Levée des conflits: A Review
Levée des conflits, photo by Caroline Ablain
One dancer climbs onstage, wipes the floor with her hand until she is down on her elbows, shaking her ass, at which point another dancer walks up the stage and begins to wipe the floor. There will be twenty-four of them, performing the same series of twenty-five movements, over and over again. This initial canon allows the audience to travel back in time all depending on which dancer their eyes rest on at any given moment. This is Boris Charmatz’s Levée des conflits.
It is in one way chaotic because of the sheer number of performers; and yet it isn’t because each is so clearly doing exactly what they should be doing.
And the first dancer begins to wipe the floor again, a loop is formed, and we understand: we are locked into this sequence.
There is something of Canadian experimental filmmaker Michael Snow in Levée de conflits. Like in his movie Sshtoorrty, in which the same simple short story is not only overlapped but repeated at least ten times. And yet each time the viewer notices something different since human perception is such that not everything can ever be all taken in at once; which is why when people say that, after a certain point, they “got it,” you know they didn’t get it because it’s simply impossible.
We can also think of his seminal film Wavelength, a 45-minute zoom across a mostly empty loft. In terms of storytelling, Wavelength is cheekily minimalist, but the celluloid is manipulated to such a degree that on a formal level it is so excessive as (again) to make viewers feel like they have always missed something. With its changes in lighting, no matter how seemingly few, the same could be said of Levée des conflits.
And the variations occur. They perform the sequence while going in a circle in a space that progressively gets smaller. Time seems similarly condensed. Then they slow the movements down as they get even closer to each other. One could also be reminded of Michael Trent’s conceptual show It’s about time: 60 dances in 60 minutes, in which dancers repeated the same sequence of fifteen actions four times, each action first taking a minute, then fifteen seconds, then three minutes, then a minute again. Levée des conflits might be less playful than It’s about time, but more ambitious in scope.
Then some of the dancers can be seen performing the sequence backwards, until they are all wiping the floor. And the cycle begins anew, abandoning the canon in favor of synchronicity. The choreography’s simplicity gets exposed, and yet it’s also more pleasurable. What is it about synchronicity? Is it because deep down we’re all order-loving fascists? Is it because it gives us something the universe doesn’t? The illusion of control, no matter how trivial?
We exit Levée des conflits the same way we entered it, like the characters in Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel. It will have taken an hour and forty minutes to complete the cycle, but it will be with a feeling of resolution so logical that it might induce chills. I usually try to avoid saying such platitudes, but hopefully the advantage is that when I do say them you know I mean it: Levée des conflits is the best dance show that’s been presented in Montreal this past year.
May 30 & 31 at 8pm
Place des Arts – Théâtre Jean-Duceppe
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 48-58$ / 30 years old and under: 43-48$
It is in one way chaotic because of the sheer number of performers; and yet it isn’t because each is so clearly doing exactly what they should be doing.
And the first dancer begins to wipe the floor again, a loop is formed, and we understand: we are locked into this sequence.
There is something of Canadian experimental filmmaker Michael Snow in Levée de conflits. Like in his movie Sshtoorrty, in which the same simple short story is not only overlapped but repeated at least ten times. And yet each time the viewer notices something different since human perception is such that not everything can ever be all taken in at once; which is why when people say that, after a certain point, they “got it,” you know they didn’t get it because it’s simply impossible.
We can also think of his seminal film Wavelength, a 45-minute zoom across a mostly empty loft. In terms of storytelling, Wavelength is cheekily minimalist, but the celluloid is manipulated to such a degree that on a formal level it is so excessive as (again) to make viewers feel like they have always missed something. With its changes in lighting, no matter how seemingly few, the same could be said of Levée des conflits.
And the variations occur. They perform the sequence while going in a circle in a space that progressively gets smaller. Time seems similarly condensed. Then they slow the movements down as they get even closer to each other. One could also be reminded of Michael Trent’s conceptual show It’s about time: 60 dances in 60 minutes, in which dancers repeated the same sequence of fifteen actions four times, each action first taking a minute, then fifteen seconds, then three minutes, then a minute again. Levée des conflits might be less playful than It’s about time, but more ambitious in scope.
Then some of the dancers can be seen performing the sequence backwards, until they are all wiping the floor. And the cycle begins anew, abandoning the canon in favor of synchronicity. The choreography’s simplicity gets exposed, and yet it’s also more pleasurable. What is it about synchronicity? Is it because deep down we’re all order-loving fascists? Is it because it gives us something the universe doesn’t? The illusion of control, no matter how trivial?
We exit Levée des conflits the same way we entered it, like the characters in Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel. It will have taken an hour and forty minutes to complete the cycle, but it will be with a feeling of resolution so logical that it might induce chills. I usually try to avoid saying such platitudes, but hopefully the advantage is that when I do say them you know I mean it: Levée des conflits is the best dance show that’s been presented in Montreal this past year.
May 30 & 31 at 8pm
Place des Arts – Théâtre Jean-Duceppe
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 48-58$ / 30 years old and under: 43-48$
Birds with Skymirrors: A Review
Birds with Skymirrors, photo by Sebastian Bolesch
The human body is fragmented by light until it becomes unreadable as such and it becomes a poetic body, a body that means something other than itself.
