Category Archives: Review

Art, Humorous Verse, Photography, Ramble, Review, Visual Art

Edward Burtynsky : OIL at the McCord Museum

Howdy!

Once again I’m late to the party. The exhibit was up from October 6, 2011 to January 8, 2012. I’m just realizing now, how backlogged those rhymes about the Triennale Québécoise and other things made me. Like Marie Chouinard’s The Golden Mean (Live) I saw it at the end of November, 2011. Jeez! It’s a good thing that there is a history of reviewing shows that you can no longer see, otherwise y’all would think that I am one of the most irresponsible people in the known universe. But before I go find a whip so I can flagellate myself, we gotta get to the verse:

Ed Burtynsky takes really big photographs.
For the most part I don’t think he does anything by halfs.
Big political statements
I hear they cost many many cents.

Mostly on concerns about the environment
Places with natural resources and the changes they underwent.
I really liked the images of the refineries,
Sometimes you gotta think duodecimally and not in binaries.

His pictures of highways were also very impressive,
The Golden State Freeway, like La Joconde is something I won’t outlive.
But condemning Talladega and Sturgis
Is where, from my beliefs, he diverges.

They’re images designed to make you pause and reflect,
I think it is the earth that he wants you to protect.
But it is possible to be too politically correct.

Yes, big photographs are good. I still get weak in the knees thinking about the Andreas Gursky show I saw back in 2002 in Chicago. Big (for the most part) is synonymous with good, especially when talking about photographs.

But this one raised more questions than it answered. The first one being, that it was sponsored by Scotiabank. The very same Scotiabank that has a mutual fund of $170 million dollars invested in “equity securities of Canadian resource based companies, including companies that operate in the oil and gas, gold and precious metals, metals and minerals, and forest products industries.” – The One Sheet (pdf). Does this mean that Mr. Burtynsky is allowing himself to be used for greenwashing purposes? Or is he just willing to take money from whomever without thinking about their ethics? Or something else? I dunno, as I said his show raises more questions than it answers.

The second question that came to my mind as I was looking at it, was how much oil did Mr. Burtynsky use in order to get his pictures? There are shots that could have only been taken from a helicopter. There are other ones where he went to rather obscure places (Sturgis, South Dakota, Walcott, Iowa, Baku, Azerbaijan, Chittagong, Bangladesh) which would have either required some serious long distance driving or flying. And while I’m fairly certain that in order to take his pictures he doesn’t travel alone, I gotta think that he has a rather large carbon footprint.

The reason I ask questions like these, is because according to the press release the images in the show “deliver a social and environmental message that is both disturbing and thought-provoking.” So I can’t be accused of being the only person linking the concern for the environment and the images. What’s that line about glass houses and stones?

But enough about the theoretical questions, what are the pictures like? ‘Cuz isn’t it possible to appreciate them aesthetically without giving one good gosh darn hoot about any political message that Mr. Burtynsky is trying to make? Short answer: For the most part they are very good. As I mentioned up above “Big (for the most part) is synonymous with good, especially when talking about photographs.”

The longer, nuanced and more detailed answer is as follows: Spread over two floors, it presents something like four or five dozen images that vary in size from 68″ x 78″ to 29½” x 36½”, with most of them being 51″ x 63″. Organized thematically, they span three of the four sections that he lists on his website; Extraction & Refinement, Transportation & Motor Culture and The End Of Oil (somehow Detroit Motor City section didn’t make the cut at the McCord, I can’t understand why).

Now while I don’t know too much about photography, there was the aforementioned Gursky show I saw in Chicago and if my memory serves his teachers at art school were Bernd and Hilla Becher. Don’t quote me on this, but if they weren’t the first people to take large pictures of industrial things, they definitely were the folks who made it hip. Mr. Burtynsky definitely owes them something. What I’m not sure. Because he doesn’t copy them (at least as far as I can tell) but at least as far as recognizing that he is mining a field that they were instrumental in making.

Mr. Burtynsky, does them one better, his are larger and in color. Have I mentioned that big is good, when it comes to photographs?

For the most part his images are very formally set up. If I were to make a gross generalization about Mr. Burtynsky’s landscape photographs, I’d say that the picture would be taken from a high vantage point, if not a helicopter, some sort of scaffolding was used, there would be an immense foreground, taking up something like ¾ of the image. There would be mountains in the background, or something mountain-like taking up the other ¼ of the image. The sky (and this is where my knowledge of photography is woefully lacking) is completely washed out, to the extent that I would make a pinky bet that Mr. Burtynsky’s skies are very familiar with Photoshop (or Gimp).

AMARC #3 Tucson, Arizona, USA, 2006 Courtesy edwardburtynsky.com
AMARC #3 Tucson, Arizona, USA, 2006 Courtesy edwardburtynsky.com

The foreground is some kind of large collection of something industrial. Endless repetition of form with minor variations since each object is distinct. And since they are so large and there are so many objects in the picture it’s quite easy to literally get lost in it. On one side that’s the fun part. On the other, once you realize that there is a formula it kind of makes me think that while Mr. Burtynsky is making some sort of commentary on 20th century industrialization, he is at the same time being very mechanical in how he makes his pictures.

Oil Fields #10 McKittrick, California, USA, 2002 Courtesy edwardburtynsky.com
Oil Fields #10 McKittrick, California, USA, 2002 Courtesy edwardburtynsky.com

You get the picture.

