: Robert Etcheverry. Source: Sylvain Émard Danse.

Ms. Viau’s piece was the second of the night, called Émoi, émoi, which according to my handy-dandy French/English dictionary could mean “emotion, emotion” or “stir, stir” or “commotion, commotion” or “agitation, agitation” or “flutter, flutter.” (Obviously, I’m not as bilingual as I thought) Personally, I’d go for stir x2 or flutter x2, but mostly because of the way the words can be repeated (it isn’t real common to write “agitation, agitation”) than for anything specific to the dance that she did. It began with her waving or possibly fanning herself and ended with some high stepping and spinning all to some sort of mechanical / industrial kind of soundtrack by Michel F. Côté.

And no matter how hard I try I can’t figure out any connection between Ms. Viau and the movements she made other than she and the moves she makes really really good.

But, instead of doing the whole in media res thing (I don’t know what’s up with this recent fascination with Latin, paenitet) I should just start from the beginning.

It got off on the wrong foot. The very first thing that we saw was this blinding strobe light. Which is all fine and dandy, if you’re 18 years-old and at some discotheque. But isn’t so hot if you’re middle-aged and sitting with someone who has epilepsy. Once the strobe stops you can see Manuel Roque sitting on a chair, upsidedown. Kind of like a you’d imagine a how it would look if you were choreographing a car crash. As all the car crashes I have been in made time seem to move incredibly slow, it only makes sense that Mr. Roque also moves in slow motion. How this car wreck relates to “his garden” I have no clue, but the piece is called “dans mon jardin…” although as far as I know it has nothing to do with the song by Manu Chao.

He returns to a normal speed with a bunch of jumping around and shaking. And then my notes mention that he has swallows and butterflies in his garden, but I have no recollection as to why I suddenly decided to note down the wildlife. Judging from the way it was written and its placement on the page, I would have guessed that it was some sort of lyric, but last I heard Michel F. Côté only writes instrumental music. So I am back at square one. Obviously I need to take much better notes next time.

Anyhows, after the jumping and the shaking, Mr. Roque returns to the chair, upsidedown, and then the piece ends.

The third piece is the one that’s been getting the most notice, mostly because M. Émard chose to use a septuagenarian non-dancer as a dancer. Monique Miller is an actress (now a dancer) who has been performing since the early 1950s.

She wore a kick-ass knit pant suit that had almost looked like a skirt (I think the technical term is elephant leg pants, but I am not certain, I have even less of a vocabulary in fashion than I do in dance) although from where I was sitting it also looked liked she was covered in Saran Wrap underneath the pant suit. Also from where I was sitting I never would have guessed that she was pushing 80 years-old. Forty, maybe fifty, just before I changed the prescription on my glasses, but never 78.

There was some sort of wind-chimey, dangly things suspended from the ceiling that was extremely annoying because of the reflections of the spotlights back into the audience that made it extrmely difficult to concentrate on what Mme. Miller was doing. What she was doing looked an awful lot like emoting and mime. Now, I’m not going to go and complain because a septuagenarian actress can’t dance. But I will question the necessity of putting a non-dance performance in the middle of a dance performance.

It’d be kind of like if I started singing right here, right now

Confusing, right? And then right in the middle of Mme. Miller’s performance someone starts plainchanting a personal ad, not exactly the New York Review of Books quality, but easily worthy of Craigslist. Initially this confused me, as Michel F. Côté only writes instrumental music. But then with a little bit of research, I discovered that M. Émard and M. Côté chose to insert some sort of excerpt from eL/Aficionado a very obscure opera by Robert Ashley. And no, I’d never heard of it either, prior to this. And I would hate to think that it was used as part of the soundtrack because Mme. Miller was looking for a date (remember way back at the top, how M. Émard said that the dances were inspired by the personalities and concerns of the performers… Things that make you go hmmmm.

The last piece, Bicéphale which was the duet of the evening, danced by Laurence Ramsay and Manuel Roque is about as cliched as it’s name. It starts off slow in front of a seam of light, again making it difficult to see. Their movements become quicker and seemed to me to be slightly like something Bob Fosse would have done.

Unfortunately the music by Jan Jelinek had way too much throbbing, buzzing and skreetching for my tastes. And even more unfortunately, it wasn’t anything like what Bob Fosse would have done.

I haven’t seen the other “latest and greatest” creation by M. Émard, The Continental line-dancing thing (it comes in various shapes, sizes and flavors). But, if it does come back this summer, I think I’m going to have to make a point to see it, just because it strikes me as being the complete opposite of Fragments – Volume 1. Either that or wait for Fragments – Volume 2 and see if things then fit together.