Having seen Lemi Ponifasio’s Tempest: Without a Body at Festival TransAmériques two years ago, I went into his new show, Birds with Skymirrors, knowing what to expect. Even though I was tired, I didn’t drink coffee before the show because I felt caffeine might interfere with my experience. Thank God, because Birds is even more meditative than its predecessor.
It even feels like a dream, simultaneously meaningful and elusive; slow, yet slippery. It helps that Ponifasio is an expert at achieving otherworldliness from the get-go, with his creatures in long black robes, moving across the stage in small steps so swift they seem to float. With their synchronized movement, they still seem to function as a single entity. Unlike in Tempest, however, here they do not appear to be threatening.
The dream-like state is also induced by unlikely juxtapositions, like when a bare-chested man slowly moves while holding his hands behind his back, making his torso look torturous, while we can hear astronauts communicating over radio. (Maybe the dream is about how, while men were busy trying to reach the moon, they prevented this oil-soaked pelican from flying?)
Other similarities with Tempest abound. The set and costumes are entirely black, and the only lights to reveal the action are being reflected off those surfaces. It’s goth as shit.
The three women are wide-eyed, with shaking hands, while their bodies remain sinuous. It is the performers’ arms that do most of the talking, turning the dance into a ritual. Ponifosia doesn’t mind making his performers cover the stage in white powder for 5 to 10 minutes, and that’s what makes Birds with Skymirrors so hypnotic.
May 29-30 at 8pm
Place des Arts – Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43-58$ / 30 years old and under: 38-53$
Having seen Lemi Ponifasio’s Tempest: Without a Body at Festival TransAmériques two years ago, I went into his new show, Birds with Skymirrors, knowing what to expect. Even though I was tired, I didn’t drink coffee before the show because I felt caffeine might interfere with my experience. Thank God, because Birds is even more meditative than its predecessor.
It even feels like a dream, simultaneously meaningful and elusive; slow, yet slippery. It helps that Ponifasio is an expert at achieving otherworldliness from the get-go, with his creatures in long black robes, moving across the stage in small steps so swift they seem to float. With their synchronized movement, they still seem to function as a single entity. Unlike in Tempest, however, here they do not appear to be threatening.
The dream-like state is also induced by unlikely juxtapositions, like when a bare-chested man slowly moves while holding his hands behind his back, making his torso look torturous, while we can hear astronauts communicating over radio. (Maybe the dream is about how, while men were busy trying to reach the moon, they prevented this oil-soaked pelican from flying?)
Other similarities with Tempest abound. The set and costumes are entirely black, and the only lights to reveal the action are being reflected off those surfaces. It’s goth as shit.
The three women are wide-eyed, with shaking hands, while their bodies remain sinuous. It is the performers’ arms that do most of the talking, turning the dance into a ritual. Ponifosia doesn’t mind making his performers cover the stage in white powder for 5 to 10 minutes, and that’s what makes Birds with Skymirrors so hypnotic.
May 29-30 at 8pm
Place des Arts – Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43-58$ / 30 years old and under: 38-53$
Conte d'amour: A Review
Markus Öhrn's Conte d'amour, photo by Robin Junicke
“We’ve been waiting for you, daddy.” –Anders Carlsson, Conte d’amour
“Am I in love? –Yes, since I’m waiting.” –Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse
If you want love, pure love, get yourself a dummy. Sure, when you feed them chips or make them drink Coke, it will all just fall to the floor, but that’s precisely what you want. The absence of thirst and hunger means that they will never, ever leave you.
In Markus Öhrn’s Conte d’amour, the other is a blank canvas onto which we can project our love, so that it can never find itself soiled by the other’s own velocity, since it has none. (I once wrote, “On veut la projection qui nous échappe par sa propre vie.”)
Of course, a dummy might not fulfil all of your desires. So, alternatively, make sure that, if the one you love is human, they are as dependent on you as possible. It might be infantilizing, of course, but this works in your favour. Children are less likely to leave you than your adult partner. To make their leaving even less likely, bring them McDonald’s. Under the right light, those fries and nuggets can really look golden.
“Everything is simpler in Thailand,” a character tells us. “Thai women are not as troublesome as Occidental ones.” This is the moment at which Conte d’amour becomes more than just a play loosely based on a sordid news story. This is the moment when in one fell swoop it becomes political by exposing the relationship between racism, sexism, and capitalism. The statement is of course naïve. What makes one less troublesome has nothing to do with race or gender. It has to do with one’s economic dependency. Eve was not made from Adam’s rib. She was made from his wallet.
If you want love, pure love, do make the dependent one feel like they have some power. Withhold your attention so they feel like they have to earn it. Let them turn a basement beam into a stripper pole. If they can seduce you, they must have some power. Ignore the fact that their survival depends on it.
The saviour comes down from the ceiling as though from a helicopter, bringing chips and Coke to his grateful African children. Maintain the system that keeps them dependent on you, but let them feel like you’re being good to them when you give them the bare necessities of life.
The lover comes down from the skies, bearing gifts, to save us from the catastrophe zone that our single lives were, before they came along. To keep the other dependent on you, it might be best to make sure that they are satisfied with little. Like maracas. “Gifts… and the feelings that come with them.”
The sequestered children even have a video camera. It gives them the illusion of agency, like they are not just objects, but subjects shaping their own reality. They are not just victims. They are witnesses of each other’s victimization.
