What would you expect from someone who makes stuffed toys for a living? Cute and lighthearted, I’d really like to kn ow what was used to make the skirt hold its shape. A Hoop skirt? Petticoats? Crinoline? Or something else. The tag says that only 4 sweaters, 7 pairs of jeans and 100 buttons were used to make this dress. But I suspect that there were some other things involved as well.
It actually looks like it could be worn, but I’m not 100% convinced I would be able to survive the constant barrage of cuteness. Maybe if I was partial to dressing up for Halloween, I’d be more open to a dress that had a hood with ears and some sort of bear-like soccer ball protruding from the crotch.
Detail of Plush Empress By Majorie Labrèque-Lepage
The Outfits from a New Era exhibition were designed to highlight “cast-offs from our society in a whole new light” and while the vast majority of them were made from waste products, four appeared to be made from new material. Of the four, the two following were notable examples.
WFA - With Fixed Address By Stéphanie Lévesque
Another fantasy dress, another material list that isn’t quite complete. That bodice is not made of plywood (unless that’s the thinnest plywood ever – or perhaps it should be the veneer used to make plywood). Although I kind of like the concept of living in your dress. Once you glom onto the idea behind this dress there isn’t an awful lot of depth to it. But I bet you that it is well insulated (yuck, yuck, yuck!)
Of all the dresses in the exhibit, I would guess that this one is the most structurally sound. But probably the most difficult to modify if you gained a couple of pounds. Although I think Stéphanie Lévesque should try to get someone from Mon Plan Rona to wear it as a publicity stunt.
Grand Design By Isabel Vinuela
This, I think is the weakest of all 16 dresses. Made out of canvas its “twist” is that the drawing and the stickers are supposed to be part of it as well. More of a coat than a dress, it’s kind of difficult to pick out from the drawing, which while obviously the intention, doesn’t make it any better in my eyes. It’s not like I’m going to be walking around wearing the drawing when I put on the dress (or coat).
Wall tag explaining how to interact with Grand Design By Isabel Vinuela
Sorry that my picture is so blurry.
I can’t quite accept that the backdrop for a dress is as important (or even more so) than the actual dress.
Now those are some shoulder pads I can really get into… Or if you would prefer less colloquial phrasing, I get a big kick out of this dress as well. Although I’m not certain I would ever be invited someplace where it would be formal enough to wear. And while I would venture a guess that most of the pieces that were used to make it came from sports cars, it is not a “sporty” outfit in the least.
Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
Ms. Bérubé appears to have turned this concept of transforming old car parts (or more precisely old car seats) into fashion accessories fulltime. Although I think she should exhibit her work at the auto show.
Detail from Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
I can’t imagine that a car tire as a corset or belt would be all that comfortable, however choosing it was an inspired choice. Clearly marking the difference between bottom and top, while at the same time hitting you upside the face with where the materials used to make the dress came from. Without the tire, it would be like some sort of overwrought futuristic ball gown suitable for the cover of a Harlequin Romance about a 22nd century debutante.
Although now that I have gone to the Harlequin Romance website, I have discovered that in fact they do not publish any science fiction, but that they do have a series called Harlequin NASCAR (The rush of the race car circuit; the thrill of falling in love®.) So maybe I should change the lines above to read something like “with the tire it is perfect as the ballgown of Dr. Nicole Foster, the heroine of Running Wide Open.
Naw, not even close.
Detail from Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
And I’m also not certain what to make of the wires…
Pillbox Dress By Marie Line
Surprisingly, this dress is badly translated. In French it is called “Ordonnance Royale” a pun on the multiple definitions of the word ordonnance. A) a prescription and B) a law. Since it is made up of melted down plastic pill containers and made to look like a ballgown. I think I would have called it something like Royal Script, playing off the multiple definitions of the word script, ne of which is “prescription.” But nobody asked me.
And while it does look like it would be suitable for a princess, I would hate to ask Kate Middleton to have to wear it. As I don’t think melted plastic is the most malleable of materials and according to the tag beside the dress, it weighs in at a little more than 200 pounds.
