Category Archives: Review

Art, Ramble, Rave, Review, Visual Art

Bettina Forget’s One Random Year

Howdy!

My good friend Bettina Forget spent a good chunk of 2011 documenting her life – I only figured it would be fair to view her documentation. As a consequence, I think I am part of a small and select group of people who have seen all six hours, plus of it.


Advertisement for Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video

Allow me to back up slightly, I believe that as one of her 2010 Christmas gifts, she got a flip camera. [Edit: Actually, she bought herself a Sanyo Exacti earlier in 2010] One of those tiny and incredibly easy to use video cameras that are almost the size of a cigarette lighter. Maybe not as a consequence, but as a result of having the video camera she decided to film one minute of every day for the entire year. Unfortunately, at the end of November, it broke. But fortunately she had an iPhone so she was able to still film stuff, until she got a new camera in the middle of December.

Now there are scads and scads of people who film, or otherwise document themselves or their world on a daily basis (click here for a selection or here for more) but what set Bettina’s apart from the others – or at least made it different to me – was that she was doing this in order to find if there was some sort of narrative thread in her life.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame December 2
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame December 2

I think that the end of 2010 might have been rough for Bettina. She never told me explicitly, but I’m always trying to connect the dots and from my perspective, asking if there is, and then looking for a narrative thread is indicative of some basic questions on why and what is happening in one’s life. Either that, or she got some kind of book deal to fictionalize her life, or possibly needed some reason to learn how to use iMovie or some other video editing software.

As the year progressed she made short videos of each month. Which kind of gave an advance preview of what the finished project would look like (see below for all of them). I was (and am still) on her mailing list, so there were a bunch of times when I realized that it was a new month and as well as remembering that I had to pay rent, I also wondered what Bettina had been up to and what that month’s video would look like. More specifically, how many places would I recognize.

Beyond the folks who look to document stuff daily, there is also a subsection of the arts that invests itself in endurance film projects. For the most part, I try and avoid them. If I am going to do some sort of endurance art, I’m much more likely to choose something aural . But I don’t know if there has been that much cross-over between the daily documentalists and the extreme film folk. Or actually, the type of crossover that would result in One Random Year. Because the documentalists try to make their videos kind of short, you know condense 20 years into 5 minutes.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame October 9
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame October 9

Condensing one year into six hours kind of strikes me as being neither fish nor fowl. Anyhows, this just serves as a long winded way to give up some background before we get down to the nitty-gritty of trying to find that narrative thread.

For those of you that aren’t quite certain (the non-English literature majors, the folk whose second (or third) language is English, etc) a narrative is “an account, report, or story, as of events, experiences, etc.” Then a narrative thread would be a sequence of narratives. So no matter how hard she tried there is no way that her life doesn’t have a narrative. If only as a series of sentences, first I did this, then I did this, then I did this, etc.

But the harder thing is to try to make that narrative thread, that sequence of “events, experiences, etc” into some cohesive whole that not only makes sense but can also resonate with other people. Make it larger, more important and significant than just a series of one minute videos strung together. This is where I had an inside advantage. Since I am about as far from a complete stranger to Bettina as you can get, I think there were only something like four days where I was not able to recognize something, someone or alternatively understand what was happening in the whole video. Heck I was actually involved in something like nine of them, either as a subject or being there while she filmed.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame June 26
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame June 26
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame February 8
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame February 8

While I was watching, I was scrawling all sorts of notes about where the shot was filmed, whether it was static or the camera moved, who was in it, if I has seen a similar shot and all sorts of other things like that. But what I ultimately found most interesting was how when someone sat down to watch it with me, how it was almost de rigeur to have a conversation. Not necessarily about what was on the screen and being shown. But sometimes on a tangential topic. Also, Bettina had set up the gallery as a close approximation of her living room, and I found that because of the video I ended up concentrating a lot more on the paintings on the wall than I would have otherwise.

I‘m certain there are scads of people with multiple PhD.s who have come up with some multisyllabic words to describe the effect. But since I don’t read that kind of trash, it’s obvious I’m going to have to try to reinvent the wheel, and I’d call it something like the Muzak effect.

Back when I was a child there were a bunch of companies that I hated to my core. One of them being the Muzak Corp. The idea of something being made to occupy just a part of your brain with background music while you did other more important things was infuriating to me. I thought (and still do think) that when I listen to music it should kind of be front and center in my consciousness.

Well, thanks to Muzak, there actually is now a style of music called Ambient. Having some useless melody noodling around in the background has now become mandatory in North America. Despite my dislike, it appears that they won.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame March 6
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame March 6

Anyhows, it appears that there is the same effect in film. For the most part One Random Year is a series of static shots (by my count there were only 17 times when the camera moved). Ambient film, as with ambient music, almost demands that it be talked over. While I can recognize the effect, I’m not entirely certain that I appreciate it. I much prefer to concentrate on what I am looking at, and for that matter hearing, tasting, smelling or touching, as well.

That all being said, I seem to be in the minority. During the six-plus hours I was watching the video, 16 other people came in, wandered around and left. They all seemed quite content to let it fade into the background. For the most part they hung around for about a minute or two (although there were two separate couples, that hung around long enough to experience more than a week of Bettina’s life). All of them were talking or chatting, and when Bettina came and watched a bit with me (or her friend Anne-Marie) the need to talk seemed ever present.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame December 26
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame December 26

As I was taking notes (all good art critics always take notes, right?) it quickly became similar to a game of concentration. Not only did I want to try to recognize as much of Bettina’s life as possible, but make note when she redid something a second time or more.

I think that might have come from this incessant need to identify the narrative thread. After all, if you do something a bunch of times, it’s got to mean something, right? Well, by my count (yes, I know, sketchy at best) there were 21 times when she filmed herself making art in 2011. There were 18 vernissages, 12 restaurants, 11 days doing something astronomical, eight times at CKUT, five times working on her laptop at home, four views of her apartment window (although there were a lot of different shots of her apartment and some of other windows in her apartment as well), four of the Parc avenue bus, three of her washing dishes, and two of the same tree.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame May 17
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame May 17

I‘ll leave it up to you to decide if that means that Bettina spent about a quarter of her year doing the same sort of things (those repetitions add up to 88 days or about 24% of the year) or if it means that Bettina likes making art about the stars while eating out at CKUT, or something else. Also an awful lot of it is filmed (as you would expect) in and around the Belgo building, where she has her studio and Parc and Laurier, where she lives.

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame April 12
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame April 12

But this is where the documentalism kind of breaks down. Because she didn’t film the same thing everyday, it’s very easy to place more significance on what was filmed than what wasn’t. But just because a particular part of her day was filmed does not mean that that part was the most significant part of her day. In fact I would venture a guess that for the most part, the things that were filmed were rather mundane.

However, there were two days, June 8 and June 15 which stick out like sore thumbs. One those two days, she did not document something that she had done that day, but instead decided to create something specifically for One Random Year. On June 8, she is holding a game of Boggle and shaking the cubes that starts out spelling L-O-V-E and then with successive shakes disintegrates into a series of Es and Os.

This in and of itself wouldn’t stick out so much, as it is only about one minute in a more than six hour film, if it hadn’t been for the video the following week. On June 15, we see the word “LOVE” painted on something white. Then slowly and very deliberately, Bettina uses a large brush with white paint to obliterate the word and make it disappear. The combination of the two of them, so close to each other was kind of like a flashing light with a loud siren on top of a firetruck to me. Absolutely every other segment in the film is documentary in nature. Recording something that she did. These are the only two days where she filmed (I think) she thought. When I asked her if June 15 had been her anniversary, she said “no.”

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame June 15
Bettina Forget's One Random Year Still Frame June 15

I should also make mention of how the gallery was set up. There was a couch some plants, a second chair (I think) the TV, some of Bettina’s paintings on the wall behind the TV and along the two walls perpendicular to the TV were six, individual month long calendars, each with a still frame from that day’s video. I’m not sure if the calendars added anything to the show, other than making it appear to be more installation-like.

Overall, One Random Year was a great experience, and highly worthwhile. It makes it as obvious as the nose on my face that it is impossible to have an abstract structure to one’s life (or at least that would be what I would consider the opposite of the narrative thread to a life), but the next time around it would be interesting to see the results in a non-chronological order. Maybe stringing them together by color, content, character or something else. There are an infinite number of ways to tell a story. While I’m a big fan engaging the artist, I’m an even bigger fan of engaging the viewer. But I’m not certain that, despite having a video camera, I’m going to start filming a minute of my day, each and every day for the next 365 days.


Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for January

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for February

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for March

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for April

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for May

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for June

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for July

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for August

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for September

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for October

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for November

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Video for December

Bettina Forget's One Random Year Short Greatest Hits Video
Dance, Montréal, Performance, Ramble, Review

Je Suis Un Autre by Catherine Gaudet with Dany Desjardins and Caroline Gravel

Howdy!