One other thought that occurred to me as I was looking at the pictures. Not a single one was signed, and there was no information on how many prints had been made. Not that that would detract from the image itself, but it’s just that if I want to buy into the concept that the images Mr. Burtynsky makes are art and not just some mass produced industrial object that happens to look pretty, it would be nice to have his John Hancock on it and know that there were only XXX copies made. But I would guess I’m in the minority here. Or maybe he signed and numbered them on the back.

As I wrote in my notes, there really is no movement in the pictures. There was also a distinct lack of people in the pictures. While I didn’t keep count, there couldn’t have been more than half-a-dozen people. I wonder if Mr. Burtynsky has ever done portraits, and if he has, I’d love to see them. I’d guess that he would ask his subjects to dress in tuxedos. (ba-da-boom!) His images are that formal.

I always find it a tad awkward when I come across an exhibit that has an agenda, like this one does. Even if it is an agenda that I agree with. I find that trying to force an idea on someone by using an art exhibit extremely difficult. In order to do so, the the exhibit, for the most part, has to be incredibly simplistic. It tends to be repetitive as well, and I find that in order to make their point they end up being dumbed down to the point where the idea that they are trying to promote becomes more suitable for five year-olds than adults. As you might have guessed, I’m not five years-old.

But enough of that, and lets concentrate on the pictures. As I mentioned in the ditty, his pictures of highway interchanges are quite cool.

Highway #5 Los Angeles, California, USA, 2009 courtesy edwardburtynsky.com
Highway #5 Los Angeles, California, USA, 2009 courtesy edwardburtynsky.com

I think part of the allure comes from the fact that he is using something like a helicopter to take the pictures. The pictures he gets are not the type of pictures that are available to M. & Mme. Tout le monde. And that I think is something incredibly significant. That sense of discovery, seeing something for the first time, is a sensation that shouldn’t be ignored. If he took similar pictures, as formal in their composition but from the perspective of a driver, they would not be one tenth as powerful.

Beyond that, if you are in London, England, I think that’s where the show is now, and it is probably going to continue touring and making more people aware of Mr. Burtynsky’s name. The catalogue for the show won some kind of award, but I’m not clear on how it is awarded, so I guess I should assume that it is legit, and not something where you toss the organizers some cash and you get a medal.

Being aware of Ed’s name is a good thing. It makes people aware of Canadian art just a little bit more. I just hope wish that he would push the envelope a little more, instead of playing it safe. He knows how to handle a camera, I’d like to see some images from him that prove that.

Dance, Ramble, Rant, Review

Marie Chouinard, The Golden Mean (Live)

Howdy!

I‘ve been feeling guilty. Last year, back in November, I saw THE GOLDEN MEAN (LIVE) (yeah, I don’t like things that are all in capital letters either… But that’s how she spells it) one of the newer creations by Marie Chouinard. I wanted to write about it, but then got hung up in the humorous verse cycle I wrote about the Quebec Triennial. By the time I had finished that, it was the beginning of January 2012, and the absolute need to write about a performance I had seen almost three months prior was more like a theoretical and potential concept than a valid reality.

But then on Friday I had a Marie Chouinard day. I first saw her at the DHC Art Foundation’s exhibit Chronicles of a Disappearance (more on that in a separate article, in short go hang out on the fourth floor for at least 30 minutes, Ms. Chouinard didn’t) in the afternoon. And then saw her at the performance of “Je” by Dominique Porte (also more on that in a separate article) that night. But this time, Ms. Chouinard had to stick around for the entire performance because Dena Davida sat down right next to her and it would have been kind of awkward to leave in the middle of the performance – this is not to imply that the only reason Ms. Chouinard stuck around was because of Ms. Davida, because Je is pretty gosh darn good, but every other time that I have been in a black box with Ms. Chouinard watching something artistic, she has bolted long before the performance was over, unless it was one of her’s. But I digress.

Then I kept thinking about her participation in The Big Bang at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and figure now is as good of a time as any to spill what’s been inside of me on and about The Golden Mean (Live).
So before I forget how, first a bit of humorous verse about

Marie Chouinard’s The Golden Mean (Live)


Marie Chouinard’s The Golden Mean (Live)
Might have been better if done as a shuck and jive.
Real Pixar lamps, some video screens and masked dancers
Lead to more questions than answers.

Zombies stretching” is how I described the dancers movements
There are numerous things that I can think of that would make for improvements.
The only thing I really liked was the woman with the four sided mask
It was almost as good as the art of Karen Trask.

I‘ll have more to say, not in rhyme, but in prose
Somehow rhyming is difficult when holding your nose.

It actually wasn’t that horrible. It’s just that when writing in rhyming couplets I tend to make everything black or white. No shades of gray, whatsoever. It isn’t like I walked out in the middle of the performance or anything.

But getting to the meat of the matter, I imagine that somewhere Ms. Chouinard believes in her heart that The Golden Mean (Live) is truly saying something. Unfortunately it is in a language that I have an extremely hard time understanding.

In French the title is Le nombre d’or (Live) which really translates into English as The Golden Ratio (Live), not the Golden Mean. The Golden Mean has more to do with Nicomachean Ethics, whereas The Golden Ratio is 1.6180339887… referred to in most of the literature in the press kit (yes, Virginia, I do occasionally get press kits).