And yet, “I am a victim!” shouts that guy from Portlandia, who plays the only female character in the play (which probably should have ended on that powerful note). For the loved becomes owned by the lover, becomes the screen against which the projection (love) violently lands.
During Conte d’amour, I kept thinking that it was like witnessing an extreme version of Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse. Except that, rereading my notes, I realized that I kept using “the lover” and “the loved” to refer to all of the characters, no matter if they were the kidnapper or the kidnapped. Maybe Barthes forgot that love can also be a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
May 28-30 at 7pm
Théâtre Rouge du Conservatoire
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43$ / 30 years old and under: 38$
“Am I in love? –Yes, since I’m waiting.” –Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse
If you want love, pure love, get yourself a dummy. Sure, when you feed them chips or make them drink Coke, it will all just fall to the floor, but that’s precisely what you want. The absence of thirst and hunger means that they will never, ever leave you.
In Markus Öhrn’s Conte d’amour, the other is a blank canvas onto which we can project our love, so that it can never find itself soiled by the other’s own velocity, since it has none. (I once wrote, “On veut la projection qui nous échappe par sa propre vie.”)
Of course, a dummy might not fulfil all of your desires. So, alternatively, make sure that, if the one you love is human, they are as dependent on you as possible. It might be infantilizing, of course, but this works in your favour. Children are less likely to leave you than your adult partner. To make their leaving even less likely, bring them McDonald’s. Under the right light, those fries and nuggets can really look golden.
“Everything is simpler in Thailand,” a character tells us. “Thai women are not as troublesome as Occidental ones.” This is the moment at which Conte d’amour becomes more than just a play loosely based on a sordid news story. This is the moment when in one fell swoop it becomes political by exposing the relationship between racism, sexism, and capitalism. The statement is of course naïve. What makes one less troublesome has nothing to do with race or gender. It has to do with one’s economic dependency. Eve was not made from Adam’s rib. She was made from his wallet.
If you want love, pure love, do make the dependent one feel like they have some power. Withhold your attention so they feel like they have to earn it. Let them turn a basement beam into a stripper pole. If they can seduce you, they must have some power. Ignore the fact that their survival depends on it.
The saviour comes down from the ceiling as though from a helicopter, bringing chips and Coke to his grateful African children. Maintain the system that keeps them dependent on you, but let them feel like you’re being good to them when you give them the bare necessities of life.
The lover comes down from the skies, bearing gifts, to save us from the catastrophe zone that our single lives were, before they came along. To keep the other dependent on you, it might be best to make sure that they are satisfied with little. Like maracas. “Gifts… and the feelings that come with them.”
The sequestered children even have a video camera. It gives them the illusion of agency, like they are not just objects, but subjects shaping their own reality. They are not just victims. They are witnesses of each other’s victimization.
And yet, “I am a victim!” shouts that guy from Portlandia, who plays the only female character in the play (which probably should have ended on that powerful note). For the loved becomes owned by the lover, becomes the screen against which the projection (love) violently lands.
During Conte d’amour, I kept thinking that it was like witnessing an extreme version of Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse. Except that, rereading my notes, I realized that I kept using “the lover” and “the loved” to refer to all of the characters, no matter if they were the kidnapper or the kidnapped. Maybe Barthes forgot that love can also be a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
May 28-30 at 7pm
Théâtre Rouge du Conservatoire
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43$ / 30 years old and under: 38$
Beauty Remained for Just a Moment...: A Review
Beauty Remained..., photo by John Hogg
When the city of Montreal advised its population not to drink tap water because it might be unsafe, a friend living in Turkey wrote on Facebook, “We don't drink tap water here at all. We order big fat 19 liter jugs of water that are delivered by men who carry six of them at once on their scooters while talking on their cell phones with no helmet on. True story!”
One of her friends replied, “In Guatemala, we get water from the guy that delivers them by foot, 3 at a time up the hill. Guatemalans are badass! You can also get them from the tuk-tuk guy if you live in a remote area, by remote I mean on the other side of the street.” Yet another person chimed in: “It's exactly the same in India.”
The first comment had been, “Yep, water is seriously taken for granted in Canada.” And maybe that’s the problem with beauty. It’s what we take for granted. It’s not less present. It’s just less noticeable.
When one of the seven dancers in Robyn Orlin’s Beauty Remained for Just a Moment Then Returned Gently to her Starting Position… asks, “God, have you found your own beauty?”, the question could be understood in at least two ways. It could be about God perceiving Himself as beautiful, which would not be an irrelevant question if one believes that Man was made in God’s image. It could also be about beauty being not perceived by the mind, but produced by it.
We rarely talk about it, but it’s not always human beings that fail nature; sometimes it’s life that fails us. Sometimes there is no sun, literal or otherwise, and we must shine a light of our own and pretend. That’s probably when human beings are most beautiful; when they refuse to submit to the arbitrary ways of the universe.
This is but one of the many things we accomplish with art. We compensate. We make up for the lacks of the world.
A performer jumps up and down and asks, “Sun, can you jump like this?” It is often hard not to feel small in the face of the cosmos. But what if we didn’t think in terms of size or quantity or time, but in terms of qualities? No, the sun cannot jump like this. Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. It is also in the body of the mover.