Last month I went to La Chapelle to see Je Suis Un Autre by Catherine Gaudet with Dany Desjardins and Caroline Gravel. According to the press fluff that accompanied the show (and the program) Ms. Gaudet was attempting to show the multiplicity of beings along with the ambiguity that is hidden under the surface (my bastard translation of “cherche à mettre à jour la multiplicité et l’ambiguïté de l’être qui se cachent sous leur vernis.”

First off, there seems to be some history behind the concept of “Je Suis Un Autre.” Doing a simple Google search, first tosses up something written by Arthur Rimbaud that is written way to academically for me to even be able to concentrate on it for more than 30 seconds.

By the way, for the squareheads in the house, “Je suis un autre.” Translates as “I am another.” And once you sink your teeth into that concept you can keep running for miles and miles if you so desire. I don’t desire. I’m a big fan of Satchel Paige‘s fifth rule for staying young, so feel free to do with the concept of The Other as you see fit.

But then a little further down on the Google results page I came across this doozy.

I don’t think the Zug Im Veins song has anything to do with anything at all, but can serve as a kind of touchstone about the theory behind Quebecois dance. For the most part, from where I’ve been sitting, they seem to presume that they exist in some kind of bubble. More frequently, the choreographers just explain what they are trying to do and how they accomplished it. Very rarely will you hear or read about where some creation came from. The sources of inspiration, the antecedents, the parallels. Or if they are there and I am just missing them, would someone please whack me upside the head and point them out to me next time? Please and thank you.

Because there is a song by Georges Moustaki which does have everything to do with the performance by Dany Desjardins and Caroline Gravel

Je suis un débutant aux tempes qui blanchissent
Un beatnick vieillissant patriarche novice
Jardinier libertin aux goûts d’aventurier
Voyageur immobile et rêveur éveillé

Je suis de ces lézards qui naissent fatigués
Un optimiste amer un pessimiste gai
Un homme d’aujourd’hui à la barbe d’apôtre
Je peux être tout ça pourtant je suis un autre

Je suis toi je suis moi je suis qui me ressemble
Et je ressemble à ceux qui font la route ensemble
Pour chercher quelque chose et pour changer la vie
Plutôt que de mourir d’un rêve inassouvi

Avec eux je m’en vais partout où le vent souffle
Partout où c’est la fête et partout où l’on souffre
Mais lorsque je m’endors au creux des herbes hautes
Je me retrouve seul et je me sens un autre

Je suis venu ce soir la guitare à mon cou
Partager mes chansons et rêver avec vous
Crier d’une voix sourde toutes mes révoltes
Et parler de mes peines d’un air désinvolte

J’ai laissé au vestiaire un reste de pudeur
Pour mieux me découvrir devant les projecteurs
Et chanter les amours qui sont un peu les vôtres
Qui sont les miennes même si je suis un autre

Which when dumped into Google Translate becomes

I am a beginner at the temples that whiten
A beatnik aging patriarch novice
Gardener libertine tastes of adventure
Stationary traveler and daydreamer

I’m one of those lizards that are born tired
An optimistic pessimist bitter gay one
A modern man with the beard of an apostle
I can be all that I am yet another

I am you I am who I like me
And I like those who make the journey together
To search for something and to change lives
Rather than dying of a dream unfulfilled

With them I go wherever the wind blows
Wherever the party and everywhere where people suffer
But when I fall asleep in the hollow of grass
I find myself alone and I feel another

I have come tonight to the guitar around my neck
Share my songs and dream with you
Shouting in a hoarse voice all my rebellion
And talk about my troubles with an air of casual

I left the locker room a remnant of shame
To better find me in front projectors
Sing and the loves that are a bit yours
Which are mine even if I am another

Sorry, but they haven’t quite figured out how to do machine translations that rhyme.

Anyhows this is just a very long winded way of saying that Ms. Gaudet writes in the program (and in the press fluff that accompanied the show) “…je suis une zone ambiguë et floue, je suis tout et son contraire. Je suis végétal, animal, matière en devenir.” (for the blokes: I am fluid and ambiguous, I am everything and its opposite. I am vegetable, animal, stuff not yet made.) Which if you don’t look too closely is pretty much the same gosh darn thing that M. Moustaki sings (sorry that I wasn’t able to find a copy of the song). I (and by extension the other members of the audience) shouldn’t be having to do research to figure out where a performance is coming from. Heck, maybe even next time, they can figure out some way to incorporate the song into the performance.

Speak of performing, I should at some point get around to talking about it, dontcha think? Judging from the promo videos

and

And how they are not at all related to anything I remember seeing, my guess would be that this was not an easy show to get to stage, and when it is performed at the OFFTA later this year it’s going to be still different.

For the most part, I will take the harsh, rude, nasty and unkind side and say that I don’t think Ms. Gaudet succeeded in showing how bodies react when freed from feelings, emotions and consequences. Which isn’t to say Je Suis Un Autre was a bad performance, quite the contrary. A full month after the fact and I still get all warm and fuzzy when thinking about it. Ms. Gravel and M. Desjardins were extremely tight (I don’t know what it is but when when I see people jumping up and down at the same time and only hear one thump every time they land I get goosebumps on my arms, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I scrawl in really big letters on my notepad “OMG! They’re AWESOME!!!!” I think it might have something to do with my inability to jump up and down and make only one thump when I land) and there were a bunch, not quite a plethora, but a significant number of tableaus that I thought were quite nice.

My take on the piece is kind of like when I tried to make crab cakes. For some reason, I forgot to strain the (frozen) crab meat. As a consequence when I went to fry the mixture and it ended up being more like a mash than a cake. Everyone, without exception, told me it was delicious and scrumptious. But to me it wasn’t crab cake, it was fried crab mash. Sometimes in a performance you got good dancers doing bad moves precisely. Other times you might have bad dancers doing great moves badly. Then there are still times when you have great dancers doing great moves precisely. That was the case here. The only fault I would find is in the explanation of the moves. Which was like me trying to pass off my mash as cakes. Trying to pass off the movements as giving some concept of “other” just did not come through in any way, shape or form. Even if it wasn’t Rimbaud’s or Moustaki’s concept of the other.

But thankfully there’s this guy Rick Allison.

He also wrote a song called “Je Suis Un Autre.” But his take on being an other, was more pedestrian and simple. In the song he basically outs himself as a liar. While I would not go so far as to call Ms. Gaudet a liar, I do think that she might have worn some blinders while working on the piece that prevented her from seeing it from a distance.

Ms. Gaudet and Fred Gravel, the lighting designer for the show, are members of what I would call a loose collective of choreographers and dancers, 2e Porte à Gauche. From where I sit at their performances, they seem to me to be similar to the cool kids in high school. No matter what they do, everyone thinks it’s amazing and wonderful. Their parties are always the most popular, and your mom always asks you why you can’t be more like them.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a negative or bad review of something done by one of the members of the 2e Porte à Gauche, unless it was one I had written myself. Given the amount of dance that happens here in Montreal, it seems to me that they get an inordinate amount of press (specifically covers on Voir). But then again, I have not done any systematic study, and as I am fond of saying, I have been wrong in the past, and I will be wrong in the future.

So, what’s the upshot of all of this? I dunno. Since Je Suis Un Autre will be performed as part of this year’s OffTA, I’d strongly suggest going to see it. But I also have some sinking suspicion that the performance there is going to be very different from the performance I saw last month. Which means you gotta have faith in M. Desjardins’ and Ms. Gravel’s ability to dance, since if Ms. Gaudet is going to create some kind of new performance each time until she gets it right, and just reuse the name then I’m not really going to have any confidence in what she calls it.

Kind of like Ella’s version of Mack the Knife, where she forgets the lyrics. Yes, the song is a great song, but it is her performance of the song that is absofuckinglutely incredible. And just to hammer home the point; can you name the person who translated the Kurt Weill’s lyrics into English? When you have great performers, just about anything they do is wonderful. It doesn’t matter what the title is, nor the theory behind it.

Didn’t think so.

Art, Montréal, Québec, Ramble, Rant, Rave, Review, Sculpture, Visual Art

Valérie Blass, Ghada Amer and Wangechi Mutu at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

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Howdy!

I’m not quite certain what to think. Nor how to think. Do I approach each show separately? Or do I group Valérie Blass, Ghada Amer and Wangechi Mutu all together and do just one review? If I was good, I think I would have preferred to have done separate reviews for each one. But since I’m not, I’m going to group them all together, just like the museum did.

First order of business; did you know that in between January 8, 2006 and November 5, 2008, 1,032 days, or about two months short of three years, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal did not have a single solo exhibition by a woman? I can’t help but thinking that this set of three solo shows by women was somehow organized to make up for that. But then again it has been over three years, maybe it just worked out that they happened to schedule three solo shows by women all at the same time by coincidence.

Second order of business; juxtaposing a Quebecois artist with limited international exposure up against two internationally known artists can and does have a way of biting you in the ass.