Also in perusing the press kit, while the piece itself may be named after a mathematical principle (A+B is to A, as A is to B) the piece itself doesn’t seem to be as rigorous. I read reviews where it was danced by 10 dancers in one place and 11 dancers in another and in Montreal there were a total of 14 dancers on stage. And as long as I’m going on about the press kit, there were nine photocopied articles in Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch. I’m not entirely certain what the point was. While I’d like to think of myself as a polyglot, in fact I am really just an old and fat opinionated American, commonly referred to as a Tête carrée here in Quebec. The idea that I can really understand four other languages, when I have a hard enough time wrapping my tongue around la langue de Moliere is just kind of silly and a waste of paper.

As long as I am nitpicking, according to Ms. Chouinard the dancers put on masks of the head of state of whatever country they are performing in. But it seems that when they were in Amsterdam last summer someone forgot to tell them that Jan Peter Balkenende had been defeated and resigned, and while technically still Prime Minister, was not the man in charge. It also might account for why it wasn’t performed in Brussels.

And while the catwalk is integral to the performance, in order to, as she told Catherine Lalonde of Le Devoir, get the dancers as close as possible to the audience, to literally penetrate the theatre. [J’avais envie de voir les danseurs au plus pres du public, de faire pénétrer dans l’espace de la salle.] But when it was preformed in Venice there was no catwalk, and it is because of that performance that Tanz magazine named Carole Prieur dancer of the year.

So obviously when you (or I) go to see The Golden Mean (Live), what you see and what I see are not going to be the same thing. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s a good or a bad thing.

If you’d like to see a 13 minute video of Ms. Chouinard describing how The Golden Mean (Live) was made and what’s it about, click on this (unfortunately, I wasn’t able to embed it).

But enough about the background and the nitpicking over details gleaned from the press kit. What about the dance itself? And the even more importantly the dancers? I’d love to be able to tell you what Mark Eden-Towle, Eve Garnier, Benjamin Kamino, Leon Kuperschmid, Lucy M. May, Lucie Mongrain, Mariusz Ostrowski, Carol Prieur, Gérard Reyes, Dorotea Saykaly and James Viveiros did and how they moved. But unfortunately since they were all masked, I have no freaking clue as to who did what. Although after the fact I did realize that it was Carol Prieur who did the unmasked solo.

Depending on where we are in the performance, the dancers are either all wearing some moth-eaten blonde wig with a kind of plastic face shield, occasionally with some hipster glass frames. Or they are wearing photographs of people that have been glued to something like foamcore to keep it rigid. There’s one set that was all Stephen Harper, another set that was a bunch of “old people,” and a third that was all of infants.

It was the infants that I particularly didn’t like, as when the dancers were wearing those masks, they were completely naked. My first thought was did Ms. Chouinard get permission from the parents of the infants before slapping their faces on masks? My second thought was what’s the point? When they had the masks of the infants on, nobody did much of anything. If it was for shock value, it didn’t work at the performance I was at. If it was to make the audience uncomfortable, I’m fairly certain that there were some people in the audience who were made uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a majority, and most people were very polite about it.

Then much later, I went to see The Big Bang at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal (I told you that I’d get around to it) in which Ms. Chouinard had some work. That work was four photographs of her dancers with the infant masks on. Apparently she was influenced by an incense burner which she likened to developing genitalia of fetuses. One of the many problems with it was that the crotches of the dancers were very much obscured. Using the lingo of the day, it was a #totalfail. It was made even curiouser because there is a dancer in The Golden Mean (Live) who imitates Marc Quinn’s sculpture Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment) which is at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

Marc Quinn's Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment)
Marc Quinn's Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment)

Then at another point, some of them suck in their stomachs just like the statue by Mr. Quinn, and it isn’t pretty. So while the museum asked her to be influenced by a piece that they have (I think it’s a loan, and not part of the permanent collection) she just got confused or something. Another thing that struck me about the masks that were pictures of faces, was that for whatever reason, she had not chosen the picture of anyone who wasn’t Caucasian.

As I mentioned in the verse, an awful lot of the dancing was what I would liken to zombie stretching. Sometimes there was some undulating and Carole Prieur’s solo was what I called “tribal” or “voodoo.” There were a couple of times when two dancers would do something that suggested sex, but was more violent than erotic.

No matter how hard I tried, I really couldn’t put a finger on anything that would unify the whole piece. It didn’t come across as movement for movement’s sake. It sure as shooting didn’t have a plot. There weren’t any incredibly breathtakingly beautiful moments (or movements). In writing this, I am struck how it seems to me as a disparate collection of things that Ms. Chouinard wanted to copy. From the Pixar lamps, to the Quinn statue, I can easily see how each scene could have been copped from some image that she had taken, and then most fruit these days, grafted on to the performance.

It would be an interesting exercise to go through Ms. Chouinard’s sketch book (or the equivalent) while watching The Golden Mean (Live), it would kind of like this:

So there you have it. The Golden Mean (Live) isn’t a bad piece, it’s more of a blah piece. Nothing remarkable, good or bad. it sort of sits in my memory taking up space, and with a little luck that memory will inform future stuff better and worse.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Vertical Road by the Akram Khan Company

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Howdy!

Who would’ve thunk? I kind of like it… OK, let me back track slightly. On January 27th, I went to see Vertical Road by the Akram Khan Company at Theatre Maisonneuve. The company was brought into town as part of the Danse Danse series (who also somehow forgot to give me a press kit, but I digress). In short they were pretty gosh darn amazing. In my notes I wrote “very cool,” “wicked cool!” “I’m riveted,” “Wow!!” and “She’s Amazing!” You get the idea.