Detail from Pillbox Dress By Marie LineScanty Attire By Jeanne Cirume
I’m not sure what to make of this one. Despite using Styrofoam from packaging for the socks and the collar it is mainly made out of what they call a “vacuum bag” but is actually a Madvac Collector Bag. You know one of those little four wheeled buggies with a vacuum tube that looks like an elephant’s trunk that sucks up the garbage from the sidewalk? Well, the bag that is used to collect the trash was used to make this dress.
Bird's Nest made from Margie Gillis' hair from 1984
As I’ve mentioned before, there are signed objects from Quebecois vedettes displayed alongside the dresses. Some have obvious connections, some less so. This is one of the more obvious connections. While Margie Gillis has cut her hair (for a very long time she didn’t) this bird’s next comes from the period when she wasn’t cutting it. At the Biosphere they have a very nice story explaining how it came to be.
The reason it is an obvious connection is that the nest is displayed next to this dress.
Hairdress By Roxane Cheibes and Amélie Bruneau Longpré
It can’t be that comfortable to wear even if they attached the hair to a nylon hairstyling cape, I also would love to know how the hair was attached, colored and how much hairspray was used to keep the hair in place. And while it looks really cool, I’m not entirely convinced that hair counts ass garbage.
It also can serve as an example of how unreligious Quebecois culture has become. As recently as fifty years ago, a hairdress would have been worn by someone feeling particularly guilty about some thing (or things). But this exhibit makes no mention or reference in any way shape or form to the religious nature of wearing hair. Which is apparently still done by Carmelites.
Rear view of Hairdress By Roxane Cheibes and Amélie Bruneau LongpréDetails of Chapter Ten: Words & Wonder By Geneviève Oligny
Another impractical dress, especially since it is lit from within. You can see it in full here. I do not know, but I would imagine that this dress was possibly responsible for the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) and as with the hairdress, I’m not convinced that books qualify as garbage material.
That all being said, an upskirt shot of Chapter Ten is a very abstract thing.
Details of Chapter Ten: Words & Wonder By Geneviève Oligny
I’ve been meaning to write this one for a fairly long time, since August actually. But seeing as how I took 104 pictures, getting them all organized, uploaded and labelled seemed like a daunting task, so I did what anybody else would do, I put it off. Until today. If you click through to see all the pictures, it’s going to take a while to load, sorry in advance.
Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant and Bullet Dress By Geneviève Dumas and Geneviève Flageol
In short, since the Biosphere is an “Environment Museum” it only makes sense that they mount exhibits designed to promote environmental awareness. And some bright wag decided to commission 16 clothing designers (I think all women) to create dresses using refuse material.
Now while I am an environmentally aware person and keep a fairly sustainable lifestyle, I’m not big on preaching about it. As a consequence what really struck me about this exhibit was not its Green-ness, but that while everyone was going gaga over the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal here was a truly original fashion exhibit that was not getting any press anywhere.
Light Switch Wall Plate autographed by David Suzuki
And while I might not proselytize about sustainability, like certain people, I do champion the underdog and Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere is definitely underdog material if there ever was. The museum probably counts the number of daily visitors in the high two figures, has some breathtaking views of Montreal and is a charter member of the Cult of Bucky. What more do you need?
Anyhows, while I do not consider myself a fashionista, nor an authority on fabrics and style, instead of viewing these as liabilities I figured (like usual) that instead, if I approached this as a learning opportunity it shouldn’t be a hindrance to writing about it and taking some pictures. Right?
Mermaid Skin By Geneviève Bouchard
To me it was more of a compare and contrast situation. While it seemed like everyone and their mother was raving about how original and inventive M. Gaultier’s dresses were, here were some truly original and inventive dresses that weren’t getting any attention whatsoever. And while I’m certain that at some point M. Gaultier did in fact actually touch the dresses on exhibit that bore his name, I’m fairly convinced that he didn’t actually do much (if any) of the sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery or any of the other tasks involved in making the dresses.