Art, Dance, Performance, Ramble, Review

Steptext Dance Project, The Bog Forest at Agora de la Danse

Howdy!

On Wednesday night I got to see Helge Letonja’s Steptext Dance Project perform The Bog Forest at Agora de la Danse. If memory serves it is playing tonight as well and tickets are cheap. According to the press fodder it’s about immigration. I’m not so certain I would believe that, but despite me not being able to see how it is about immigration I was pleasantly surprised with the performance. One reason I might not have been able to see how it is about immigration is quite literally because it is very dark. Both on a physical level and an emotional level.

Let’s start with the physical first. According to (again) the press fodder Laurent Schneegans is the person responsible for the lighting. Personally I would have given him the title of person responsible for the darkness. The piece is roughly comprised of three (or maybe four) sections and the first one and the last one take place in pretty much an unlighted black box. Now normally I’m not a big fan of not being able to see the dancers, but in this case it wasn’t that bad; a) there wasn’t that much dancing going on (to be more precise, a lot of moving, but not a lot of dancing) and b) given the name of the piece it was obvious that the lack of light was in order to add to the atmosphere.

At the beginning everybody pretty much had their face covered by something or other, whether it was an actual mask, or just a very large hood that then caused shadows, it was difficult at the beginning to figure out who was who. Although after the fact (and with judicious use of the press fodder, I can confidently state that) Christian Wolz starts out with some kind of chanting and Konan Dayot does some staggering around like a busted marionette. I wrote in my notes “a bunch of staged abstract tableaus in the dark.” And more than 24 hours after the fact, I still stand by that statement.

As an introduction to the performance it is effective. Very spooky. They use lighters, have flashlights aimed towards the audience and in general do just about everything you can think of to make you think that you’re in some kind of bog (or for the North American’s in the house a swamp – or if you want to get technical, both are wetlands although swamps tend to have trees, and bogs veer towards treelessness) you know the kind of place you imagine while you’re listening to Dale Hawkins or Lighting Hopkins. But the beginning of the performance as a means to understand that The Bog Forest is a “crossroads for six individual destinies…” I’m, not so certain.

The second part starts with a bang – well not actually a bang, but the aftermath of a bang with a humongous cloud of smoke hanging over the stage. It takes a while to dissipate but continues to add to the swamp-like atmosphere despite the lights actually being turned up and being bright enough so that I could see the dancing. Quite a cool effect, especially since the Agora de la danse is such a small space. At some point I’m going to have to bone up on my “how-to-make-a-large-cloud-of-smoke-in-the-dark-without-any-light-or-sound” notes because I sure as shootin’ had not clue how that cloud of smoke was able to get there.

With the aid of the light it actually became possible to not only identify the dancers (who were generally quite accomplished, if not really really good) but also since they were identifiable; recognize them as individuals. According to my notes there was the “Chinese Couple,” “Blondie,” the “Other Woman,” “The Turkish Guy” and “The Rabbit Guy” (who to be honest, wasn’t a dancer, but was the singer, Christian Wolz). Writing while they are performing doesn’t leave me an awful lot of time to think about suitable titles. Although in the case of “The Rabbit Guy” I could have gone with “The Singing Guy.” But since he carried around a rabbit for the better part of the first part and then that very same rabbit gave “The Other Woman” some sort of epileptic/hysterical fit. I went for the slightly more descriptive title.

The Chinese Couple were I-Fen Lin and Wei Meng Poon. They did a kick-ass duet that started with each of them on a separate square of straw (one stage front and left, the other stage back right) which went through a progression where Mr. Meng Poon removed Ms. Lin’s shirt and did what I called a “dance of tension.” (At some point I’m going to have to do my darnedest to memorize “Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet,” my vocabulary sucks the big one when it comes to describing how people move). But this one was where it appeared that there was an equal amount of pulling by both of them so as to keep everything in an equilibrium, more based around brief poses rather than a continuous series of movements.

Not quite the Ab Lounge, or i-Shape but close, and now that I think about it more, I’m certain that there is probably some yoga involved as well. Anyhows, after he takes her shirt they talk in what I presume is Chinese, which turns into an argument, at which point Mr. Meng Poon returns Ms. Lin’s shirt, they reconcile and then she starts coughing while he starts either crying or laughing.

Even with identifiable characters, I’m still not certain what it has to do with immigration…

Prior to the argument over the shirt Ms. Lin and the “Other Woman,” Emilia Giudicelli, have a very graceful, extremely well done, but unfortunately all too short duet. While watching it I was struck by how well they performed together. I’m not certain, but I don’t think they could have been more synchronized had they been doing it together nightly for the past 5 years. There were also two quartets where everything seems right with the world, not quite line dancing, not quite Jazz Dance, not quite Modern Dance either, but very very satisfying. If I remember correctly “The Turkish Guy” (who is actually Brazilian) Leonardo Rodrigues is not quite dancing in counterpoint to the other four, but is dancing on his own in opposition to the other four.