In mulling things over, I wasn’t quite certain how or what I was going to write. It’s always easier to write something sarcastic and negative than it is to write something that praises. But then I started to do some cursory research, and one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me was how the whole shebang was sponsored by Colas. In the program they had even gone so far as to give some guy named Hervé Le Bouc a full page to explain how his company ended up being partnered with the Akram Khan Company.

I only had one small question. Who, or what was Colas? As it turns out, they are a French company that builds roads (or as they write in the program: Roads). As I wrote up above, “I kind of like it.” It being the idea that some industrial engineering company is paying some kind of coin (and I would imagine and hope that it is some serious coin if they are getting a full page in the program) so that contemporary British dance can be seen.

So it now becomes self-evident here the name of the dance comes from. Unfortunately I wasn’t invited to the dinner with M. Le Bouc and Mr. Khan so I can’t comment on whether M. Le Bouc had any other input into how the dance was created, or if he participated in any other way. Personally, I’d like to think that M. Le Bouc was a big dance fan going way back, and that over dinner he and Mr. Khan hit it off like a house on fire, brainstorming ideas ’till the cows came home. Then after they had become BFF, Akram (after all they gotta be on a first name basis by now) blurts out to Hervé “I know I’ll make a dance for your company!”

I also think it would be great if some of our local engineering firms that built roads (or other things) started sponsoring local dance companies. But somehow, I don’t see that happening for a while. Pity.

Despite not getting a press kit (me, obsessive? nah.) I was able to suss out that Vertical Road is supposed to be some kind of spiritual dance. Mr. Khan is quoted in the program as saying it is “the journey from gravity to grace.” But I’m not entirely clear on what that means, exactly. Is he referring to the force of attraction? Heaviness or weight? Seriousness or importance? Or something else. And grace has equally many definitions, none of which are exactly antonyms of gravity. In fact, riffing off of the seriousness definition you could almost make a point that gravity and grace were synonymous. Almost.

But back to the point at hand, the performance. In reading about it (after the fact) just about everyone seems to talk about Vertical Road as a journey by one person. That did not come across as strongly as you would think during the performance. Salah El Brogy definitely was the “lead.” But there was enough other stuff happening that the idea of a journey really only occurred to me after I read about it and then kinda nodded my head and said to myself (quietly) “yeah, I can see that…”

To me it was much more of a group piece done in about eight separate scenes, beginning and ending quite dramatically with a scrim. At the beginning, I couldn’t quite tell if there was one or two people behind it, and then I figured out that it was only one person, Mr. El Brogy – who I referred to as “the hairy dude” in my notes – because he placed various body bits on it in a kind of shadow play. But what was most impressive to me was how he banged it, like a gong or something, with his hand and it rippled like a vertical lake. At the end he goes back to the shadow play and when the scrim drops the show is over.

For the six other scenes, there is lots of running, jumping, spinning and the like. While I was watching I thought there were some similarities to various martial arts like kung-fu. But while doing some cursory research I came across this article from The Guardian that informed me that

Khan’s dance roots are in kathak – and it shows. It’s a style characterised by mathematically complex rhythmic footwork, spins, fluid arm and hand gestures, as well as dynamic contrasts between speed and stillness.

I also saw some similarities to the Dhikr performed by the Mevlevi Order (as I wrote that I was sticking out my chest proudly, showing off my madd wikipedia skillz!). In plainer language there were some bits that reminded me of Whirling Dervishes.

And if I remember correctly, I read someplace that Mr. Khan is a Sufi, and the whirling dervishes are also Sufi.

But then my theory starts to fall apart when I also noted that certain bits of the show reminded me of Loie Fuuller.

And no matter how hard I try I can’t make any connections between a 19th century American vaudeville performer and Mr. Khan. Other strange visions that jumped onto my head during the performance were of American football referees.

Touchdown!!
Touchdown!!

And Chinese terracotta warriors (mainly due to the incredible amount of talcum powder that was on their costumes and how solidly they stood at in the second and third scenes). In what I’m calling the third scene there’s a wicked cool back and forth that I would call a duet except that all eight dancers are on stage doing stuff. Where the shortest woman in the company (sorry but my memory is not good to begin with and since I didn’t get a press kit, trying to figure out if it was Eulalia Ayguade Farro, Konstandina Efthymiadou or Yen-Ching Lin is beyond my abilities – suffice it to say that they all are pretty gosh darn amazing dancers) does a kind of puppet and puppet master dance with Mr. El Brogy (aka the Hairy Dude) made even more spectacular because at various points they trade positions and that who was the puppet becomes the puppet master and vice versa.

It because of things like that, where Mr. Khan plays fast and loose with whatever plot there is, in order to wow and impress the audience with movement that caused me to that there wasn’t much of a path happening.

Some other brief thoughts I had were that while I have never been to Burning Man, the performance was very Burning Man-esque. Sort of like a 21st century version of transcendental meditation done while throwing bodies through space. And while looking up the dancers on the internet I discovered that Ms. Ayguade Farro also danced in the Hofesh Schecter company and immediately recognized the similarities in style between the two.

I should also mention Ahmed Khemis, Yen-Ching Lin, Andrej Petrovic and Elias Lazaridis. Just because they didn’t get anything that I would call a solo does not in anyway mean that they were anything less than kick-ass and amazing dancers. They were and are, and I can only hope that when I grow up that I can dance half as well as they can.

Dancers explaining

At which point I’ve gone way over any reasonable word count and should probably attempt to wrap this up somehow. An easy way? Next time the Akram Khan company shows up in your town, go buy tickets.