Whereas even without doing serious research, I’d bet my bottom dollar that each and everyone of the designers who made the “Outfits from a New Era” was significantly involved in the actual fabrication of their dresses. And while I am all for the artist-as-thinker-and-not-necessarily-creator concept (see Andy Warhol’s Red Self-Portraits One, Two, Three, Four, Five , Six, Seven and Eight for a fascinating insight into the attribution of artwork)
Detail from Dress the Part By Isabelle Bérubé
If I’m going to make one complaint (actually as I’m less than halfway through, I imagine that there will be other complaints, let’s just call this one the first. Which is not to say or suggest that the exhibit is bad, just that there is always room for improvement). This contemporary fad, or what I hope is a fad, for Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) drives me up a wall. In general when it comes to art/culture/things to look at or watch, you have two choices if you’re indoors; A white cube or a black box.
White Cubes tend toward being bright and Black Boxes (as you might expect) tend to be dark. Since they are dark, the Black Boxes use highly focused spotlights to draw your attention to stuff that the exhibition designers want you to look at. In contrast to the White Cube where, for the most part, your eye is free to roam where you wish. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I can’t stand exhibits that are housed in Black Boxes. And Outfits from a New Era is, unfortunately in a Black Box, pity.
I don’t know if it is because my eyes don’t react well to large contrasts in brightness, or if because I’m in darkness for the most part I don’t get the nuances of color as well as I would if it were brighter, or if it has something to do with my glasses. But whatever it is, Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) bugs the heck out of me.
I think you can see what I mean by a lot of nuance being missed because of the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) in the picture above. Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin is a light, wispy and diaphanous something or other that to my mind would be appropriate in a boudoir or a pornographic film shoot. Apparently made from 2,500 light bulbs and 66 meters of stripped copper wire.
Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin
One of those garments that professes to show more than it hides, in French it is called “le grand courant lumineux” or in a hackneyed translation “the great current of light,” it was initially called “Le grand souffle” which has more to do with breath and wind than electricity. Which gives a much better idea of the “wispy and diaphanous something or other nature” of the garment.
Detail from Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin
You can see better detail pictures here> I’m fairly certain that it doesn’t light up or get illuminated from within. But beyond the wispy nature of it, I’m not quite certain what to make of it. While the use of the light-bulbs is alright, there isn’t really anything in it beyond the use of non-traditional materials that pushes any boundaries. And given what has been already done with LEDs and clothing, I’m inclined to think that’s it’s kind of like the clothes your sister’s friend in high school wore. Something designed to make her look good, not making any real statements and not that different from what everyone else was wearing.
This little frock caught my eye, although I don’t know if it was because it’s black, and as you know, black is the new black. Or if it was because it was strapless and since I am not y-chromosome challenged, bare shoulders always make me shiver slightly, even during the summer, even on a faceless mannequin. Or what. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.
Detail from Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant
Anyhows, this was the first one, where I thought to myself: “I’m not so certain that they actually used stuff from the garbage to make this…” Seeing as how it is made from those plastic bags you take with you when you’re walking your dog and you’re playing State Farm and being a good neighbor and picking up after your dog and everything.
None the less, I like how it incorporates the paw print motif from the bags, is over the knee and has some sort of petticoat action happening. Kind of like being post-modern and anti-nostalgic at the same time.
Detail from Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant
Although I’m not certain I want to know what’s in the bag…
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.
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…
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.
When I first read this review in the New York Times last year, I said to myself, “Maybe, just perhaps I should go to London, it sounds like a pretty kick-ass exhibit.” But then life got in the way, I put the idea on the back burner and almost forgot about it.
But everything works, if you let it. And it wasn’t but a couple of months later that I discovered that the exhibit, Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1900-1929 was going to be in Quebec City this summer. Sweet! While it is only a five hour plane ride from Montreal to London, it is only a three hour car ride from Montreal to Quebec City. Or in other words 40% shorter, and there’s room to stretch, and the food is better.
One problem, while I don’t know how to fly, buying a plane ticket isn’t too complicated. But as I also don’t know how to drive, trying to find a sucker someone extremely kind, nice and generous who would drive me and my sorry ass down river so I could see a bunch of ballet costumes that were almost a hundred years old did almost prove to be an insurmountable obstacle.