The three other tableaus that were notable were when The Rabbit Guy, Mr. Wolz, hummed around The Turkish Guy, Mr. Rodrigues, in effect making him move as a consequence of the; quote, sound waves; unquote, emanating from his mouth. Think of a leaf on the wind or a piece of cloth in a pool or a river. In retrospect it could be considered a variation on a theme that was started with the “dance of tension” and is continued towards the end when all five dancers join in a game of “keep aloft.”

Lipstick Forest / Nature Légère by Claude Cormier at the Palais des congrès de Montréal
Lipstick Forest / Nature Légère by Claude Cormier at the Palais des congrès de Montréal

The set is mainly made up on one side (actually one third) what looks very similar to a miniaturized version of “Lipstick Forest / Nature Légère” by Claude Cormier at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Branches and twigs instead of trunks, orange instead of pink and suspended curtain-like one on top of another instead of planted on the floor like a fence. But close enough. The other two thirds is made up of some sort of net that has a lot of plastic bags attached to it. Depending on the light, or the lack of light, the plastic bags can kind of look like leaves, handkerchiefs, plastic bags or just something sort of spooky. Or maybe that was just me anticipating Halloween. But, one of the plastic bags becomes the object of the game of “keep aloft,” whereby the dancers try to keep the bag in the air by blowing on it.

The third notable tableau was when “The Rabbit Guy,” Mr. Wolz starts to draw on “Blondie,” Mr. Dayot’s back. It’s notable in that everyone is on stage and no one stops moving, but my eye was riveted on Mr. Dayot’s back, ignoring everything else. Which leads me to believe that whatever dancing was being done wasn’t particularly compelling, because the drawing itself wasn’t all that hot – but the process of drawing was extremely compelling.

Overall, I was impressed, not so much by the narrative or the theme, but by the movement. Mr. Letonja does have a very specific dance vocabulary (which I’m not certain I would be able to learn at this late stage) rooted in movements from nature, like the wind or water and he does translate it extremely well for humans. I’m certain it makes complete sense in his head how it relates to immigration and immigrants, but that didn’t translate to me sitting in the audience, maybe next time I need to go to the performance that has the talk afterwards where they explain everything, although to be honest, all I really would want to know is how they got they cloud of smoke up there, but I’m rambling now, so let me stop.

At the risk of repeating myself, it is the movements taken from nature and reproduced by Mr. Meng Poon, Ms. Lin, Mr. Dayot, Mr. Rodrigues and Ms. Giudicelli that truly make The Bog Forest something wicked-cool.

Art, Dance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Babel (Words) by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Antony Gormley – Eastman VZW

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Howdy!

From Genesis 11:1-9,

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

For better or worse, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Antony Gormley didn’t quite follow that script. Instead they kind of use it as a launching pad for their production.

Mostly dance, but not all dance, it comes across as a highly charged and extremely political piece of performance art. Personally, I’m not so certain that the politics and the non-dance parts needed so much time, but as you might have expected, no one asked me.

But let me back up a little. The show is performed by 12 dancers, one actor and five musicians (who also do some acting). They do about 30 separate vignettes that are held together by the five, large, box-like, aluminum, (or at least I presume that they are made out of aluminum, since they are moved around an awful lot) structures that are used as scenery and props during the show.

It starts off with everyone marking out their space, turns into a lecture about real estate, some people start manipulating others like puppets, they build a skyscraper, board a plane, get into arguments, and apologize among other things. This is the video that was published on YouTube last February as a promo for the show:

And this is the video that was published on YouTube last June as a promo for the show.

There are some bits in the February video that were not performed when I saw it on Friday, and everything I saw on Friday is not represented in the June video, but you get the picture. In short (and extremely simplistically as well) it’s a plea for us to all get along despite our differences. Kind of like the song by War from 1975.

The first thing that struck me about the dancers (Navala Chaudhari, Francis Ducharme, Darryl E. Woods, Damien Fournier, Ben Fury, Paea Leach, Christine Leboutte, Ulrika Kinn Svensson, Kazutomi Kozuki, Sandra Delgadillo Porcel, Leif Federico Firnhaber, Mohamed Toukabri and Paul Zivkovich) was how tight they were. Everyone hit their marks at the same time and in a troupe that large, mainly composed of independent performers, it is quite the feat.