Dance, Montréal, Performance, Ramble, Review

Les Angèles ces derniers bleus by the Collectif C’est Juste Lundi

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Howdy!

Since my last attempt at a poetic review for a dance performance was a trainwreck (if you haven’t read Ken Monteith‘s comment, I urge you to drop everything right now, and do so, and while you’re at it you should read his blog as well.) I figured I can revert back to something a little easier this time…

I’m not certain I’m any closer to understanding Les Angèles ces derniers bleus (loosely translated to The Angels’ Latest Blues) but it somehow makes me smile and think that everything is linked. I went in thinking it was going to be some sort of dance performance. I came out realizing it was something much more than that. Basically, a collection of things “Angel.” With a heavy emphasis on a certain American television show from the 1970s.

I wasn’t keeping track of how many angel references they actually used, but the ones that I did catch were Bobby Helms‘ (the voice behind Jingle Bell Rock) You are My Precious Angel.

Doreen Virtue’s Angel Therapy [no video, click on the link to hear her radio show] and most obviously (although, believe it or not, it took me about 20 minutes into the performance to realize it) Charlie’s Angels

.

I’m not much into angels, but some that they missed were AngeNeige, the angel store run by my friend Franceen, up the street from La Chapelle (the theater where they performed it). The Blue Angels, the United States’ Navy’s flying aerobatic team. And The Blue Angel, the Marlene Dietrich film, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

I’m certain I missed scads upon scads. Both in the performance and not in the performance. Feel free to let me know what I’ve missed (and bonus points for doing it in rhyme). But you get the idea.

Initially and for a good half to three-quarters of the performance I was trying really really hard to figure out (or perhaps impose) a plot on it. I’m not entirely certain why. Possibly due to some outdated belief that if there are characters, there must be some sort of narrative. Kind of like still arguing for the Ptolemaic system, old habits die hard. It was only when I realized that there wasn’t any real plot, that I was able to realize that it was a pretty gosh darn good performance.

To get the easy stuff out of the way first, it was a minimalist set. Two table lamps (one with what looked like goldfish embedded in the base), three manequin heads, a TV and a phone. There might have been some other things as well, but the action started and I got distracted while I was writing things down, so I don’t know if my list is a complete or incomplete inventory.

Pierre-Marc Ouellette came on stage first in a red suit and started doing some kind of disco dancing that veered towards Elvis

then towards a more freer hippy style, before going all YMCA, but spelling A-N-G-E-L-E-S instead.

The three other members of the C’est Juste Lundi collective come on stage, Hinda Essadiqi, Karina Champoux and Emmanuelle Bourassa Beaudoin. They shake, they emote and then they start doing some rather complicated and fast moves. Up and down, kind of dog-like but I was very impressed with how tight they were, Anne Thériault their rehearsal director did a mighty fine job. Their timing was impeccable and incredible.

They do some more emoting, use some finger guns, run around and then bring out a TV which shows an edited version of the opening sequence from Charlie’s Angels (and at the same time allows everyone to catch their breath and change costume). Then M. Oulette and Ms. Champoux do a duet that involves some blue clothes. Ms. Bourassa Beaudoin comes on stage and uses one of the mannequin heads as some sort of appendage to her body. Ms. Essadiqi then gets a solo that has something to do with an address book and a pen, and then Ms. Bourassa Beaudoin brings a cassette player out and sticks her head above a fan so her hair can billow. Everyone starts go-go dancing and finally Ms. Champoux starts playing a ukelele and whistling while the others are doing bird calls and the lights fades.

You see? No real plot to speak of. But to repeat myself that is not a bad thing.

While I generally prefer not to single out specific dancers, Ms. Essadiqi definitely got the lion’s share of my notes and attention. In retrospect I found it a tad strange, because as an adolescent I definitely preferred Sabrina Duncan and Jill Munroe to Kelly Garrett. And Ms. Essadiqi was playing the Jaclyn Smith character.

I should also make mention of Denis Lemieux who helped with the costumes (I’m not sure exactly how or what he did to help, but that’s what it says in the program) and the costumes were pretty darn good as well.

In the program and the press kit and the website, they emphasize the word ludique, which because I’m a bloke with a bad vocabulary, thought had some connection to being a Luddite, and not the notion of playing. After looking it up in numerous dictionaries (just to be certain) it made perfect sense.

I’ve said this before (and I’ll probably repeat myself again) but I absolutely love the fact that Montreal, and by extension Quebec, is a place where artists are allowed to play and experiment with form and content. Les Angèles ces derniers bleus effectively is just that. But unlike an awful lot of other performances I have seen, it also manages to be entertaining for the audience (or at least this audience member) at the same time. It bodes well for future projects by the C’est Juste Lundi folk.

Yes, there are things that didn’t quite work, or could have worked better – but unless you’re Robert Lepage or Marie Chouinard you’re never going to get absolutely everything right all the time. And that’s my point exactly. Having the ability to try out things in a trusting and comfortable environment is a good thing.

I was somewhat at odds over, or maybe just confused by, the choice of angels as the overriding theme. I’ve never been religious, and have actually been accused of being an anti-spritualist (whatever that is). I’m certain if I sat down with Ms. Bourassa Beaudoin (who gets credit as the artistic director of C’est Juste Lundi) she would be able to explain in plain language how and why angels were chosen. But it was not immediately self-evident. Nor did it make itself known in the 72 hours following.