In the interim this review came out in Le Devoir (unfortunately behind a paywall) where Catherine Lalonde wrote « Demeure donc une impression de rendez-vous manqué. » Or if you prefer, “One gets a sense of missed opportunity.” Which almost put a kibosh on my desires. But thankfully I am pigheaded, persistent, and kinda realize that my cultural connections are much more aligned with the New York Times than they are with Le Devoir. So on August 29, I got chauffeured down the 20, and boy am I glad I got so lucky.
That’s one of the things I didn’t like about the Le Devoir review, given that a hard copy review has serious space limitations to use more than 30% of the word count explaining the historical background is a decision I’m not quite sure I understand.
Now that we’re all on the same page, what made it across the ocean is a slightly smaller and modified of the exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum called Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1900-1929. Basically there was a whack of stuff added from the Bibliolthèque de la danse Vincent Warren and they cut some of the antecedents and maybe (my memory is a tad sketchy on this) some of the stuff that happened after he died. In Quebec there were nine sections in three galleries, in England there were (I think) two more sections, and I don’t know how many more galleries.
To cut to the chase, what got me were the costumes
Conception : Léon Bakst (1866-1924), costume d’une jeune grecque pour Narcisse, 1911, coton peint, v&a : s.610&a-1980 Costume for a Young Greek from Narcisse, by Léon Bakst. Cotton and paint. Photo courtesy Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
Now a) I’m used to seeing my ballet from the cheap seats and b) most of the dance performances that I see these days are not ballet. So being able to get this close to them and see them from all sides was surprisingly quite a thrill. The pictures don’t do them justice.
Léon Bakst (1866-1924), Costume de Mariuccia pour Les Femmes De Bonne Humeur, Années 1920, Satin et Appliques, V&A: S.148-1985 Léon Bakst, Costume for Mariuccia for Les Femmes De Bonne Humeur, 1920s , Satin and Appliques. Photo courtesy of Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
I was also fascinated by this piece of psychedelia, made more than 30 years before the invention of the word psychedelic.
Unfortunately, as I was initially planning on just enjoying the exhibit, and not writing about it, I didn’t take a single note, and as you can see am having to rely on pictures from other sources. However after going through the entire show I did ask a couple of questions of Jean-Pierre Labiau, curator of the exhibition, and he was quite gracious and generous with his time. I was also able to score one of the visitor’s booklets that they gave everyone, so I don’t quite sound so foolish.
They also gave everyone an audio guide, which only contained music. As M. Labiau pointed out there isn’t an awful lot of classical ballet in Quebec City and I guess that they wanted everyone to be able to hear the music that would have accompanied the performances. I was able to avoid the difficulties Ms. Lalonde had, by just saying “thanks, but no thanks,” and walking around the exhibit without headphones.
Also, I’m not sure if I was the one setting up the exhibit, that I would have done it thematically. Given how didactic it was (sorry about my consistent overuse and repetition of the word didactic, but I’m going through a phase. Not in this article specifically, but in life and in general I’m using it way too much).
I think, arranging it chronologically might have helped a bit, but no one thought to ask me. And then another thought that occurred to me on the ride back was that while being able to see the Picasso, Matisse and Braque designed costumes was pretty cool, artists today, or make that contemporary Quebecois artists who paint, don’t do work in textile.
I don’t know if this is a good thing – keeping your artistic output focused always helps in getting recognition – but it was kind of cool. It would be interesting to see someone like Adad Hannah, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Shary Boyle or Isabelle Hayeur design ballet (or theatre) costumes or more generally work with fabric.
And being able to see the sketches by Picasso, Matisse and Braque (and lots of others as well – heck I don’t think I have ever been that close to anything Coco Channel touched ever before (or will be ever again) in my life.
And this too was interesting, virtual reality before they invented computers, or make believe you were Diaghilev in your very own home.
And as this was my first visit to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, it struck me as being much smaller than I imagined, at some point I’m going to have to try to sucker convince or bribe someone to go back.
And then finally if you want to read someone else who is much more eloquent than I am on the exhibit, you should take a gander at Andrew O’Hagan’s review from the Guardian.