Although I don’t know if in fact I saw Moya Michael, Helder Seabra, Jon Filip Fahlstrom and James O’Hara in place of, or as well as the fine folks above, because in my program their names only appear in parenthesis and there was no mention if they were only there as injury replacements (as you can see the piece is extremely physical) or if they were there as alternate performers. I’m not certain I like this move towards nameless performers where the directors, choreographers and all the other folk who do not appear on stage get the glory. Especially for a performance where there are very specific characters. But I digress.

The second thing that struck me was how painful and superfluous the lectures by Mr. Woods were in comparison. Not to slight his performance – in actual fact, his performance of them was spectacular. But if you stick the words “Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui” into Google, the first things that come up talk about dance and choreography. Not writing, not comedy, not theater. And while I do recognize that just because someone in very good in one thing does not preclude them from being very good at something else, M. Cherkaoui is most definitely not a comic, nor is he a comic writer. And I don’t think M. Jalet is either. So I don’t understand why they chose to stick in an attempt a comic theater in the middle of their very impressive dance performance. It just doesn’t make sense. And come to think of it, I doubt that either one of them spoke English as a mother-tongue, although that would not necessarily disqualify him (them?) from writing kick-ass stuff in English, just make it tougher. Heck there are some times I can’t write English to save my life.

However once you start to think about the concept and the ideas behind Babel (words), it strikes me (and perhaps you as well) that M. Cherkaoui and M. Jaret might have decided to sacrifice some dance in order to get their point across. But it’s just like like eating a whole big bag of potato chips before dinner. There’s only so much you can consume, and no matter what you think, the potato chips are not going to be as tasty and delicious as a good dinner. There’s only so much time for a performance at Place des Arts before the unions require time-and-a-half and that and the other costs end up making a ticket unaffordable. No matter what you think, the spoken word part of a dance show is not going to be as visually spectacular and breathtaking as the dance itself.

Because as M. Cherkaoui states on his website: “Equality between individuals, cultures, languages and means of expression” are something that is very important to him. And my guess is that despite the eclectic backgrounds of all the dancers, actually choreographing 12 different types of dance styles (one for each dancer) so that they can be identified by the way that they dance, isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. As a consequence, falling back on the actual languages and religions that the dancers know and either practice, or were born into is a nice and easy safety net to get the point across.

As you might guess, I wish that there had been more dance. By my notes there were four (maybe five) vignettes (tableaus, scenes, whatever) that absolutely made my head explode (in a good way). The opening with the hands, the fight right after that, the second hip hop solo (I unfortunately did not note when the first hip hop solo was, and it is quite possible that it impressed me as well, but that I just didn’t write it down) and what I called “the chainsaw” which was another group number towards the end, which started out with the dancers appearing to pretend to start a chainsaw. Beyond that there was an awful lot of chanting, some comic lectures, some comedic dance bits, and then the one bit that wasn’t dance, but was spectacular. The building of the skyscraper – which is movement, just movement of objects not of a body. But yes, it was quite cool seeing them build the structure. And movement in certain circumstances can be considered dance.

Speaking of bodies, using my best Google-Fu I was unable to come up with pictures or other things that would have enabled me to identify Damien Fournier, Sandra Delgadillo Porcel, Mohamed Toukabri, Paul Zivkovich, Moya Michael, Helder Seabra, Jon Filip Fahlstrom and James O’Hara. And while I could guess as to who did what, I am loathe to be wrong on something like that, because if I was it would undermine everything else I wrote. So I’ll leave it as a polite request to whomever creates the programs for Danse Danse; would it be possible to get pictures in future programs? Please and thanks.

But that does mean I was able to identify the nine other performers. Woo-Hoo! Paea Leach, despite not having a completely identifiable character, was very impressive as a dancer. You can get an idea of how she moves here (unfortunately, she won’t let me embed the video here, pity). I can’t quite put my thumb on the reason why, but she moved with a certain authority, and about halfway through the performance I realized that in the group pieces my eyes had been watching her more than not. So I can only presume that I was either completely and totally smitten with her like a 16 year-old schoolboy, or that she is a kick-ass dancer. Given that I have absolutely no desire to be, let alone act like a 16 year-old schoolboy, I go with the later.

Ulrika Kinn Svensson was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Her character was completely and thoroughly identifiable. Wearing what appeared to be at least eight inch platform shoes that made her tower over everyone. To which was added shiny black plastic (or patent leather) boots that came halfway up her thighs she was hard to miss. Depending on what “scene” you’re watching, she functions as a sex-kitten, narrator, tour guide or gate. But what left me slack-jawed was that even though she was in a pair of boots that would have made Kiss or Funkadelic proud she was able to dance as well.