Third order of business; I don’t know if it is due to insecurity, incompetence or insomething else. But I would bet dollars to doughnuts with anyone who is interested, that I am the only person writing about art exhibits at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal who is also a member of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal’s foundation. As a consequence I was quite surprised to find out that I was not invited to neither the press conference nor the vernissage for the latest exhibit they mounted, La Question de l’abstraction. Insecurity, because I get the distinct impression that my series of humorous rhymes about the Triennale went over like a lead balloon. Incompetence, because if you can’t manage to invite the people who give you money without being asked there is something seriously wrong. I will wait with baited breath to see what happens at the end of May for the Zoo exhibit.

But all of that is neither here, nor there when it comes to talking about the art of Valérie Blass, Ghada Amer and Wangechi Mutu. More along the lines of background material, so that you know where my thoughts are coming from as I type this. To get the easy stuff out of the way first. I’ve never been much of a fan of Valérie Blass’ work and I had never heard of Ghada Amer and Wangechi Mutu before seeing their work at the museum. After seeing the shows I still wasn’t much of a fan of Valérie Blass’ work but I now was familiar with the work of Ghada Amer and Wangechi Mutu.

If I were to try and sum up each artist’s work in a line. I’d say that Ghada Amer sews images on to canvas. Wangechi Mutu scares the living bejeezus out of me. And Valérie Blass make three dimensional collages. For what it is worth, it is actually fairly easy to see the common line that links the work of all three artists. It’s spelled C-O-L-L-A-G-E. But you’d figure that the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal wouldn’t be as simplistic to group three artists just because they were women who combined things that they found into new assemblages, would you?

But anytime you juxtapose art, there’s bound to be some joker who tries to link everything, no matter how tenuous that link is. I guess I’m that joker, today. One way to avoid things like that in the future would be to have three separate openings for the three separate shows. Something like one every week or month probably would be sufficient to make each of the shows by the artists separate in the mind of the public. But then again, I could be wrong, and be the only person in the entire universe who was unable to think of the exhibits as being unlinked. Oh well.

So now I think it’s time to get down to brass tacks. So that no one gets their nose out of joint, I’m going to approach each artist’s section of the show separately, before trying to link them together in a more formal and structured manner (if I can) and I’m going to do them in alphabetical order by their first name. Everyone knows that a last name is a social residue left over from when society was not only patriarchal and patrilinear, but also run by jerks and assholes. I’m also not going to give any background on the artists. If you are at all interested in that, there are some mighty fine catalogues that the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal has published which in and around the multisyllabic words give you a good idea of where each of the artists came from. Or you can use Google.

Ghada Amer. The first time I saw Ms. Amer’s work, it looked extremely delicate, not quite lace-like, not quite like cotton candy on canvas, not quite like teased hair. But like the middle section of a Venn diagram of the three. From a distance, it wasn’t easy to tell what materials she was using and for the most part everything seemed pretty abstract.

The second time I saw Ms. Amer’s work, I realized that the first time I had been very wrong and must have obviously been smoking some crack that was stronger than I was used to, in order to have thought her work was delicate. There’s a quote going around the internet that’s being attributed to Betty White, but probably wasn’t said by her, nonetheless it makes a point. “Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding” Ms. Amer’s work is like that vagina, it’s been pounded. Pounded in order to be created, pounded in order to be looked at, and pounded in order to be understood.

Betty White on balls and vaginas.
Betty White on balls and vaginas.

Let’s start with the easiest first. In order to make her work, I believe that Ms. Amer has either got to be using some kind of super industrial sewing machine, or an awl that could also double as an ice pick. While the holes she punches in the canvases aren’t necessarily large in and of themselves, they are all over the place and way more than it would take to fill the Albert Hall. She then threads some thread (duh!) through the holes.

The reason you need to pound in order to look at her work – and in case you hadn’t figured it out I’m using the word “pound” as a synonym for “work hard” – is that there is an awful lot of threading going on in each individual piece.

Installation shot of Ghada Amer exhibit at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.
Installation shot of Ghada Amer exhibit at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.

And you have to work hard when looking at her work, because behind just about every bit of thread is a second set of images, mostly copied from mainstream culture. Giving all sorts of fodder for the Phd’s in the house to go wild over layering and contrast provided by the two very separate images, ideas and thoughts.

There’s also a large egg shaped object made out of some type of plastic called 100 words of love

Ghada Amer, 100 Words of Love, picture courtesy Art Hag
Ghada Amer, 100 Words of Love, picture courtesy Art Hag

Which basically takes this idea translates it into Arabic and makes it three dimensional. When I saw it for the second time I spent way too long going over it looking for a seam or a seal or something to indicate how it was joined together, but couldn’t find one. Personally, I think that while it’s a pretty enough object and a nice enough sentiment, something got lost in translation (sorry, I couldn’t help myself there).

Wangechi Mutu is apparently known mostly for her collages. But I would never have known it in a million years if I based it on my impressions on what she’s got up at the museum. And while I’m certain that there were some collages on the walls of the museum, somewhere, they got completely wiped from whatever little memory I had of the exhibit because there are five (or six, depending on what you call art) pieces there, that just completely and utterly blow anything and everything else out of the water, blow them out of the way, and blow my mind.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the heck they are called, because I was left so slack jawed at them, that I completely forgot to take notes and incorrectly presumed that the museum would be responsible enough to make some reference to them in the catalogue. But nope, no such luck there. If all you were to do was to read the catalogue for Ms. Mutu’s show you’d get the idea that there was some completely different type of exhibit that happened. While I recognize that it is a document of and about the exhibit, it’s like an entirely separate universe.

The catalogue is all brightness and light, big on the feminist theories and post colonialism, using two-bit words like they’re going out of style. Whereas the exhibit itself is darkness and brooding, somewhat threatening (I told you it scared the living bejeezus out of me) very spooky and completely (sorry about the two-bit word) visceral. Kind of like having someone throw a bag over your head and then start beating you with a bag of oranges. Not quite, but close enough.

Most of the space for Ms. Mutu’s work has walls that are covered in brown felt, which makes for a very somber environment. Then after walking around I came across what I’m calling The Thrones.

Installation shot from Wangechi Mutu's exhibit at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.
Installation shot from Wangechi Mutu's exhibit at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.

Now that I’m looking at the picture closer, they don’t look half as intimidating as they do in real life. The feet are really pointy, and someone could easily lose an eye if they were careless. They towered over me not like a Goliath, but more like a very angry sasquatch, or Dr Honorious, or Dr. Maximus from the original Planet of the Apes films. I have no idea if they were supposed to make me feel weak, insignificant and beholden, but they did. And even weirder, was the fact that I found it really hard to look at them straight on.

Once I had those kind of emotions running around inside me, there really wasn’t any holding back. Over on the other side of the gallery were a bunch of wine bottles suspended upside down from string over some white plates. But the bottles themselves were full had some sort of contraption over their mouth that if I squinted slightly and used some free associative techniques could be considered to be like a miniature Hannibal Lecter mask.

They hid just enough, and enabled the wine to drip out very slowly. Slowly enough that I have made a note in my agenda to go back to see the show a third time just before it closes so that I can see just how much wine has been spilled.

Now it’s not like each bottle was lined up precisely over each plate, and in case you hadn’t realized it already, the wine was red. So without too too much of a stretch, if I’m already feeling weak, insignificant and beholden due to what I’m calling The Thrones, it wasn’t hard for what I’m calling The Bottles to get me feeling all vulnerable and guilty. What with the wine looking like blood, and the bottles being a replacement for some kind of lynching scene. I’m kind of annoyed with myself that I wasn’t able to get back to the museum before the show closed to see how much wine/blood was on the plates and the floor.

Then again, I could be very wrong and it all could be just some kind of elaborate physics experiment to measure the effects of gravity on colored water and openings a various diameters.

In between what I’m calling The Thrones and what I’m calling The Bottles was what I’m calling The Tinsel. And while it probably would be fairly easy to succumb to some kind of dark thoughts while experiencing it, it left me in wonder and awe, instead. Basically it’s a large cube like space that stretches down from the ceiling that has golden tinsel streamers as it’s walls. As a consequence, it is extremely easy to walk through the streamers and get inside the cube. Kind of like finding a place to stand behind the waterfall, or the latch to the hidden chamber.

On the flip side, it’s also real easy to assume that The Tinsel itself was some kind of wall or barrier. Especially since a lot of the other walls of the museum were covered in felt. And as a consequence not even think to wander into the inner sanctum – probably because of the lack of a creaking door.

There also was some awesome and amazing structure in front of the Moth Girls – the piece that the museum bought that probably was influential in enabling them to get the exhibit – that looked for the life of me like some sort of 150 year-old gnarled tree or something.

I’m not quite what to make of Moth Girls. It definitely is not half as terrifying or scary as what I’m calling The Bottles and what I’m calling The Thrones. Obviously requiring more contemplation than I was willing to give them (it’s tough to bring your pulse down when it’s going like a pneumatic drill) it also didn’t give off that “I found something!” sensation that what I’m calling The Tinsel did. And so while I’m certain that something significant can and will be made of it, I quite like the idea that it was made because Ms. Mutu’s apartment was infested with moths.