May 23 & 24 at 8pm
Monument-National – Salle Ludger-Duvernay
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43-48$ / 30 years old and under: 38-43$
One of her friends replied, “In Guatemala, we get water from the guy that delivers them by foot, 3 at a time up the hill. Guatemalans are badass! You can also get them from the tuk-tuk guy if you live in a remote area, by remote I mean on the other side of the street.” Yet another person chimed in: “It's exactly the same in India.”
The first comment had been, “Yep, water is seriously taken for granted in Canada.” And maybe that’s the problem with beauty. It’s what we take for granted. It’s not less present. It’s just less noticeable.
When one of the seven dancers in Robyn Orlin’s Beauty Remained for Just a Moment Then Returned Gently to her Starting Position… asks, “God, have you found your own beauty?”, the question could be understood in at least two ways. It could be about God perceiving Himself as beautiful, which would not be an irrelevant question if one believes that Man was made in God’s image. It could also be about beauty being not perceived by the mind, but produced by it.
We rarely talk about it, but it’s not always human beings that fail nature; sometimes it’s life that fails us. Sometimes there is no sun, literal or otherwise, and we must shine a light of our own and pretend. That’s probably when human beings are most beautiful; when they refuse to submit to the arbitrary ways of the universe.
This is but one of the many things we accomplish with art. We compensate. We make up for the lacks of the world.
A performer jumps up and down and asks, “Sun, can you jump like this?” It is often hard not to feel small in the face of the cosmos. But what if we didn’t think in terms of size or quantity or time, but in terms of qualities? No, the sun cannot jump like this. Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. It is also in the body of the mover.
May 23 & 24 at 8pm
Monument-National – Salle Ludger-Duvernay
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Tickets: 43-48$ / 30 years old and under: 38-43$
Hetero: A Video
Maybe someday I will find the words. Until then...
3 x 3 x 3: A Review
Pale Water (Première Partie), photo by Simon Grenier-Poirier
Three choreographers, three pieces, three Canadian cities.
Pale Water (Première Partie), Dorian Nuskind-Oder (Montréal)
At first, but a backlit silhouette against a white screen.
Then, neon strips are positioned on six sides around Nuskind-Oder, with gaps in between, so that the eye can read a hexagon, an octagon, a dodecagon, or a simple triangle depending on the lines that are lit or extrapolated.
Many dance shows have live musicians onstage. Pale Water does something cheekier: it is as lighting designer that Simon Grenier-Poirier is onstage.
Nuskind-Oder’s movement is quiet, slow, deliberate. Her body is controlled until it appears to be in suspension.
I don’t want it to be over.
Falling Off the Page, Jacinthe Armstrong (Halifax)
Falling Off the Page begins with one dancer’s hand seemingly controlling the other dancer’s foot, like a puppeteer and her dummy. This is the first in a long series of clichés:
-They wash their hair in pots filled with water in a purifying ritual.
-They travel along a road made of light (after first appearing in a square prison of light).
-They unroll a paper carpet along the lit road.
-They dip their hair in paint and drag it across the paper.
-They look back at the road travelled.
One redemptive quality: it is not uncommon for dancers here to jump in the air and let themselves fall heavily back on the ground; in Armstrong’s choreography, the dancers instead jump into the air and let their limbs float up so that for a second they almost seem to fly.
La petite mort, Maryse Damecour (Québec)
Original movement emerges when a physical constraint is added to an otherwise common gesture, like when Brice Noeser walks on all fours, but with his hands covering his face so that it is his elbows that are dragging him across the floor. It is always refreshing when a choreographer is preoccupied by something other than beauty, when the dance is allowed to be delightfully awkward, and not without humour. La petite mort revels in abrupt transitions and, when it pretends to be joyful, it’s laughable because it rings false.
It is always a treat to watch Noeser, who has such a distinct corporality, move.
www.tangente.qc.ca
www.delicatebeast.com
http://damequidanse.com/
Pale Water (Première Partie), Dorian Nuskind-Oder (Montréal)
At first, but a backlit silhouette against a white screen.
Then, neon strips are positioned on six sides around Nuskind-Oder, with gaps in between, so that the eye can read a hexagon, an octagon, a dodecagon, or a simple triangle depending on the lines that are lit or extrapolated.
Many dance shows have live musicians onstage. Pale Water does something cheekier: it is as lighting designer that Simon Grenier-Poirier is onstage.
Nuskind-Oder’s movement is quiet, slow, deliberate. Her body is controlled until it appears to be in suspension.
I don’t want it to be over.
Falling Off the Page, Jacinthe Armstrong (Halifax)
Falling Off the Page begins with one dancer’s hand seemingly controlling the other dancer’s foot, like a puppeteer and her dummy. This is the first in a long series of clichés:
-They wash their hair in pots filled with water in a purifying ritual.
-They travel along a road made of light (after first appearing in a square prison of light).
-They unroll a paper carpet along the lit road.
-They dip their hair in paint and drag it across the paper.
-They look back at the road travelled.
One redemptive quality: it is not uncommon for dancers here to jump in the air and let themselves fall heavily back on the ground; in Armstrong’s choreography, the dancers instead jump into the air and let their limbs float up so that for a second they almost seem to fly.