Christine Leboutte also had an easily identifiable character, the washerwoman. Although I have no clue as to why there was a washerwoman. She’s got a great voice (if I remember correctly, when I was searching about for information about her, some website mentioned that she taught Damien Jalet how to sing).

One other thing that impressed me with the piece was how M. Cherkaoui and M. Jalet had choreographed what I call “girl lifts.” Or in other words women lifting other dancers. For most of time immemorial, the chicks have been lifted up and the guys have done the lifting. I think the first time I saw a woman lift another dancer it might have been Louise Lecavalier, but I don’t know for certain. Anyhows it has taken over 25 years for it to get closer to the mainstream, Navala Chaudhari did them on admirably on Friday night.

Then also going by my sketchy memory, I think it was Ben Fury and Leif Federico Firnhaber (that’s almost as good a name as Juan Tyrone Eichelberger) who did the aforementioned hip hop solos.

Which only leaves me Francis Ducharme and Kazutomi Kozuki as dancers who I was able to identify and therefore need to be mentioned. Unfortunately the things about their characters that stand out to me most are the comedic bits, that while memorable didn’t really strike me as particularly good. M. Ducharme, as the hometown boy, could do no wrong, and had everyone rolling in the aisles with laughter during his caveman routine. Kozuki-san also worked as a foil to Kazunari Abe (or Shogo Yoshii) in the parts that required some really fast Japanese to be spoken.

In the videos, I’m certain that you can catch more than glimpses of them and decide for yourself if you like the way that they dance.

Babel (words) is now the second piece I’ve seen that was choreographed by M. Cherkaoui and this one didn’t leave me as angry as the first one, and it is quite easy to see how and why everyone thinks he is such a wonderful and amazing choreographer. I only wish that he would stick to choreographing. Because his attempts at comedy and proselytizing fall incredibly short in comparison.

And then the final video version of Babel (words) from about July of this year…

BABEL (words) (long trailer) 2010 from Damien Jalet on Vimeo.

Dance, Montréal, Québec, Review

Out of White by Jane Mappin and two dances by Francoise Sullivan

Howdy!

Back on Thursday I went to see Out of White by Jane Mappin and Je Parle and À tout prendre by Francoise Sullivan as part of the Quartiers Danses festival at the McCord Museum. As you might have suspected, the crowds was sparse.

I presume that the idea of having a dance in a museum was part of the dance in unusual places shtick. Unfortunately outside of the museum and in the museum lobby, atrium and auditorium aren’t all that unusual. It would have been nice to see some of the dances take place in some of the galleries, now that would have been unusual. But obviously there were some logistical challenges that were insurmountable, pity.

The short synopsis of the evening. Out of White is an ensemble piece that started outside the museum with a dozen dancers improvising slow movements, in a parade. Kind of like a warm up as they lead the viewers into the museum. There’s a short pause and then it starts up again. This time choreographed in (if I remember correctly) three basic parts. One is the group moving and marching around the space (in this case the very small atrium at the McCord museum) then, Jane Mappin shows up and dances a solo, then Francine Liboiron comes on a saves the day. Then there’s a whole second part that also is saved by Ms. Liboiron.

Je Parle is a short piece where Ginette Boutin spins around in a canvas smock while reciting something. À tout prendre is Daniel Soulières and Ms. Boutin traipsing around picking up pieces of junk and clipping them onto each others’ overcoats while Rober Racine bangs on a variety of metal objects. Overall, it was a successful evening’s worth of performance. But if that was all you wanted to hear about it, it is unlikely you would be reading this…

According to the program notes, Ms. Mappin was inspired by some paintings by William Perehudoff (no, I have no idea how to pronounce it either) and somehow wanted to make something where the dancers and the audience worked together to make some sort of living gallery.

La représentation se dessine comme un galerie vivante dans laquelle les spectateurs s’intègrent pleinement à l’expérience visuelle de la mise en scène.

Ummm. It didn’t work out that way at all. and it wasn’t only because the McCord Museum is a history museum and not an art museum.

William Perehudoff Mural
William Perehudoff Mural

First off, I had some time to kill so I swung by early to pick up my tickets, and was told that the performance started outside around 7:45 pm. I found it odd, that all the information about the performance stated that things started at 8:00 pm. I didn’t quite understand why someone would start a performance early (I don’t like it when things start late, but in advance just doesn’t make sense to me).

The YouTube playlist of all eight short videos of the Intro to Out of the White by Jane Mappin.

Then when I arrived, Deborah VanSlet was videotaping things, there also were about three other professional looking photographers. All of which combined to make for a definite barrier between performers, documenters and audience. Then as the performers’ led the audience parade-like into the museum there was no interaction between any groups. Finally, when the performance restarted in the atrium, the audience was instructed to take seats in the space as if they were in a regular theatre.