There were other pieces by Ms. Mutu in the show, and I’m kind of annoyed with myself that I can’t remember more about (or took a picture of) the piece with the naturalized animal, but the only memories I have of her collages are from the catalogue, and as I said that is a whole ‘nother thing.

Which brings us to Valérie Blass. I wish I could write something really witty cool and nice about her work. Sadly I can’t. And while I could write something witty, sarcastic and mean – which if done well would make for some entertaining reading – I really don’t have that in me either. Ms. Blass’ work not only leaves me “blah” it also makes me sad.

Installation shot of Valerie Blass' exhibit. Image courtesy of Valerie Blass and Facebook.
Installation shot of Valerie Blass' exhibit. Image courtesy of Valerie Blass and Facebook.

For the most part I believe down to the marrow of my bones that there are an awful lot of really amazing and super-duper artists here in Quebec (and by extension Canada). But recently the Google Art Project went global. And when it did, there was not a single Canadian Museum included (for comparison there were six in Australia, two in New Zealand, one in South Africa, and, and, and. Since the global launch the AGO has signed on – but still no Quebecois institution.

I can’t help but thinking that it has something to do with the fact that institutions like the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal are promoting and hyping artists like Ms. Blass. The contemporary equivalent of whomever did the copy of the Mona Lisa at the Prado. Significant and important, but only to a point, and not really doing anything original.

Gluing found objects together and then casting them in porcelain is all fine and dandy, and makes for some pretty shiny objects that you can look at while holding your chin and nodding your head slowly (I said I wasn’t going to write something witty, sarcastic and mean, sorry). Pretty and shiny objects, do not, by virtue of being pretty and shiny deserve to be exhibited in a museum.

Dans la pose très singulière qui est la mienne, by Valérie Blass. Image courtesy http://cuisineetc.wordpress.com/
Dans la pose très singulière qui est la mienne, by Valérie Blass. Image courtesy http://cuisineetc.wordpress.com/

I am 100% convinced that Ms. Blass’ technique is superlative. That her instincts are true, and that she makes really nice things. But if anyone out there can explain to me how Ms. Blass’ work affects them as emotionally as Ms. Amer’s or Ms. Mutu’s work did me, I’m all ears. While Ms. Blass’ pieces didn’t repulse me, they just left me feeling like I was walking through some high-end home furnishing store looking for something that would be perfect in the nook. (OK, I apologize, I obviously wanted to get mean and sarcastic – Ms. Blass, when you read this, it is not intended as a personal attack, it is intended as a way to keep any readers who are left at this point, entertained.)

Déjà donné, by Valérie Blass. Image courtesy http://cuisineetc.wordpress.com/
Déjà donné, by Valérie Blass. Image courtesy http://cuisineetc.wordpress.com/

When I see what I think are the equivalent of home furnishings in a major Canadian museum, I can kind of understand why Canadian (and by extension Quebecois) art doesn’t get the respect it deserves on an international level. Frustrating, yes. Annoying, yeah. But, if they don’t invite me to the press conferences after I write about the art they exhibit and the openings after I give them money to be a member, it’s obvious as the nose on my face that they and I don’t see things the same way. So what am I going to do?

This is almost up at 3,000 words now, I kind of get the impression that if there is still anyone reading this far in, they are a blood relation. So in order to tie everything up (I said I was going to try) and enable my family to get on with other things more important than reading what I write… It’s obvious that there is an extremely limited public who is interested in Quebecois art, and I betcha dollars to doughnuts, unfortunately, that it isn’t likely to change in the near future.

Pity.

Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Kolik, by Rainald Goetz, directed by Hubert Colas, acted by Thierry Raynaud

Howdy!

By my count there were approximately 120 (one hundred and twenty) shots. More than 4½ bottles of vodka. More than enough to kill someone. Back at the end of March I got to see Thierry Raynaud in a play called Kolik by Rainald Goetz, which was directed by Hubert Colas at Usine C. (That’s a mouthful!) That’s where the shots were. It’s a fairly sparse play, in short, M. Raynaud is sitting on stage in front of a table with a bunch of glasses on it. During the course of 70 minutes (an average if 1.7 shots/minute) he rants on and about a variety of subjects and in general portrays a very ugly drunk. But that’s not the half of it. That’s kind of like saying there are a couple of books at the library.

But before I go on, I probably should give some background, since in poking around on the internet, there isn’t too too much about Kolik, Mr. Goetz, Mr. Colas and Mr. Raynaud in English. As far as I can tell, Mr. Goetz is some kind of avant-garde, experimental German playwright. Mr. Colas appears to be a very influential and important director of plays in France and Mr. Raynaud a kick-ass French actor who has worked with Mr. Colas since 1994.

Back in the eighties he wrote a trilogy called “Kreig,” (War in English). In the first part, I think it’s about how society deals with war, in the second part, family and war, and the third part – Kolik (colic in English) brings war down to the personal level. I have no idea if the first two parts played at Usine C and I just missed them, or if this was a oneshot deal.

But no, never mind, Kolik stands up on its own, and it was only in reading the press kit and other stuff that I could find on line, after the fact that I discovered it was part of a larger whole. As far as I could tell while it might have been cool and/or interesting to see the first two parts of the trilogy, it was not necessary.

Kolik, by Rainald Goetz. Photo courtesy of Dipthing.com
Kolik, by Rainald Goetz. Photo courtesy of Dipthing.com

Anyhows, now that we got the background out of the way, we can proceed to the foreground. 120 shots. 1.7 shots/minute for the entire duration of the play. But despite the overdosing on alcohol, one of the first things that occurred to me was, did the Automatistes ever do any spoken word performances? The way the shole things was done, if I didn’t know any better, it would have been extremely simple to think that Mr. Raynaud was just doing some sort of stream of consciousness rant – and in fact I might have believed he was, had Mr. Goetz not been given credit for the text.

Thanks to Rue89.com and Google Translate, this is how it would start if someone did a half-assed translation into English:

Brain
grime
man
Come on
dark
(go) faster
quickly
out
human
man
Go on
recumbent
Tip-shit
Brain dog dirt
grime
grime
Grime fucking dog fucking
Laying there-
Brain-shit
God fucking damn dirt
Outside of dog shit

Each word being barked out, as if Mr. Raynaud was himself the Tip-shit Brain dog dirt in the grime. Just a little bit aggressive, although to be honest I wasn’t thinking that it was going to be a nice relaxing night at the theatre.

At various points, I was thinking that maybe they were trying to make some connection to Tourette’s Syndrome. But then given the amount of drinking involved, there was also the one time, when I kind of wished I had seen Broue. Not that I honestly thought that the two plays shared anything in common, beyond the drinking, but so that I would be better able to see the extremes. But despite Broue having been performed since Methuselah was knee high to a grasshopper, somehow I haven’t been able to get my act together to go and dee it. Pity.

And then there were the two pages of notes that I took that consisted of the word “drink,” repeated about two dozen times on each page. Given the nature of the performance (it being in French, me being a bloke and a a squarehead, along with me writing my notes in English) there were sometimes where it just seemed appropriate to let the words cascade over me. Not quite like music, nor like a shower, but more like dirt. You know the sensation when you’re digging a tunnel and suddenly part of it caves in on you? And you end up with dirt in your eyes, ears, mouth and every other place you can think of? Like that.

Kolik by Rainald Goetz with Thierry Raynaud. Photo coutrtesy dipthong.com
Kolik by Rainald Goetz with Thierry Raynaud. Photo coutrtesy dipthong.com

“He drinks
I
yet
but why
Question why Word
Answer strict order
Question why strict order of words
Response in exercise maximum rigor of the test material
Question why resistance test word
reply Hate
Word-response shut up
Word hush ai ai
Discipline-word response
I hate repeat
I do not ask why
I say I say this material is
Hate-word response
I say hate
hate hate
He drinks“

Again from rue89.com and Google Translate. And did I mention the approximately 120 shots that are consumed during the course of the performance? Easily the equivalent of three 40 pounders.

Mr. Raynaud’s character is angry and pissed off, and as far as I can tell probably dies. While I was watching him perform, I was not quite as conscious of any specific war-like parallels or analogies. But now safely ensconced in the library, where they have some of Mr. Goetz’s work if some teacher asked me to knock together some sort of paper outlining how Kolik was about the war, I wouldn’t balk too too much. Just from my Psych 101 knowledge of Post-traumatic stress disorder it would be fairly easy. Using just a little brain power, it would become a slam dunk. But since I don’t have much of the script to quote from, and seeing how it’s really early in the morning and I don’t quite have access to all the brain power I would like, you’re just going to have to take me at my word.