La petite mort, Maryse Damecour (Québec)
Original movement emerges when a physical constraint is added to an otherwise common gesture, like when Brice Noeser walks on all fours, but with his hands covering his face so that it is his elbows that are dragging him across the floor. It is always refreshing when a choreographer is preoccupied by something other than beauty, when the dance is allowed to be delightfully awkward, and not without humour. La petite mort revels in abrupt transitions and, when it pretends to be joyful, it’s laughable because it rings false.
It is always a treat to watch Noeser, who has such a distinct corporality, move.
www.tangente.qc.ca
www.delicatebeast.com
http://damequidanse.com/
When We Were Old: A Review
When We Were Old, photo by Adrienne Surprenant
“I bring you somewhere.”
If you’re going to follow her, truly follow her, you need to trust her.
Choreographers Chiara Frigo (Italy) and Emmanuel Jouthe (Québec) might hold hands with fingers interlaced, but it’s the only codified gesture you will find in When We Were Old. It is their starting point, a sign of trust and desire for true connection, from which anything can happen. Their relationship and the movements that stem from it are not predetermined. They are not playing roles. Their meeting is perpetual, occurs in each moment, like when they let go of each other, evolve independently, find each other again, and everything is to be done again. As a result, their meeting feels sincere.
It also allows the performers to bypass all kinds of contemporary dance clichés that often emerge as soon as a woman and a man are onstage. Their duet is neither coupley, nor antagonistic. It just feels honest. It is no coincidence that, after the show, my date told me, “I liked that she was never weak.”
Jouthe and Frigo are trying to build something together and, like the tree trunks they use as building blocks for her to stand on, the structure might end up making things shakier than no structure at all. And that’s okay. That’s the risk one takes in building a relationship or a dance.
Even the Marley that covers the floor is loose, not taped down, and can be unrolled or rolled up, allowing change and surprise. Beneath, a new floor might be revealed, or even a new costume. It is as malleable as their relationship.
Her movement is more spastic; his, more fluid and smooth. As they hover from side to side in opposite directions, they only ever meet for a brief moment in the middle. And that’s enough. By the end, it might even allow them to transform into dinosaurs among mountains made of chairs. It all depends on whether you trust them enough to bring you there.
April 24-26 at 8pm
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com / www.tangente.qc.ca
514.525.1500
Tickets: 28$ / Students or under 30: 20$
If you’re going to follow her, truly follow her, you need to trust her.
Choreographers Chiara Frigo (Italy) and Emmanuel Jouthe (Québec) might hold hands with fingers interlaced, but it’s the only codified gesture you will find in When We Were Old. It is their starting point, a sign of trust and desire for true connection, from which anything can happen. Their relationship and the movements that stem from it are not predetermined. They are not playing roles. Their meeting is perpetual, occurs in each moment, like when they let go of each other, evolve independently, find each other again, and everything is to be done again. As a result, their meeting feels sincere.
It also allows the performers to bypass all kinds of contemporary dance clichés that often emerge as soon as a woman and a man are onstage. Their duet is neither coupley, nor antagonistic. It just feels honest. It is no coincidence that, after the show, my date told me, “I liked that she was never weak.”
Jouthe and Frigo are trying to build something together and, like the tree trunks they use as building blocks for her to stand on, the structure might end up making things shakier than no structure at all. And that’s okay. That’s the risk one takes in building a relationship or a dance.
Even the Marley that covers the floor is loose, not taped down, and can be unrolled or rolled up, allowing change and surprise. Beneath, a new floor might be revealed, or even a new costume. It is as malleable as their relationship.
Her movement is more spastic; his, more fluid and smooth. As they hover from side to side in opposite directions, they only ever meet for a brief moment in the middle. And that’s enough. By the end, it might even allow them to transform into dinosaurs among mountains made of chairs. It all depends on whether you trust them enough to bring you there.
April 24-26 at 8pm
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com / www.tangente.qc.ca
514.525.1500
Tickets: 28$ / Students or under 30: 20$
Chorus II: The Emails
Chorus II, photo by Jasmine Allan-Côté
Sylvain Verstricht
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to sasha
Hi Sasha,
Would you want to talk to me about your new show? Do you have time? (Preferably by email, but we could do it in person if need be. Or maybe even chatting?)
I hope all is well. xo
Sash
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to me
Hey,
Email is great:)
Cheers
Sylvain Verstricht
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to Sash
You went from a "man free zone" in your last work [All the Ladies] to an all-male cast for your new show, Chorus II. Why the switch?
sasha kleinplatz
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to me
I think it had to do with the subject matter (davening), which I remember my grandfather performing. He was a really tough guy, but when he prayed he could be so tender and meditative. I was interested in exploring that "energy" with a group of male dancers, as a way of remembering and re-writing my experiences of him.
Sylvain Verstricht
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to sasha
Your performers come from a variety of backgrounds: different schools; some are barely out of them, others have been dancing professionally for a while... It almost seems as though you handpicked them. Why these particular men?
sasha kleinplatz
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to me
When I first started working on this piece it was for Piss in the Pool, and I knew I wanted as many men as possible. I wanted it to be a counter-point to the twelve-women choreography I made for the pool two years earlier. I basically wrote every male dancer I knew, as well as a bunch I barely knew who were recommended to me by friends. Anybody who said "yes" was in the choreography (not the most professional method but it worked amazingly). Most of those original dancers are still in the work.