As for the performance itself; it was a bunch of dance students moving in space, along with a man (Barry Meyer) who looked to be about twice the age of the other dancers. I never could quite figure out why he was there. Although now in retrospect, it might have been to highlight the difference between dance students and people who have been dancing for their entire life.

After a bit, Jane Mappin (or a person who I assume was Jane Mappin) took the stage and moved around as well. Nothing terrible spectacular, but nothing too horrible either. The rest of the dancers came back on the stage and then Francine Liboiron shows up and really makes it obvious how much experience matters in dance. At the end there was polite applause and at was over.

Things quickly got better after that. Ginette Boutin came on stage in her smock and started reciting and spinning. I became pretty transfixed by Je Parle mostly due to watching the hem of her smock as it rippled in the air. I’m not certain if this was an intended effect or something unintentional. But either way it was riveting. I’m certain that a deeper understanding of the piece could be had by knowing what was said (especially since it’s called “I speak.”) But that’s obviously going to have to wait for another time.

We were then asked to wait a little before entering the auditorium for À tout prendre (I’m not certain logistics are a Quartiers Danses specialty). After about five minutes we were allowed in and discovered that the stage was strewn with a bunch of garbage. I don’t think that there is any real story to À tout prendre, but it’s fun enough and silly enough and short enough that watching it is not a bore. Again, according to the program notes, it’s supposed to be some sort of reflection on “our times and our society” (Une réflexion encore très actuelle sur notre temps et notre société.) I also found it strange that it used the same title as an award winning film Claude Jutra. Not having seen the film (which someone on wikipedia considers the first modern Quebecois film) I have no idea if there is any connection or if it was purely happenstance. But the upshot of all of this being, I think I’m going to have to go and see more dances by Francoise Sullivan.

And then the tour-de-force. The beginning of part 2 of Out of White. It was the same as what I had seen on Monday and written that it was “Francine Liboiron lying on her back making her legs act like hand puppets.” Which is completely and utterly, 100% wrong. On Monday, the theatre seats weren’t raked, and there were a bunch of heads obscuring Ms. Liboiron’s body. So all I could see was a little bit of her calfs, and her feet. Which from that perspective did look like hand puppets. But that was the wrong perspective to be seeing it from.

At the McCord, the seats are raked (and there weren’t too many people, either) so it was quite easy to a) see all of Ms. Liboiron and to see her from a very good perspective. Instead of moving her legs like hand puppets, imagine some sort of hybrid combination of a swan’s neck, really thick syrup being poured and something else that has those similar liquid, yet gracefully properties, like the veil on The Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino in the Cappella Sansevero.

Basically she moves her legs in an incredibly fluid and graceful manner while lying on her back with her legs extended 90 degrees into the air (picture her body in an “L” shape). Every now and again she would raise her arms, and get all four appendages moving like each one was a separate dancer while still moving in unison (I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time and as a consequence was left completely slack-jawed at what Ms. Liboiron was able to do). Honest to god, it was drop-dead gorgeous.

Beyond that, there was some video and I’m fairly certain that there was some music as well, but I can’t remember it for the life of me, so it obviously wasn’t that memorable. However, I will for a very long time remember Ms. Liboiron movements.

Dance, Montréal, Québec, Ramble, Review

Opening Night at Quartiers Danses

Howdy!

Back on Monday (who schedules dance performances on a Monday?!?) I got to see the opening night festivities for Quartiers Danses. Now as an aside the current scuttlebutt is that dance is the poor bastard child of the arts and gets absolutely no respect, no press and no one cares about it. Well I think that Quartiers Danses is the poor bastard child of dance festivals.

This was the first time in my life that I had seen an opening night where the theatre wasn’t even half full. and they had even taken up a bunch of space with tables replacing chairs, so to begin with there weren’t an awful lot of seats to fill.

Anyhows, since it is quite likely that you’ve never heard of it, Quartiers Danses is a festival that has its mandate to bring dance to the people. Instead of Mohammed going to the mountain, the mountain comes to Mohammed. Unfortunately given the crowd, it was more like a hill or a mound than a mountain.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying “pity.” Because for the most part it was quite good. There were four short pieces performed; L’Absense by Marie Brassard, danced by Sarah Williams. Sente by Lucie Grégoire. Dédale by Françoise Sullivan, danced by Ginette Boutin. And an excerpt from Out of White by Jane Mappin, danced by Francine Liboiron.