Playfulness is not normally something that is immediately associated with a strong sense of spirituality, although there are some paintings I can think of where the cherubim aren’t exactly moping around. Towards the end with the ukelele and the bird sounds, someone probably could point out some sense of spirituality, but it still would be a stretch.

However, since Les Angèles ces derniers bleus is definitely absurdist (in the best sense of the word) choosing to use angels as the main characters could be considered an absolutely brilliant choice just because of its oppositional quality. The performance is not something that is easily digested and sometimes in situations like that it’s best just to swallow it whole without chewing.

I wouldn’t (ok, maybe I would) try to figure out where Les Angèles ces derniers bleus and C’est Juste Lundi fit in in the grand scheme of things performance in Quebec. But they (and it) definitely belong. I haven’t looked all that hard, but I didn’t see them on the cover of Voir, nor did I hear anything about them on Radio-Canada, which is kind of a pity, because many other less deserving projects have gotten both.

And then finally (‘cuz I definitely have rambled on for far too long) after some reflection; Les Angèles ces derniers bleus by the Collectif C’est Juste Lundi, is trying to incarnate some kind of mythical childhood. None of the performers is old enough to have even been thought of by their parents when Charlie’s Angel’s first aired, and as it was most definitely an American (as opposed to Quebecois) television show, they all are starting out with two strikes against them. So the entire production must be based on some sort of concept that never existed in anything except their minds. And I like that.

Dance, Montréal, Performance, Rave, Review

José Navas, Personae

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Howdy!

About two weeks ago I saw José Navas’ Personae. Since I’ve been on a poetry jag for a while, I wasn’t quite certain how I would write about it in humorous verse. But then it occurred to me, instead of humorous verse, I could write a sonnet.

Sonnets are not easy.

And this isn’t a sonnet either. It’s got four too many lines, the meter is all over the place. It also probably could be helped with some judicious editing. But instead of having it hanging over my head, like so many other things, I made the executive decision to get it out.

I have no idea if there are still tickets, but he’s still performing it at the Cinquieme Salle until the 28th.

José Navas sits quietly before
Dancing solo in his piece personae.
It is constructed in six parts not four.
Saw it at Cinquieme Salle not Corona.

The first image to try and remember
Are the amazing muscles on his back.
After watching I hope it will recur
A great way to start, we’re on the right track.

Arms waving, arms moving, return to start.
Next part is a divinely danced salsa.
Channeling Merce is deep in his heart.
The next one borders on erotica.

Some swaying and impressive pirouettes
Wolf’s head and noises like a panting dog
Water over rocks as good as it gets.
His moves a triumph of the analog.

Small vignettes, tiny, precious, intimate.
Danced with grace, I’d call them/him passionate.

Art, Humorous Verse, Painting, Review, Video, Visual Art

John Currin at the DHC/ART Foundation

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Howdy!

Fourth Floor

Big Hands, 2010
Big Hands, Big Breasts,
Small Head, shirt knot on her chest.

Big Hands by John Currin
Big Hands by John Currin

Deauville, 2007 & Rotterdam, 2006
I‘m not sure what Deauville has to do with Rotterdam
If the pictures were taken in a brothel, do royalties get paid to the Madam?
As long as I am asking questions I wonder if either one uses a diaphragm?
Quite possibly, the easiest way to explain “wham bam thank you ma’am.”

Malmö, 2006
Malmö’s another brothel scene
The couple pictured doesn’t look older than eighteen.

The Dane, 2006
The second act of Hamlet would be easier to explain
To high school males if it was illustrated with “The Dane.”

Big breasted naked women with mismatched body parts
Apparently one of them is his sweetheart
Despite the fact that his brushwork is never roughshod
There’s something that always seems odd.

Patch and Pearl, 2007
Patch and Pearl gazing out in the distance
A complete understanding gives some resistance.

Patch and Pearl by John Currin
Patch and Pearl by John Currin

Third Floor

Thanksgiving, 2003
Singing for her supper or taking a taste?
The action in this painting is not snail-paced.
Not at all traditional, kind of quirky,
Take a gander at the size of the turkey.

Thanksgiving by John Currin
Thanksgiving by John Currin

Rachel in Fur, 2002
Currin as Kusiemski?
Would you disagree?
Given his porn paintings
It’s hard to see them abstaining.

Bent Lady, 2003
A Bent Lady with a bunch of roses
Damien Hirst Knowses.

Anna, 2004
Anna smiles sweetly behind a banana and a three branched candelabrum
No matter how hard I try, this isn’t abstract expressionism.

Anna by John Currin
Anna by John Currin

The Christian, 2005
Some woman with a melon as a breast,
I would hate to see how he paints her fesses.
I don’t understand all the fruit in a bowl
Does eating grapes help your soul?

The Christian by John Currin
The Christian by John Currin

Second Floor

The Old Guy, 1994
I like the skinny dude’s sweater
He’s an old guy, I hope he gets better.
Hanging out in the bathroom
Is he talking? And if so to whom?

The Berliner, 1994
Did Mr. Currin live in Berlin?
The paint on this one is not thin.
There’s still something weird
It might be the hair, it might be the beard.

The Invalids, 1997
It took a while for me to notice the wheelchair
Smack dab in the middle of the painting is a mighty big pair.
Add to that hand coming out of her head
And you can understand how I was misled.

Sno-bo, 1999
Santa’s little helper
Diaphanous skirts as it were.
The two don’t quite meld.
While I was looking at it parts of my body swelled.