Sylvain Verstricht
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to sasha
Since you bring it up, you have been working on it for a while... I always admired you for your rigor, so I have to ask: how do you manage to maintain interest in one piece for such a long period of time? How has it changed over time?
sasha kleinplatz
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to me
Oh man, it is hard to stay rigorous! It isn't hard to stay interested, but it's hard to stay committed to the thread of the work and not diverge into ideas that are outside the particular choreography I am making. It helps to have collaborators who can also see the themes of the work pretty clearly; they keep you on track. The interpreters (Benjamin Kamino, Milan Panet-Gigon, Nate Yaffe, Lael Stellick, Simon Portigal, and Frédéric Wiper) are amazing for this, they all have their own experience and perceptions of the work, and if they feel like we have strayed too far from the universe we have created they will tell me. Working with a perceptive outside eye is also really integral. For this piece I have worked with three (Thea Patterson, Andrew Tay, Ginelle Chagnon), all of whom have pushed me to retain and clarify the voice of the work.
It also helps to be feel a bit possessed by the work:)
Sylvain Verstricht
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to sasha
During the public performance following your residence at Usine C, one of the dancers let his partner fall a bunch of times. Based on their interaction after the show, I assume that wasn't supposed to happen. Question: have you been experiencing massive amounts of guilt or was it their own fault?
sasha kleinplatz
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to me
That's a hilarious question. Um, no I don't feel guilty. I am a pretty paranoid choreographer, I am constantly asking the dancers if a movement feels safe to them to execute, to a degree that the dancers have point-blank told me is very annoying. So, I had asked them about that part repeatedly before the showing, and afterwards when I asked the dancer if he was okay he basically laughed at me.
Sylvain Verstricht
15 Apr (1 day ago)
to sasha
One last question... After you presented Chorus II at Piss in the Pool, I compared it to Édouard Lock's work (mostly just because of the black suits the men wore). I used the word "emptied" ("un Édouard Lock vidé de ses muses féminines"), which I now realize sounds pejorative, but I really meant it as a compliment. Do you hate me?
sasha kleinplatz
23:44 (15 hours ago)
to me
No, I love you, you know that. I was kind of like "fuck, my work looks derivative!" but that's okay. Can't let Locke corner the market on men in suits. Anyways, it's all good, we are good:)
April 18-20 at 8pm & April 21 at 3pm
MAI
www.m-a-i.qc.ca
514.982.3386
Tickets: 22$ / Students: 15$
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to sasha
Hi Sasha,
Would you want to talk to me about your new show? Do you have time? (Preferably by email, but we could do it in person if need be. Or maybe even chatting?)
I hope all is well. xo
Sash
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to me
Hey,
Email is great:)
Cheers
Sylvain Verstricht
12 Apr (4 days ago)
to Sash
You went from a "man free zone" in your last work [All the Ladies] to an all-male cast for your new show, Chorus II. Why the switch?
sasha kleinplatz
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to me
I think it had to do with the subject matter (davening), which I remember my grandfather performing. He was a really tough guy, but when he prayed he could be so tender and meditative. I was interested in exploring that "energy" with a group of male dancers, as a way of remembering and re-writing my experiences of him.
Sylvain Verstricht
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to sasha
Your performers come from a variety of backgrounds: different schools; some are barely out of them, others have been dancing professionally for a while... It almost seems as though you handpicked them. Why these particular men?
sasha kleinplatz
13 Apr (3 days ago)
to me
When I first started working on this piece it was for Piss in the Pool, and I knew I wanted as many men as possible. I wanted it to be a counter-point to the twelve-women choreography I made for the pool two years earlier. I basically wrote every male dancer I knew, as well as a bunch I barely knew who were recommended to me by friends. Anybody who said "yes" was in the choreography (not the most professional method but it worked amazingly). Most of those original dancers are still in the work.
Sylvain Verstricht
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to sasha
Since you bring it up, you have been working on it for a while... I always admired you for your rigor, so I have to ask: how do you manage to maintain interest in one piece for such a long period of time? How has it changed over time?
sasha kleinplatz
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to me
Oh man, it is hard to stay rigorous! It isn't hard to stay interested, but it's hard to stay committed to the thread of the work and not diverge into ideas that are outside the particular choreography I am making. It helps to have collaborators who can also see the themes of the work pretty clearly; they keep you on track. The interpreters (Benjamin Kamino, Milan Panet-Gigon, Nate Yaffe, Lael Stellick, Simon Portigal, and Frédéric Wiper) are amazing for this, they all have their own experience and perceptions of the work, and if they feel like we have strayed too far from the universe we have created they will tell me. Working with a perceptive outside eye is also really integral. For this piece I have worked with three (Thea Patterson, Andrew Tay, Ginelle Chagnon), all of whom have pushed me to retain and clarify the voice of the work.