I gotta hand it to whomever programed the evening (I presume it was Rafik Hubert Sabbagh) they kind of knew what they were doing. For the first time in my life I thought that the evenings programming went as well together as a well done set by a DJ or a well curated exhibit at a museum. You know the sensation you get when you suddenly sit up and say “Hey! Those things not only only go well together, but they compliment each other and actually make more sense together than apart”? Kind of like that.

I hear y’all asking “why?” (Or my preferred question: “How come?”) Well, they are all variations on the same idea. Basically one woman swaying in space with a focus (more or less) on one part of the body. In Sente it’s the hips, Dédale the arms, and in the excerpt from Out of White it’s the legs.

There were also a couple of cool moments in L’Absense due to the backdrop sort of looking vaguely floor-like and Sarah Williams’ ability to contort herself so despite lying on the floor, it appears as if the audience is hanging from the ceiling – just like one of those photographs by Alain Paiement.

It all really kicked in with Dédale (Daedalus for the people in the house who only read one language, yes that Daedalus). In my lifetime I must’ve seen a 63 year-old dance, but for the life of me I can’t remember one. And I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen a 63 year-old dance done in the presence of its creator. Because yes, Françoise Sullivan was in the house (and yes, I was too chicken to go up and talk to her).

The backstory: Françoise Sullivan first performed Dédale on April 3, 1948, the same day that Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan and the very same day that Arlette Cousture was born. For reasons that I won’t go into here (you can find the details elsewhere) it’s a fairly significant piece of of work within the context of Quebecois culture.

I don’t know if it has ever been performed since then (my guess would be yes) but either way, it’s still pretty gosh darn cool to see a dance that was made way back then. For the most part dance eats its young and not an awful lot of it survives to adolescence, let alone old age.

Nine minutes long, it starts with Ms. Boutin tapping on her hip and then expanding on that movement ever so slightly over time until she is rolling about on stage. Even if you don’t know the story of Daedalus it works. And as a connecting piece between Sente and Out of White it works even better.

Sente is basically a woman swaying to some fado, while a woman recites something over it (apologies, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the monologue. I’m certain it was important and would have aided me greatly in gaining a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the performance, but I was kind of getting a kick out of watching Lucie Grégoire move. Sometimes a superficial and simplistic appreciation is all that is needed).

And then in the excerpt from Out of White you get Francine Liboiron lying on her back making her legs act like hand puppets. It’ll be interesting to see how that little bit fits into the larger piece which I am going to see on Thursday, I think.

None of the dances have any elaborate costumes or fancy lighting. The soundtracks (when there were any) were either completely ignorable, as was the case with Sente or completely forgettable, as was the case with the others. So basically what you got was dance. Movement in a fairly controlled and focused state. And when it’s done well, it definitely deserves to have more than a half empty house watching.

One suggestion that I would make to the fine folk who organize the Quartiers Danses, is to switch the time of year when they present it. Trying to compete with all the other season opening events is not working. I’ve followed it now for about three years, and each year (this one included) I’ve always thought “how can I squeeze it in?” Most other dance organizations kick in with big-budget press and marketing at the beginning of September (how many of those Rodin/Claudel ads have you seen?) and trying to compete is obviously not working.

Moving it to March or April would seem to me to be a no-brainer. While most marketing budgets will have been spent by then, the buds on the trees and the weather getting warmer and better make everyone more inclined to do things, get out of the house if you will. It worked for the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, I’m certain it would work for Quartiers Danses.

Dance, Montréal, Ramble, Rave, Review

Avril est le mois le plus cruel by Jocelyne Montpetit at the Agora de la Danse

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Lets get this out of the way first and foremost: For the past two weeks I have been living and breathing Jocelyne Montpetit almost 24/7. Back in August I interviewed her, and if you’ve been watching this website regularly, you already know that there is a six-part interview with her available for your viewing pleasure. Well, in order to get that six-part interview here, I needed to do some editing. And in order to do the editing, I had to watch the film, again, and again, and again, and again, you get the picture.

All that being a kind of long winded way of saying that I’m not objective in the least. But then again, I rarely am objective about anything. But I digress.

The short version of my review of Avril est le mois le plus cruel by Jocelyne Montpetit at the Agora de la Danse could be summed up as “It’s great! Go see it.” But if you want the longer more detailed version, keep scrolling.

As you might have guessed, it was inspired by the first four lines of T.S. Eliot’s poem from 1922, The Wasteland. But, not the English version (obviously), the French. I transcribed the version that were in the program notes, but then noticed that they seemed a little bit different from what I was used to.

The English

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

The version in the program notes

Avril est le mois le plus cruel
Il engendre des lilas qui jaillissent de la terre morte
Il mêle souvenance et désir
Il réveille par ses pluies de printemps les racines inertes

And then a version I found online

Avril est le mois le plus cruel, qui fait surgir
Des lilas de la terre morte, mêle
Mémoire et désir, réveille
D’inertes racines avec la pluie de printemps

I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one you prefer and if the differences are significant or not.