Sno-bo by John Currin
Sno-bo by John Currin

Stamford after brunch, 2000
I wonder what the etiquette
is in Stamford, Connecticut?
Smoking cigars and drinking martinis,
I’m surprised that they’re not wearing bikinis!

Stamford after Brunch by John Currin
Stamford after Brunch by John Currin

Honeymoon Nude, 1998
I wonder if Ms. Feinstein sculpted John
Or is showing her off naked, for him a turn on?

First Floor

The Neverending Story, 1994
Atreyu? Bastian Bux?
Is he thinking, “I wonder if she fucks?”

The Neverending Story by John Currin
The Neverending Story by John Currin

Girl in bed, 1993
Whose hand? And why’s she looking away?
Is she lost in her thoughts and far away?
Or is it bedtime and she’s about to hit the hay?

Mrs. Omni, 1993
You can never be too thin or too rich.
Mrs. Omni is a fairly standard issue portrait about which
There isn’t much I can say.
I can’t figure out why he chose her to portray.

Bea Arthur Naked, 1991
I wonder if Mr. Currin watched Maude
When he was growing up? And was awed
As I was by the television show.
Although I have to admit I dreamt about Adrienne Barbeau.

Old Couple, 1993
Two people painted on a background that’s beige
Despite, or maybe because of, their clothes, they look their age.

Brown Lady, 1991
What’s the opposite of brown?
While she’s smiling, I frown.
There’s something off, not quite right
I think it has to do with the background being very bright.

The Wizard, 1994
A wizard, a thaumaturge, a necromancer
Those breasts definitely enhance her.
I’m not certain I want to know what type of spell he will cast
This was the first painting in the show and it mirrors the last.

Apologies, I only realized too late that I had failed to recite these last four lines. When it comes time to release the “Director’s Cut” version, I will re-record it completely.

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Rave, Review

Namasya by Shantala Shivalingappa

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Howdy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As long as I’m embedding video, watch this

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A OK
A OK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dance, Performance, Ramble, Review

Gamaka by Shantala Shivalingappa

4 Comments

Howdy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, right! Remind me next time.

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

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

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

But then if you compare it to another Kuchipudi performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J’aimerais pouvoir rire by and with Angela Laurier

Howdy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Art, Books, Conversation, Montréal, Painting, Performance, Public Art, Québec, Ramble, Review, Sculpture, Video, Visual Art

The Triennale québécoise 2011 Le travail qui nous attend / The Work Ahead of Us – 2

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Howdy!

[Part One is here]

If you want to see the flip side to Lynne Marsh‘s Philharmonie Project (Bruckner: Symphonie No. 5 Movements 1 & 4) it’s relatively simple

Click on “play.” To back up slightly for those of you who might not know what I am talking about. As part of the The Québec Triennial the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal decided to spread its wings and exhibit art outside of the museum. One of the pieces chosen for the extra-muro treatment is Lynne Marsh‘s Philharmonie Project (Bruckner: Symphonie No. 5 Movements 1 & 4). It is a four channel video projected on one screen in a small dark room off of the Espace Culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme at Place des arts that has three sets of bleachers installed campfire style around the screen.

As is written in the press release Ms. Marsh “turned her camera [sic] on the crews shooting a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as it plays a piece by Anton Bruckner.” That piece is his fifth symphony conducted by Bernard Haitink on March 12, 2011. If you have an extra €9.90, you can watch the entire concert here. (It’s the only performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 that has been filmed by the Berliner Philharmoniker prior to the Triennial).

Or more explicitly, there are four cameras trained on a bunch of different people in the broadcast booth, each of whom has a different responsibility during the broadcast. (And what is it with red and blue checks in the control room? The two main characters wear them; one on his shirt, the other on his scarf.)

Similar to Harun Farocki‘s Deep Play and NASCAR‘s Race View. There are also some antecedents from the film Woodstock and the picture-in-picture feature of contemporary television sets.

You get the idea.

I’m not certain why Ms. Marsh chose to only use the first and the fourth movements. I can only guess that it was either due to technical glitches while recording the second and third movements. Or perhaps a rights issue, and the Berliner Philharmoniker preferred not give her a complete recording. I don’t know enough about German Copyright law to venture an idea based on that, so I’ll stick to “something screwed up with the cameras, and there was this deadline, and, and, and…” But to remind you, I have been wrong in the past, and I will be wrong again in the future, so there is no guarantee that I am right, now.

When I went to see it, there was this homeless guy hanging out on the bleachers watching it. I guess I kind of like the idea that Ms. Marsh makes art that is for everyone. But at the same time, it was cold outside, the room was dark and I’m not certain if we woke him up or not. So I’m not 100% certain if he was there because he enjoyed it and was interested in seeing it, or if he was there for other reasons. Anyhows, he was the only one there besides us, and for that I’d have to blame the museum and Place des arts. A small dark room off of the Espace Culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme (aka the hallway in between Salle Wilfred Pelletier and Theatre Maisonneuve) is not exactly screaming out “look at me!” to all the passers by. And with the amount of flashing, flashy and bright videos all over the place in Place des arts, it’s quite easy to not even notice the room, let alone get the nerve up to hangout with the homeless while watching the technical side to parts of a symphony by Bruckner.

Given that Ms. Marsh’s Philharmonie Project (Neilsen: Symphony No. 5) Dry Run (see below) was done in close collaboration with Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge and Sam Chermayeff of June14 I’m very surprised that the seating and its placement are so common and utilitarian.