Kolik by Rainald Goetz with Thierry Raynauld. Photo courtesy 23h32.com
Kolik by Rainald Goetz with Thierry Raynauld. Photo courtesy 23h32.com

During the course of the performance I only heard two people leave, so obviously, it isn’t for everyone. But now in retrospect, I kind of get a feeling that some people would walk out on a play by Eugène Ionesco or Samuel Beckett. And while I don’t want anyone to infer that I think Kolik is theatre of the absurd, going to see it in the same frame of mind as you would The Bald Soprano or Waiting for Godot. Although now that I am doing cursory research, I’d venture a guess that there are some striking similarities to the plays of David Mamet. I should also mention the almost ghost-like video that is projected on the back wall of the theatre that kept me engaged for far longer than it should have, given that I was barely able to make out what was on it.

In the middle of the play things get very dark and Mr. Raynaud’s speech comes out of a bunch of speakers in different places in the theatre. But despite these bits of high-tech gadgetry the play really remains and belongs entirely to Mr. Goetz and Mr. Raynaud. The power of the words, and the the power of their presentation is such, that even if you were to watch the play with your eyes closed you’d understand it completely.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Kidd Pivot, The You Show

Howdy!

Color me embarrassed! Last month I went to go see The You Show by Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM, and it wasn’t until long after I had seen the show that I discovered that instead of it being one dance performance in four acts, that it was in fact four separate dances combined together to make an evening’s program. Oooops. (And it’s obvious that my habit of going into a performance attempting to be a tabula rasa works). Then on top of that, my notes, which get scrawled in the dark, and sometimes are extremely difficult to decipher after the fact, somehow got mixed up and taken out of order. So I wasn’t certain that lines that I had written, such as “repetition of voice / with new moves / switch to her” were referring to something that happened before or after “moving together / all others leave / and we’re back to two.”

But I think I have everything sorted out as best as I can, and can attempt to make some sense out of what I saw (apologies, again for my lack of timeliness, but as per normal, things here have been busy). I find life is so much easier when I don’t really have to force some sort of narrative on something that doesn’t have one. Plus in this case, there are a whack of other reviews and articles to draw from and react to.

(Dance Magazine, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, World Arts Today, Solomons Says, Seeing Things, Vancouver Courier, Dfdanse, Ottawa Citizen and Rover)

In this particular case I find it fascinating that without too much trouble I was able to find over a dozen reviews from a variety of places (at first I was concerned that they were all from North America, but then looking at Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM’s website it appears that it has only been performed outside of North America in three places. It’s also a little weird that it has been performed 22 different times in eight different cities in the rest of the world versus nine times in two cities here in Quebec. I wonder if there are any other international touring companies that spend 30% of their time here in Quebec? But I digress).

The reviews, as you might expect, were all over the place. Most took advantage of the fact that there were four different pieces to say that three of the four were great and one was not. But there was no consensus on which one sucked. I particularly enjoyed Wendy Perron’s take over at Dance Magazine, where she wrote “I’m skipping the third duet because it didn’t add much…” Imagine skipping the third side of Tommy, because it didn’t add much. Or skipping the lobster omelette in your review of the Pied de Cochon’s sugar shack? If you’re reviewing it, review the whole thing. Not just the good bits.

Anne Plamondon in A Picture of You Falling, picture by Micheal Slobodian
Anne Plamondon in A Picture of You Falling, picture by Micheal Slobodian

As for my take? Overall I thought it was quite good. The dancers (Eric Beauchesne, Peter Chu, Ariel Freedman, Sandra Marín Garcia, Yannick Matthon, Anne Plamondon, Ji?í Pokorný, Cindy Salgado and Jermaine Maurice Spivey) were all amazing to varying degrees – great amazing, really good amazing, very good amazing and just plain amazing.

In my notes the only dancer that I singled out happened to be Ms. Plamondon. I wrote “she quite accomplished dancer (sic).” But at the time I didn’t know that in fact she was who she was. Personally I think that her background (or what I know of her background, I’m no walking dance encyclopedia) in both Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Rubberbandance Group serves her well in dancing to Ms. Pite’s work. Where Rubberbandance does a very obvious and direct combination of hip-hop and classical dance techniques. From what I have seen of Kidd Pivot, their work appears to me to be more variations and modifications on hip-hop while leaning heavily on the rigorousness of both classical dance techniques and training.

Eric Beauchesne and Jiri Pokorny in The Other You, photo by Michale Slobodian
Eric Beauchesne and Jiri Pokorny in The Other You, photo by Michale Slobodian

The variations and modifications, for the most part work way more often than they don’t. Again, I think when it works, it has more to do with the caliber of the of the dancers in Kidd Pivot and when it doesn’t more to do with the caliber of the choreography. Or in blunter terms and plainer English, Ms. Pite is obviously trying to combine old moves (for the lack of a better term) in new ways while at the same time develop new moves. Because the dancers in her company are so good, most of the choreography shines really well. But occasionally, Ms. Pite stretches too far, tries too hard and no matter how good the dancers are, the moves aren’t as bright. Unlike Ms. Perron, I thought that the parts that didn’t work, were exactly that, small parts within the larger piece, not entire pieces.

If I were to get specific, one of the parts that didn’t work for me was when everybody else turns Ms. Garcia and Mr. Spivey into Transformers in A Picture of You Flying

Transformers
Transformers

I must’ve spent over an hour searching through my files trying to find the other time I’ve seen dancers become Transformers, however my searching skills are obviously not up to snuff, because for the life of me, I can’t. But I am completely convinced (unless I made it up) that I’ve seen something similar before. But whether or not I have almost becomes secondary, because beyond being derivative I thought there were other reasons why it didn’t work.

While it was obvious that Ms. Pite wanted something cinematographic, it ended up turning the piece into something more cartoony. During the piece Mr. Spivey recites what I was calling simplistic pop psychology. Things like “It’s about thinking about later, later / And know your own limits / And know what makes us vulnerable.” Or “It has nothing to do with the glory / You do it because you love it.” Which had the effect of making the piece comedic in nature – the audience laughed at some of the jokes in the text. However, I presume that Ms. Pite wanted the subject matter and the dancing to be taken somewhat seriously. In the parts when there weren’t any jokes, it was possible to take the subject seriously. But once they turn into the Transformers it makes it extremely difficult to take the dance very seriously, which then also ends up making the subject matter silly as well. And I am not convinced that that is a good thing. But as I mentioned, it’s a small part of a larger whole, and not a profound fault. More like a scab the day before it’s going to fall off. Something that you’re aware of, and is mildly annoying, but not major.

I guess at this point I should mention The Other You, and Das Glashaus, the other two pieces in the evening’s performance.

I’m not sure why Ms. Pite decided to use the Moonlight Sonata as part of the score to The Other You other than the fact that it is a very pretty piece of music. The dancing is also very pretty. Ms. Pite steals the idea from numerous other dance performances in that she has Mr. Beauchesne and Mr. Pokorny mirror each other and/or control each other like marionettes, but with invisible strings. But in this case, the moves that they do, again modified hip-hop, in my notes I called them “funky chicken” “kung-fu fighting” and “robot,” are pretty good. In performances like that the dancers need to be perfectly synchronized and Mr. Beauchesne and Mr. Pokorny were.

There’s not an awful lot I remember about Das Glashaus, and it also is the piece where my notes got all out of order. There was some crashing sounds (which other people called breaking glass, probably due to knowing the title in advance) there’s some wrestling or aggressive cuddling, and modified yoga according to my notes, but overall it mainly draws a blank. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, just how it happens to be.

I think that trying to combine the four pieces thematically is a little bit of a stretch – especially if you’re viewing them with no prior knowledge. Instead of “The You Show” it just as easily could have been called the “You Two Show,” or “Four Duets.” But that does not take away from the fact that the dancing was pretty gosh darn good. For the most part when I go to see contemporary dance, I’m not expecting a story. I’m hoping to see some spectacular moving. It seems to me that dance has become so technically sophisticated that for the most part trying to combine it with some other art form (like theatre) ends up making a mess. Either because the dancers aren’t as accomplished in the other art form as they are in dance, or that the choreographer isn’t as accomplished or quite frequently both. In this case, while I recognize that there was an attempt to combine things thematically, because I went in not knowing that, it was mighty tough to figure out on the fly. Which does not take away from the dancing or the choreography, in fact to me, makes them even that much better.

Art, Ramble, Rant, Review, Visual Art

Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture at The Canadian Centre for Architecture

Howdy!

I‘ve been twice to see the show, and might just go a third time before it closes on April 15. If you want the short version, it’s a very nice show. A little small, but a fascinating way to spend 90 minutes or so.

The longer more nuanced version goes as follows: When I first heard about Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture at The Canadian Centre for Architecture, I kind of scratched my head. I couldn’t quite figure out the what and the how of what they were going to exhibit. But my curiosity got the best of me and I was pleasantly surprised.

Once there, it kind of becomes obvious as to how and what gets displayed. There are are pictures of trees (lots of pictures of trees, depending on who you believe, trees are either good for your health or bad for your health) ranging from Robert Burley’s photographs of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (good for your health) to Cesare Leonardi’s awesome drawings of trees (bad for your health). There are floor plans for old age homes, plans for a pig apartment building and lots of other cool things that all have some connection between design (more so than architecture) and health.

Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture, installation view at the CCA. © CCA, Montréal
Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture, installation view at the CCA. © CCA, Montréal

To get the crotchety stuff out of the way quickly and early. Given that The Canadian Centre for Architecture is in Montreal, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more local content. It’s not like every city in the world can boast that they have park designed by Olmstead. But sadly, there was no picture of Mount Royal and given that there are not one, but two hospitals being built here now, I would have thought that they might have incorporated something from those projects into the exhibit.

There is a preponderance of information in how buildings can be bad for your health – a significant portion of one room given over to asbestos, which is really the only local content, and a whole other section devoted to dust and materials that cause allergies – while at the same time there are also numerous plans of buildings that are supposed to be good for your health (from OMA and SANAA specifically) I would have loved to have seen some information on older medical architecture. Something like how the Royal Victoria Hospital developed, or the evolution of hospital wall colors, or pill design, or, or, or. You get the picture. Something slightly more historical.

I wasn’t obsessive about note-taking but it struck me that for the most part there was nothing prior to 1960 or so. I don’t know if that has anything to do with what actually got archived, and therefore was available, or if there was some executive decision not go further back. Because of the heavy emphasis on contemporary practices and the fact that it wasn’t as large and sprawling as previous exhibits at the CCA, I was left imagining the gaps. What type of stuff could have been there.

Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture, installation view at the CCA. © CCA, Montréal
Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture, installation view at the CCA. © CCA, Montréal

The stuff from the 60s was tremendous. There was a section devoted to Sun City, AZ the “first and finest planned retirement community for active seniors.” They had a selection of floor plans

Sun City Model Home Info
Sun City Model Home Info

and a video on the history of Sun City that I wouldn’t watch there, because they insisted on playing it on an endless loop, which as I have said before (and will say again) makes no sense when the film or video that you’re watching has a beginning, a middle and an end. But was able to find it on YouTube.

The Sun City film was part of the exhibit on aging. The exhibit itself was loosely built around six health related topics: allergies, asthma, cancer, obesity, epidemics, and aging. As an introduction to each section there was a bulletin board with a variety of clippings, reprints from websites and other assorted ephemera. Some worked better than others. I never really ever thought that I would see a page printed from The Globe and Mail’s website as something displayed in an exhibit at the CCA.

In no particular order, some of the things that I particularly enjoyed were the photographs of elevators in the fat room (I’m actually in the process of taking some of my own, more to follow later), the photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher (I never get tired of seeing their work). Sophie Handler‘s Resistant Sitting project (pdf alert, and if she happens to read this, congrats to Dr. Handler on her recent PhD). And The Heterogeneous Home by Ryan Aipperspach, Ben Hooker and Allison Woodruff

As part of the asthma room they had a copy of this picture from Kirill Kuletski’s Speleotherapy series.
Untitled by Kirill Kuletski

While each object in the show was presented in order to raise questions, I think that the allergy room was the least effective. There were samples, under plexiglass of building materials that could potentially cause allergic reactions, and other samples for you to handle that wouldn’t cause allergic reactions. I would guess that they were there in order to facilitate the younger viewers to the exhibition. But I haven’t been young for a while, so as you might expect I found them a tad juvenile.

And speaking of questions, one occurred to me last night. The exhibit comes down fairly hard and strong in it’s condemnation of asbestos, and I’m fairly certain that everyone, myself included, knows that breathing in asbestos fibers will cause cancer. But the reason it was used so much as a building material was because of it’s fire-resistant properties among other things. I wonder how many people would have died in burning buildings if asbestos had not been used, and how would that compare to the number of people who died (or will die) due to asbestosis?

Nerea Calvillo, architect, in collaboration with C+ arquitectos and In the Air. Toxic topography of Budapest, Hungary, 2008. In the Air Exhibition print from digital drawing. Production support from LABoral
Nerea Calvillo, architect, in collaboration with C+ arquitectos and In the Air. Toxic topography of Budapest, Hungary, 2008. In the Air Exhibition print from digital drawing. Production support from LABoral

One of the prettier, but more obtuse parts was from Ms. Calvillo. He attempts to map the atmosphere are quite nice. But the attendant documentation in the exhibit was somewhat sparse. In doing further research after the fact I came across this article by Javier Arbona that did manage to explain her work in plainer language and also had a link to the website for In the Air.

And that I think is one of the other small faults I would note about the exhibit. It seemed to me that far too much of it was the internet made material. Kind of like the exact opposite of their previous exhibition 404 ERROR The Object is Not Online.

All of this is not say that Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture at The Canadian Centre for Architecture is flawed or not worth it. As I wrote at the top, “it’s a very nice show. A little small, but a fascinating way to spend 90 minutes or so.” it raises questions, and for the most part I always think that raising questions is a good thing. But like with anything that I am fond of, I always wish there was more. Or that things were slightly more nuanced (or in other cases slightly less nuanced). But you get the idea, there is always something that could be done to take something very good and make it exceptional, or to go from great to amazing.

Your level of enjoyment of the exhibit will be roughly inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend on line looking at and reading about theoretical architecture. Or exponential to the amount of time you spend in the galleries of the CCA taking notes and then entering them into Bing or some other search engine. Given that I don’t do much of the former and a lot of the later, it worked out quite well for me. But as the kids say, “your mileage may vary.“

Dance, Performance, Rave, Review

Hora by the Batsheva Dance Company at Theatre Maisonneuve

Howdy!

Last Friday I saw Hora. If you want the short version; it was good, very, very good. If you want the slightly longer version, keep reading. If you want the really, really long version, I will try to oblige. I discovered from this article in the NYTimes that the word Hora not only means “hour” in Spanish, “slut” or “whore” in Norwegian, apparently is like “howdy” in Japanese and is some type of Indian astrology and also a Roman goddess. But the most obvious and significant Hora is the Israeli/Jewish dance.

Given that the Batsheva Dance Company and Ohad Naharin (the choreographer) are Israeli, it’s kind of tough to avoid the comparisons. However, there really aren’t any in any literal sense. I’m also trying to figure out if there was any connection between their performances here in Canada and the visit by Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s nice to think that the Prime Minister of Israel travels with the dance company. Or that he likes to be able to highlight Israeli contemporary dance while globetrotting. But I’m not entirely convinced.

I think the more obvious connection to mine is Gaga, the movement language developed by Mr. Naharin.


About Gaga

Bat7 | Myspace Video

And…

While I’m not quite 100% certain that I understand Gaga fully, after watching the videos, I think I have a better understanding of Hora. Which is what we’re here to talk about, right?

When it starts, there are 11 dancers sitting, evenly spaced apart, on a wooden bench along the back wall of the stage. The stage itself has been kind of transformed into some large bright green square with no visible entries or exits. The dancers all rise together and slowly walk forward, they turn to their right, hold a pose as if they are resting their arms on a counter (or possibly playing like a kangaroo or T-Rex, animals with short arms that are held loosely in front) and then turn to the left assuming a pose kind of like some sort of construction crane or back hoe.

The only reason I mention it in such detail is that it gets repeated four or five times during the course of the performance. Which turned it into some kind of touchstone for me. I still wasn’t able to figure out if it had any other more significant meaning and I somehow doubt it. To me, Hora really was just about moving bodies in and through space.

This concept of moving bodies in and through space was most obvious when all 11 dancers veered from the line and each did something different and original. I’m certain that there were a bunch of moves that were repeated, but by having so many dancers on stage and having them all do different things it was extremely hard to focus on one dancers or one movement.

That sort of thing happened numerous times over the course of the performance. But every now and again something (or someone) would squirt out and do something solo-like, or duet-like. One of the one’s that jumped out at me as being particularly well-done was I decided to call “The Twins.” A section where Ian Robinson and another dancer who didn’t quite have as a distinctive haircut go all out at 60 miles-an-hour doing these wild funky chicken type of moves that ended up reminding me of the Mirror Scene by the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup.

There were a bunch of bits like that. A part where all they all end up in a similar position to how sprinters crouch before a race, except that they are using the tops of their toes instead of the bottoms (ouch). Another one where they sit on the stage with their legs extended perfectly flat, and their knees at an exact 135 degree angle, while spinning in absolute unison. And a third where the woman who I referred to as “The Russian Spy,” actually stood on her toes, twice, despite not wearing toe shoes.

It was obvious from the get go that they knew how to dance and move way better than a bunch of stuff that I had seen recently. In going through the bios of the dancers (in a vain attempt to try and figure out who was who) I was happy to see that that Bobbi Smith had previously danced with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Mr. Robinson with Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Go Canada!).

Another thing that made the performance rather kick-ass was the soundtrack. Back in the 70s and 80s (and 90s as well, but by then I had stopped keeping up with pop music) there was this guy Isao Tomita who performed some of the better known classical music cannon on synthesizers. At the time I wasn’t a big fan (I was much more into guitars and drums) but I quite vividly remember coming across his records at the time.