I very deliberately did not re-read The Wasteland, not even the beginning before going to see the performance because a) I thought that it was inspired by the first four verses of the poem (my mistake; vers in French doesn’t mean verses, it means lines) and b) I did not want to make the mistake of wanting, or expecting, the performance to be a literal representation of the poem (I’ve already seen one of those).

And I’m glad I didn’t reread it until after the performance, because, knowing myself I would have gone looking for direct connections between both, and there really aren’t any. The performance is all about sadness. It just as easily could have been named after Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Fauré’s Requiem in D minor or anything else imbued with an overwhelming sense of sadness.

Anyhows, now that I got that out of the way we can get on with everything else. Before anything begins there’s a humongous block of ice (about four feet high, two feet wide and eight inches thick) front stage left and a bed with some glasses underneath it back stage right. I don’t know if it was intentional (and somehow I think it wasn’t) but on the night I was there (opening night, September 14) it looked like there was an image of a really really big tulip that hadn’t quite gotten around to blooming, yet. There also seemed to be something like pollen squirting out of the top.

I mention this, because if you use your imagination a tulip that’s just about to bloom with some pollen squirting from the top can, and does look like something else, and neither of them look like lilacs. I also mistakenly thought that the glasses under the bed were bubble wrap. I think I might have to go see my optometrist to make sure my prescription is correct.

Dressed in a white nightgown to start, Ms. Montpetit comes out on stage from the rear and starts wandering around the stage. Although I should be horsewhipped for using the word wandering. Unfortunately words fail me when I try to describe how Ms. Montpetit moves and I end up sounding like a blathering idiot. After thumbing through my thesaurus, I guess it could be called a combination of slow, in control of every muscle in her body, deliberately ungraceful, beautiful, and emotionally moving. But that’s 121 letters, the word wandering is nine letters.

As is mentioned in the program notes, Avril est le mois le plus cruel is the first in a trilogy of Elegies (or if you prefer, Élégies) that Ms. Montpetit is creating. Dedicated to Tomiko Takai, who died in May, I do not know if it was directly inspired by her death, but as I have already mentioned, her performance is very emotionally charged almost completely permeated with anguish, despondency, disconsolateness, dolefulness, dolor, dysphoria, forlornness, grief, heartache, melancholy, mournfulness, mourning, poignancy, sorrow, sorrowfulness, and woe (man I adore thesauruses!)

To quote another famous and sad piece of English literature, “there’s the rub,” expressing a difficult and deep emotion without saying a single word. But Ms. Montpetit makes it look as easy as falling off a log.

At this point, I gotta remember to mention Sonoyo Nishikawa who did the lighting, he (she? Are Japanese names like Italian names and the boys get the “O” and the girls the “A”?) did a phenomenal job. Not only did I think a bunch of glasses were bubble wrap, but about two thirds of the way through the performance, they made the bed disappear. Solely through judicious use of spotlights. I can’t say I was as enthralled by the soundtrack, some Arvo Pärt, Louis Dufort and Alessandro Scarlatti (at least I presume it is Alessandro Scarlatti, since the other two Scarlatti’s weren’t known for their vocal compositions and his first name is not noted in the program notes).

Beyond that, there’s not much more I can say. If you’re interested Ms. Montpetit not only “wandered” around the stage, sometimes she lay down on the bed, or next to the bed. There were a couple of times she writhed around on stage or crawled from place to place. She changed costumes three times, and by my count there were six parts (although other people who probably know far more than me say there were only three). And it all takes about an hour.

But basically, Ms. Montpetit is a living and breathing testament to the concept that somethings truly can’t be spoken or written down. They need to be experienced. Avril est le mois le plus cruel is one of them.

Avril est le mois le plus cruel continues at the Agora de la danse, tonight, tomorrow and Friday the 23rd at 8 pm. Tickets are $26. And I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that it has a couple of more engagements both here in Montreal and elsewhere.

Conversation, Dance, Dancer, Interview, Montréal, Podcast, Québec, Video

The Jocelyne Montpetit Interview (Part Six)

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Episode 307 [17:13]

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Back in August I interviewed Jocelyne Montpetit, who just so happens to be performing Avril est le mois le plus cruel at the Agora de la Danse until September 23. We discussed a lot of stuff. In this sixth of six parts Ms. Montpetit talks about dancers aging, dancing solo vs. choreographing others, her future plans, the Montreal dance scene in the 1980s, contemporary arts marketing, performance spaces and other topics.