While I can understand in theory why the museum tried to spread its wings for the Triennial, in practice placing anything that is even potentially art-like in Espace Culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme is going to end up as a train wreck. The recent renovations have ruined Pierre Granche’s sculpture Comme si le temps… de la rue and as evidenced by the crowds lack of people watching Lynne Marsh‘s Philharmonie Project (Bruckner: Symphonie No. 5 Movements 1 & 4) I can only shake my head.

Unlike Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Architecture relationnelle 18. Intersection articulée Ms. Marsh’s piece was installed so as to be crowd unfriendly. As you enter into the dark room with the homeless man, you are first confronted by the backs of the bleachers that are at least five feet high, effectively creating a third barrier between you and the piece (the first being entering into a dark room in public, the second being entering into a room with someone who is homeless already there). Then as with most “Art” video installations, this is on an endless loop, which to me means that whomever is responsible for exhibiting the video has completely and thoroughly abdicated all responsibility towards making the artwork understandable. [Ed Note: To their credit, there is a 9:12 second gap at the end in order to make the entire loop 60 minutes. But there is no signage anywhere explaining when things start, and when I was there it started at 10 after the hour – I guess someone hit play a little late that morning]

OK, in some cases there actually are videos on a loop that do not have a beginning, a middle and an end, but as Ms. Marsh’s piece is based completely on a piece of music that does have a beginning, a middle and an end, to force the viewer to enter during the middle of the performance watch the end and then wait another 9 minutes for the beginning is just plain ridiculous. And that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that Ms. Marsh has truncated the performance itself by lopping off two movements.

As I mentioned earlier, multi-channel videos focusing on what happens behind the scenes of some insanely large public spectacle is not exactly an original idea. Which then leads me to ponder Ms. Marsh’s use of the first and last movements from Bruckner’s 5th symphony. (If you’d like to hear them, click on these: Movement 1: Introduction (Adagio) — Allegro. Movement 4: Finale (Adagio) — Allegro moderato).

I’m not exactly the best musicologist, but with a little bit of Google-Fu it’s possible to discover all sorts of things about Bruckner’s fifth symphony. According to Gabriel Engel [pdf alert] Bruckner “saw the Fifth as the deeply personal expression of a genius doomed to utter loneliness by the scorn and neglect of
a misunderstanding world. He caught in the Adagio the true spiritual keynote of the work. Its brooding main theme was the despairing utterance of abandoned genius.” It would have been nice if some of that personal expression had seeped through into Ms. Marsh’s video. Engel continues, “Far more than any of his other symphonies it is a polyphonic work, the composer’s proud description, ‘my contrapuntal masterpiece,’ testifying to the extraordinary care with which he had fashioned its many-voiced strains.”

Given the multichannel nature of Ms. Marsh’s video it would have been fairly simple to have used the video to, if not copy or follow the counterpoint, to create her own, but sadly she chose not to. Two of the cameras are entirely static and the other two for the most part do slow pans across a very limited field of vision.

If you’re interested in reading the score, click on this.

Lynne Marsh, Philharmonie Project (Neilsen: Symphony No. 5) Dry Run (picture taken from the catalogue to the Quebec Triennal 2011)
Lynne Marsh, Philharmonie Project (Neilsen: Symphony No. 5) Dry Run (picture taken from the catalogue to the Quebec Triennal 2011)

Interestingly enough in the catalogue to the Triennal, the pages committed to Ms. Marsh’s work also show images from something called Philharmonie Project (Neilsen: Symphony No. 5) Dry Run and in Marie Fraser’s essay that makes mention of Ms. Marsh she alludes to there having filmed the technicians during a performance of something by Mahler as well. Unfortunately Ms. Marsh’s website is not up to date so there is no information about it there. However, concurrently with the Triennal, she is exhibiting something called Philharmonie Project (Neilsen: Symphony No. 5) at Program in Berlin. According to the notes “the Philharmonie Project is a study on the staging of power systems, the cultural expression of mass consumption and the support structures that enable it to happen.” Which somehow gets translated for Quebec in the pages dedicated to Ms. Marsh in the catalogue of the Triennal as Ms. Marsh’s “practice is fuelled by a reflection on how these social spaces and their ideological orientation can be reconfigured through the camera lens.” I’m not so certain that I agree with either one. Earlier in the catalogue to the Triennal, Marie Fraser quotes Ms. Marsh as likening “the filming to a choreography, a dance where the rhythm and intensity of the music are translated by the action of the cameramen. Each image is precisely rendered: this is the camera as performer.”

If this was the case, then someone would be selling tickets to watch the cameras and not selling tickets to hear the music (or watch the soccer game, stock car race, etc.) What Ms. Marsh is doing is shedding light on what goes on behind the scenes, which while interesting to some, ultimately can’t compare to the the original cultural event or performance. In the same way many more people will see Hamlet than will ever see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

And then as long as I am questioning things, given that the Triennal is a highly political exhibit, I’m not quite certain what to make of the fact that Ms. Marsh has been in both. Especially since she is no longer considered a “young” artist, and she’s got a gig as a senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire.

I haven’t quite come up with any specific theory or idea on or about the Triennal. But I also haven’t written anything about any of the art actually in the museum yet, either. I’m certain it’ll come, I just hope it’ll come sooner rather than later, because if I end up writing something like this for each of the artists involved, I’ll never get it done by the end of the week.