One of the things I’ve realized about dance performances, is that it does help every now and again to offer the audience some kind of hook to hang their collective hat on. Or in slightly clearer language, something with which they can identify. And actually as I write those sentences I realize that in fact it has nothing to do with any other members of the audience, and everything to do with me.

I like it when there is something that I can identify with, or make some kind of association. Since for the most part the movement itself is extremely difficult to describe – at some point I’d love to have an opportunity to try and do a play-by-play of a performance in much the same way that a sports broadcaster would. I see lots of similarities – having some identifiable music makes it extremely easy to make that connection.

Back when I was younger, I would scan the program to see what music was being used and make a judgement on how good the performance was likely to be based on the music. Now it’s way more complex, but as a similar type of rule-of-thumb if they’re dancing to live music, it’s got a better chance in my book of being a better performance than if using pre-recorded stuff (but I digress, Hora did not have a live band).

Nonetheless, since I find it easier to make an emotional connection to music, getting something recognizable aids immensely. Which is not to say that I was able to figure out any specific connection between the music and the movement. Quite the contrary, I would go so far as to presume that the music was laid on top of the piece after all (or most) of the moves had been thought out. In the same way that you would first figure out the menu for a dinner party before deciding on the playlist.

Sometimes dance can be movement for movement’s sake. I think that Hora is one of those cases. I’d love to be able to sum it up in one pithy statement, or witty phrase. But, unfortunately I’m not that good a writer. I also would have loved to be able to talk about the specific dancers more, because they truly were spectacular, but unfortunately the tiny jpg headshots on the Batsheva website don’t really correspond with my memory of what the dancers really looked like. And I’m certain there are tons upon tons of other things that I missed. Nonetheless Hora is pretty gosh darn kick-ass and while I realize that it is unlikely that the Batsheva Dance Company won’t be coming to Montreal next year, I do eagerly anticipate their next visit.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Rebecca Halls | Raqib Brian Burke at Tangente

1 Comment

Howdy!

Now we’re really on the ball! It’s a Monday morning and I’m writing about something I saw last Thursday. Almost timely… They had a double feature at the Monument National (where Tangente is camping for the most part this season) and due to a screw up on my part I got to see Rebecca Halls and Raqib Brian Burke perform.

I’m impressed that Ms. Halls agreed to be on the bill with Mr. Burke. Although she didn’t have to follow him, she was first. Still a potentially frightening situation. I’ve heard stories of how in the early 1970s the band Chicago had Bruce Springsteen open for them on a tour, and after something like four shows, Bruce Springsteen was politely asked not to perform anymore because his show was so much better than that of Chicago’s. While not quite as polarizing as Bruce Springsteen and Chicago. Ms. Halls definitely suffered in comparison.

While I missed the initial Hula-Hoop craze in the late fifties, I did have at least one as a youngster. Then when the neo-hippies started doing it at Burning Man and other festivals, I also missed it, but was aware that Hula Hoops had come back. Now, I’m not completely incompetent at hooping, but then again I never really saw much point in practicing enough to become like super duper good at it. When I was younger I always thought the pogo stick was a much cooler toy – and now that I think of it, I just might have to get myself a pogo-stick this summer. But I digress…

OK, maybe not.

As usual, I tried to go into the show with no to low expectations, so it was only after seeing it that I read in the program (again, no press kit) “As she uncovers her Icelandic Heritage, the dancer takes the audience on a nostalgic journey through cycles of time, planetary motion and the natural world.” And that I think is as good a place as any to try an explain the difficulties I found in the piece.

For the most part hooping is one movement with a bunch of variations. And those variations aren’t terribly major. Hoop on the foot, hoop on the arm, multiple hoops, hoops that are lit up, you get the picture. As a consequence it’s rather tough to impose any sort of narrative on a performance without either some other props, or a script.

Ms. Halls at one point did change her costume, but that was about it as far as props were concerned and it seemed to me that the show was about spinning hoops, and being spun (at one point a harness descends and she puts it on so that she can spin in the air). Unless I was blind (which is quite possible) I did not see any hoop labelled “Mars,” “Jupiter” or “Saturn.” That planetary motion thing really didn’t come through all that clear.

In my notes I do make reference to a video of a “cold and still north.” But given that we happen to live in an cold and still northern place, I was didn’t quite make a connection to Iceland until after I read it. Similarly I didn’t make any connections to a natural world nor the cycles of time.

That all being said, I’m certain that Ms. Halls’ hooping technique was impressive. However the tone was kind of set by the film that was played before her performance which got no applause whatsoever. Kind of surprising considering how polite Montreal crowds normally are. But after that there was no applause for any of the individual feats she performed, which given how hooping is a very physical activity must have been frustrating for her. I don’t know if it has to do with how small the theatre was at the Monument National or if there was some other reason. But at pretty much every other hooping performance I’ve seen, the audience does break into applause when a particularly impressive feat is accomplished.

All of which is a kind of long lead in to Raqib Brian Burke’s performance, which was the second part of the show. For the longest time I thought that Whirling Dervishes spun as fast as Tasmanian Devils did.

Probably something having to do with never really taking a comparative religion course and watching just a little bit too many Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was younger. Now that I’m older, I realize the errors of my youth. it also helps that I got to actually see someone do it live and in the flesh.

What can I say? Well, I’m not going to try and explain why or how he does it. It’s pretty gosh darn simple, spinning around and around. But what continues to amaze me even at this late date, is while everything I have read says that the folks doing the twirling around are the ones who get into the spiritual state. I actually found myself, as a viewer, in some kind of state of bliss. I can barely remember my walk home, but I can very clearly remember the sense of awestruck serenity that I had while watching the performance.

Something probably should also be written about Eric Powell who played the music that Mr. Burke preformed to. Although again to be brutally honest, I was so blown away by Mr. Burke that I have to refer to my notes to even conjure up a vague idea of what and how Mr. Powell played. At various times sounding like a Geiger counter or an electric ukelele or some kind of electronica throat singing or probably a bunch of other things that I didn’t write down, at the time it all sounded exactly and completely appropriate.

If I’m going to question anything, it would be whatever part Mira Hunter had. She’s Mr. Burke’s daughter and got the headliner status as choreographer and the person responsible for the video (I also imagine that she came up with the title). In my notes, I wrote “video comes on / But there is no need for video / he is riveting.” Which is not say that she did anything bad or that her participation lessens the performance. Just that I wasn’t capable of appreciating the nuances that she added.

This is actually a video of a whirling performance by Mr. Burke and his daughter (and some other folk as well) out in Vancouver. Whether it is the tilt of the head, the way the arms are held, or just that it is so gosh darn simple, I don’t know. But Mr. Burke was something completely awe inspiring on Thursday night. I’d draw the line at converting to Sufism, but you don’t know how close I got.

If you want more information about whirling, and all of that, try The Rumi Society (BC) and Mevlevi Order for a start. And then there are these dudes from Turkey.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Review

Lisbeth Gruwez | Voetvolk, Birth of Prey at Usine C

Howdy!

Color me confused, today. Last week (see? I’m almost all caught up on the dance. Unfortunately, I way backlogged on the art…) I got to see Birth of Prey by Lisbeth Gruwez and Voetvolk at Usine C. It’s a piece that they created in 2008. They flew over here from Belgium specifically to perform it. And then flew back. In other words this was not part of a North American tour or anything. They are also touring a piece that was created this year, called, It’s going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend. I have no clue as to why the fine folk at Usine C decided that the older piece was the one that they wanted to present. But that’s neither here, nor there.

Although now with a little bit of reflection it could be because contortion is “the new black” in contemporary dance. Earlier this season, Angela Laurier performed at Usine C. I’m never one to identify upcoming trends, so I could be very wrong on this one. After all Birth of Prey was created in 2008, which could also mean that contortion has “jumped the shark.”

If you hadn’t figured it our by now, in Birth of Prey for the most part Ms. Gruwez does a kind of 21st century contortion act. Not the 19th and 20th century type where the performer twists various body parts into positions that would make most people wince, and for the most part confined to sideshows and boardwalks. The first word that comes to mind to describe her style is “refined,” quickly followed by “discreet” and “focused.” Hers is much more about individual muscles and bones, than the whole body.

Specifically the trapezius, the latissimus dorsi, the intertransversarii and the multifidus spinae. (Are there any other back muscles? Did I miss any?) There are parts where she does things that could be considered more dance-like and more singing-like, but for the most part it was the control she has on the individual muscles of her back that fascinated me.

If you watch all 21 minutes of the video, you’ll get a real good idea of what the show is like. But please don’t confuse watching a 560 pixel wide video on your computer screen with the real thing. Sorta like confusing CliffsNotes with the original. When you take a step back you can realize that they are in fact two separate things.

The first obvious difference between the video and the real, live stage performance was that for the performance, we had to enter into Usine C using an entrance more normally used for props and actors than the audience. Normally when at Usine C, you walk up a set of stairs to enter into the large theater from the top and then walk back down to your seat. For Birth of Prey we entered at stage level and then walked up to our seats.