It also helps to be feel a bit possessed by the work:)
Sylvain Verstricht
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to sasha
During the public performance following your residence at Usine C, one of the dancers let his partner fall a bunch of times. Based on their interaction after the show, I assume that wasn't supposed to happen. Question: have you been experiencing massive amounts of guilt or was it their own fault?
sasha kleinplatz
14 Apr (2 days ago)
to me
That's a hilarious question. Um, no I don't feel guilty. I am a pretty paranoid choreographer, I am constantly asking the dancers if a movement feels safe to them to execute, to a degree that the dancers have point-blank told me is very annoying. So, I had asked them about that part repeatedly before the showing, and afterwards when I asked the dancer if he was okay he basically laughed at me.
Sylvain Verstricht
15 Apr (1 day ago)
to sasha
One last question... After you presented Chorus II at Piss in the Pool, I compared it to Édouard Lock's work (mostly just because of the black suits the men wore). I used the word "emptied" ("un Édouard Lock vidé de ses muses féminines"), which I now realize sounds pejorative, but I really meant it as a compliment. Do you hate me?
sasha kleinplatz
23:44 (15 hours ago)
to me
No, I love you, you know that. I was kind of like "fuck, my work looks derivative!" but that's okay. Can't let Locke corner the market on men in suits. Anyways, it's all good, we are good:)
April 18-20 at 8pm & April 21 at 3pm
MAI
www.m-a-i.qc.ca
514.982.3386
Tickets: 22$ / Students: 15$
Collective Individual: A Review
Collective Individual, photo by YUL.
“I fear embodying the absence ethnic war has left around me.”
A legitimate fear if there is one. While only Zohar Melinek can speak of the emotional toil that the performance of Collective Individual takes on him, we can say that, though he is not a trained dancer, his performance is visibly felt and therefore honest; qualities that more than compensate for any lack of technical training.
He benefits from the help of his partner from their collective Thirst/Clarity, dancer Mary St-Amand Williamson. She too seems to be more concerned with sincerity of purpose and emotion than with physical virtuosity. All the better for the subject at hand, the recent revolutions in the Arab world.
The strength of the choreography is not in the symbolism of its gestures, but in the constraints they impose on the body and which differentiate it from so many others. The floor work stands heads and shoulder above the rest, like when they slowly move with their feet and head weighing them down against the floor, but their ass high in the air, triangular shapes that make their movement difficult.
On the other hand, it is at its weakest when the symbolism is obvious (and therefore I must admit on the cheap side), like when Williamson is seemingly locked between four walls made of light. The physical constraints cease to be embodied and temporarily turn the performance into little more than bad miming.
While a minimal amount of synchronicity is necessary for any social movement to effect change, here the choreography would be richer if the performers had less recourse to it. The movement is simple (delightfully so) and the eye would have benefited from constantly shifting between this simplicity and the density of juxtaposition.
Video images of the uprising only make two brief appearances, but each time the live performers get swallowed by the mass of protesters. One can only imagine how powerful Collective Individual would be if it could represent live the energy of a sea of people and the wave they inevitably embody.
The show ends with its most compelling sequence, Melinek and Williamson noisily moving while being lit by nothing but the projector projecting nothing. It confirmed my sneaking suspicion: the whole show could have taken place in that darkness.
The world premiere of Collective Individual was, like any good revolution, imperfect, but promising.
April 5 & 6 at 8pm
MAI
www.m-a-i.qc.ca
www.zoharmelinek.com
vimeo.com/user4058531
514.982.3386
Tickets: 22$ / Students: 15$
A legitimate fear if there is one. While only Zohar Melinek can speak of the emotional toil that the performance of Collective Individual takes on him, we can say that, though he is not a trained dancer, his performance is visibly felt and therefore honest; qualities that more than compensate for any lack of technical training.
He benefits from the help of his partner from their collective Thirst/Clarity, dancer Mary St-Amand Williamson. She too seems to be more concerned with sincerity of purpose and emotion than with physical virtuosity. All the better for the subject at hand, the recent revolutions in the Arab world.
The strength of the choreography is not in the symbolism of its gestures, but in the constraints they impose on the body and which differentiate it from so many others. The floor work stands heads and shoulder above the rest, like when they slowly move with their feet and head weighing them down against the floor, but their ass high in the air, triangular shapes that make their movement difficult.
On the other hand, it is at its weakest when the symbolism is obvious (and therefore I must admit on the cheap side), like when Williamson is seemingly locked between four walls made of light. The physical constraints cease to be embodied and temporarily turn the performance into little more than bad miming.
While a minimal amount of synchronicity is necessary for any social movement to effect change, here the choreography would be richer if the performers had less recourse to it. The movement is simple (delightfully so) and the eye would have benefited from constantly shifting between this simplicity and the density of juxtaposition.
Video images of the uprising only make two brief appearances, but each time the live performers get swallowed by the mass of protesters. One can only imagine how powerful Collective Individual would be if it could represent live the energy of a sea of people and the wave they inevitably embody.
The show ends with its most compelling sequence, Melinek and Williamson noisily moving while being lit by nothing but the projector projecting nothing. It confirmed my sneaking suspicion: the whole show could have taken place in that darkness.
The world premiere of Collective Individual was, like any good revolution, imperfect, but promising.
April 5 & 6 at 8pm
MAI
www.m-a-i.qc.ca
www.zoharmelinek.com
vimeo.com/user4058531
514.982.3386
Tickets: 22$ / Students: 15$
In Which Sobriety Is the #1 Cause of Social Anxiety
The bathroom at Il Motore.