For those audience members who had previously been to Usine C the variation on the entry was, while not quite disconcerting, slightly confusing. Added to that was that while we entered the entire stage was completely covered in smoke, from some kind of smoke machine, and I definitely was dislodged from my normal theater performance routine. Which was as I presume, its intended effect. Making me much more aware, questioning what was about to happen, and paying precious little attention to the normal chit-chat that happens pre-show. I have absolutely no idea how full the theater was, nor if there were any vedettes in attendance – both things that I normally write down in my notes because the extent of my notes before the show started were “Enter from the side, with lots of smoke. WHY?” And the “why” was written approximately four times larger than anything else on the page.

Then we were informed that the show had started because some rather loud generic guitar/drum, not quite punk, not quite boogie, music was played. I always like dance to live music, even if the music isn’t the greatest. This music while immediately reminding me of the late and lamented Deja Voodoo

Although I am 100% positive that if you grew up in a different town, there is some other guitar drum duo that you personally remember. But I do appreciate that Dave Schroyen & Maarten Van Cauwenberghe reminded me of Gerard van Herk and Tony Dewald. I hadn’t thought about van Herk Dewald in far too long. Although now that I am thinking about them, I do remember one Deja Voodoo barbecue where my houndstooth check overcoat with a vertical slash pocket got stolen. Something like 30 years ago, man! how I liked that coat. I’m still convinced it is going to reappear (like, magically) in my life. I bought it for $2 in Schenectady, New York. But I digress…

But back to the performance; once the music started, I (and I presume everyone else) started to peer into the smoke. I knew that something was going to happen, I just had no idea what. have you ever seen a newborn gerbil? Newborn hamster?

Baby Gerbil
Baby Gerbil
Baby Hamsters
Baby Hamsters

Well that’s kind of what Ms. Gruwez looked like as she entered the stage. Although now that I think about it, I can probably come up with a bunch of other hairless tubular living things that she would also look like. It’s amazing how some theatrics, smoke and serious lighting presented by someone who knows what they’re doing can look like something else.

But, once she got to center stage, it was all Ms. Olympia all-the-time, almost like what I would imagine a performance by Iris Kyle would be like (if there were loud generic guitar/drum, not quite punk, not quite boogie music played).

And that’s the point. I have absolutely no desire to see Ms. Kyle (or anyone else for that matter) win the 2012 Ms. Olympia Championship. However, Ms. Gruwez’s manipulation of her musculature was completely and utterly riveting to the point where I was hanging on the next move of her latissimus dorsi. Go figure.

At various points she got up and attempted to sing, but whatever. I wasn’t there to hear her sing, scream or shriek. And she did scream and shriek. There were also some points where she actually looked like she was doing modern (or contemporary) dance. But just about anything was going to fail in comparison to what and how she manipulated her back.

Then, there was the point about three-quarters of the way through the show when through the smoke I suddenly saw something like a small rivulet of blood that flowed absolutely perfectly right down her spine. I think at some point I was able to see some kind of tube, but given all the other theatrical tricks it might have just been smoke and mirrors. I dunno.

There were a couple of other salient points. During the performance that I saw Mr. Van Cauwenberghe broke a string at the absolute perfect moment – in between two very different sections that were separated by a scream from Ms. Gruwez – so from an audience perspective it was just like an extended pause while he changed strings. But it did occur to me to wonder why they didn’t just travel with two guitars. I also didn’t quite understand why she started singing Helen Kane‘s signature song.

I‘m positive that there’s some kind of connection between the animal nature of the performance and the title, as in some sort of evil being born – but ultimately I think this one comes down to just how spectacularly Ms. Gruwez is able to manipulate her body, and then some sort of title, music and theory were wrapped around it after the fact.

In short, in comes down to getting a seat front row center, focusing on Ms. Gruwez’s scapulae for 50 minutes and not blinking.

Dance, Montréal, Performance, Review

Ghislaine Doté | Virtuo Danse, Merry Age at Agora de la danse

Howdy!

Color me impressed. Normally there is a dearth of reviews of Montreal dance performances. Sometimes, Le Devoir deigns to publish a review, and occasionally there is something else on a website someplace. For Merry Age by Ghislaine Doté and Virtuo Danse I count seven! Stéphanie Brody in La Presse, Camille Lepage-Mandeville on pieuvre.ca, Ashley Ornawka on Le Médium Saignant, Justine Bleau on Dfdanse, Frédérique Doyon in Le Devoir, Nathalie Katinakis on Musicalavenue.fr and Kat Sark on Suites Culturelles.

Unfortunately, most of them are not terribly positive. (I hope that Ms. Dote has a very thick skin, or chooses not to read them.)

Malheureusement, tout ce qui rendrait Merry Age aussi jouissif se dissout trop rapidement et l’on assiste, navrée, à un sextet qui cherche son fond et sa forme..
[Sadly, everything that makes Merry Age so joyous, sadly dissolves rapidly right before our eyes into a sextet that seeks substance and form.]

L’œuvre de Doté est un bon divertissement. Il est simplement dommage qu’un concept si prometteur n’ait pas été plus développé.
[Doté’s work is entertaining. But it is too bad that such a promising concept isn’t better developed.]

Le spectacle, dans son ensemble, ne présente pas de réel approfondissement de l’idée ni de nouvelles avenues exploitées concernant l’union de deux êtres à travers la danse.
[The show, as a whole, has no real depth of thought nor does it explore any new opportunities for the union of two beings through dance.]

Mais cette candeur a aussi ses défauts: les faux rebondissements (scènes mal arrimées), un récit trop mince, des mélodies un peu simplettes.
[But this candor also has its faults: twists and turns that don’t work (scenes that aren’t anchored) a thin plot and simplistic melodies.]

Ouch!

After reading those, I almost wanted to write something so over-the-top positive that it could make all those meanies go away. But I quickly remembered that I wasn’t Ms. Doté’s mother, and it really wouldn’t be appropriate to try and protect her from perceived bullies. It’s something automatic in me, not only to be contrarian, but also to want to help the underdog.

Let’s back up a bit, Merry Age was performed by Jenny Brizard, Fernanda Leal, Xavier Malo, Mohamed N’Diaye, Francois Richard and Émilie Tremblay at the Agora de la Danse back in the middle of February. (You see! I am catching up!) Some sort of hybrid type of performance that had bits of musical theater, modern dance and lots of other stuff (I went looking for some examples of dance from the Côte d’Ivoire, but only found this and there really wasn’t an awful lot of that in Merry Age). As per normal, I went in completely blind. I hadn’t read any of the press kit (yes, there was a press kit) refused to read the program, and politely asked my companion not to tell me anything in advance.

So when it started up like some sort of musical, I was very surprised. While I quite like musicals, specifically MGM musicals from the 30s, 40s and 50s with Gene Kelly and/or Fred Astaire (but in a pinch just about any musical will do) I was completely and totally unprepared to see a musical at L’Agora de la Danse. After a bit, it reverted back to more standard contemporary dance fare, every now and again launching into song.

I also had become very comfortable with the concept of no plot, and here was a performance that clearly had plot. Most of the time, kind of like the song (for the most part only one song was used) plot wandered in and out of the show. But since I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t get too attached to it.

This might have been due in part, to the fact that while it was pretty obvious that the show was about marriage (Ms. Doté even announced it at the beginning) for the first part it didn’t strike me that any of the couples were fixed. Each woman danced with all of the guys and vice-versa, so it never occurred to me to take it that literally. Once that was out of the way, it became very easy to watch.

As I’ve come to expect these days, the set was minimal. There was some kind of podium in the back that held a rack of clothes for the dancers to put on, there was a chair, then there were more chairs and a table and that was about it. You can get some sense of the set and the piece itself here.

It also seemed to me to be one of those pieces that could only be made here in Quebec, as it incorporated bilingual text. What I really got a kick out of besides the bilingualism, was the biracial nature of the couples. Although now that I am able to reflect a little bit more on it, there was one bit in Spanish as well, so it in fact was trilingual, and Ms. Doté could have pushed the envelope slightly by having some non-heterosexual couples as well. But those are more about my agenda than her piece. I realize now that it also could have been made in many other places besides Montreal.

The dancing itself was quite good. Again, my memory is sketchy at best, but I have a vague feeling in the pit of my stomach that the parts where all six dancers were dancing were slightly better than when there were obvious duets. There were a couple of “really nice’s” in my notes. One in particular when they did a round in movement instead of in song, and another after they spin around the table.

So what else? Well, I think the title itself isn’t too hot. A bad play on words (not even a pun) on the word marriage. I think judging from my reaction in comparison to the ones quoted above, that perhaps for the restaging, to change the name, and perhaps say that it is about fish, or mitochondria or something other than weddings and human interactions. The people who pay attention to the stuff in the program and the press kits won’t quite have such large expectations and the reaction probably will be a lot more positive. (And to be fair, there were three positive reviews; one, two and three. It’s just that they weren’t terribly well written, and if I had led with them, I’m not certain what I would have been able to write).