I’m out of weed. I text the delivery service, but I don’t hear back from them. The concert is in thirty minutes. What do I have around the house? A flask of Balvenie Doublewood 12 y.o. Two cans of PBR that a way-too-drunk customer forgot at work. I don’t like drinking alcohol, not because of the taste, but because of the effect it has on my body. Still, I crack open a can and bring the flask with me.
But it doesn’t work. Even when I finally feel drunk, I still feel like I’m dying. I stand in the corner of the room, looking through Twitter on my phone. I’m not a douchebag; it’s just the only thing that’s making me feel a bit better right now.
When the opening act is over, I go outside to get some fresh air. When I come back some asshole is now standing in the corner. He doesn’t need to. He’s with someone. He doesn’t suffer from social anxiety. I go in the bathroom. I sit in the single bathroom stall, waiting for the headliner to finally go on. I curse the band under my breath for taking so long to get started. The internet barely works in here, and it’s not helping.
I remember that, when my best friend wouldn’t be there in high school, I’d eat my lunch in a bathroom stall. Soon though, I would just drop my lunch in the nearest garbage can and go spend the entire lunch hour in the library.
But it doesn’t work. Even when I finally feel drunk, I still feel like I’m dying. I stand in the corner of the room, looking through Twitter on my phone. I’m not a douchebag; it’s just the only thing that’s making me feel a bit better right now.
When the opening act is over, I go outside to get some fresh air. When I come back some asshole is now standing in the corner. He doesn’t need to. He’s with someone. He doesn’t suffer from social anxiety. I go in the bathroom. I sit in the single bathroom stall, waiting for the headliner to finally go on. I curse the band under my breath for taking so long to get started. The internet barely works in here, and it’s not helping.
I remember that, when my best friend wouldn’t be there in high school, I’d eat my lunch in a bathroom stall. Soon though, I would just drop my lunch in the nearest garbage can and go spend the entire lunch hour in the library.
The bathroom at L'Absynthe.
Even before I’d ever been to the city, I considered myself a city person. This was based on movies and television alone. I wanted to do things city people do. Now that I’m in the city though, I recognize that part of me (the core of me) remains a country person. I do city things but I do them in a country way: alone. I grew up on a dairy farm, far from my friends, which I rarely saw outside of school. I had two older brothers, but we had a significant age difference: five and seven years. They were more likely to terrorize me than protect me. I remember an incident where my mother was scared of sending me to school because she feared that my teacher would think my parents were beating me up; I had bruises all over my arms.
So I did things on my own. I read; I watched television, whatever movies they had at the shitty video store in town; I listened to top 40 radio because I’d never been exposed to anything else; I daydreamed. In the country, if you don’t do things on your own, you won’t do anything at all.
In the city, I went to the movies, to restaurants, to concerts, to clubs, to bars, to dance shows, to plays… Most of the time, I did those things on my own. I still do.
So I did things on my own. I read; I watched television, whatever movies they had at the shitty video store in town; I listened to top 40 radio because I’d never been exposed to anything else; I daydreamed. In the country, if you don’t do things on your own, you won’t do anything at all.
In the city, I went to the movies, to restaurants, to concerts, to clubs, to bars, to dance shows, to plays… Most of the time, I did those things on my own. I still do.
The bathroom at Casa del Popolo.
There are two social settings in which I need to smoke up: at a concert and at a club. I’m not entirely sure why. I feel mostly fine going to a restaurant or a theatre on my own. Sometimes I’ll notice that I’m the only person alone and I’ll feel a bit of social envy, but then I listen to the inane conversations of the people around me and I go back to reading the words of people long dead.
I think I feel fine in these contexts because my aloneness is assigned a table, a seat, a delimited space. At a concert or a club, the crowd is fluid, and their togetherness constantly threatens to butt up against my aloneness. My aloneness is in a constant state of shock.
When I get stoned, I become invested in the sensorial experience of my surroundings. I don’t care that I’m alone. The tightness in my chest subsides. Words fill my head and, whether it’s actually true or not, my stoned self thinks I’m really witty. I can focus on the music, I can hear it, I can let it inside of me, I can feel it.
I think I feel fine in these contexts because my aloneness is assigned a table, a seat, a delimited space. At a concert or a club, the crowd is fluid, and their togetherness constantly threatens to butt up against my aloneness. My aloneness is in a constant state of shock.
When I get stoned, I become invested in the sensorial experience of my surroundings. I don’t care that I’m alone. The tightness in my chest subsides. Words fill my head and, whether it’s actually true or not, my stoned self thinks I’m really witty. I can focus on the music, I can hear it, I can let it inside of me, I can feel it.
Goodbye Inland Empire: A Mashup
The Black Lodge.
The beam of light from a projector appears in front of the viewer instead of just behind. The screen becomes a mirror, reminding the viewer: this is not reality; it’s just a movie. The projector lights up the title, Inland Empire, by David Lynch.
At the beginning of Mélanie Demers’s Goodbye, dancer Jacques Poulin-Denis opens with a typical Demers move, a series of statements paradoxical in their juxtaposition: “This is not the show,” he tells us. “Not a flat screen, not reality.” The question that always emerges with Demers is: then what is it? One should never readily believe what the performers are saying. Of course, when Poulin-Denis is claiming, “This is not the show,” he is reminding us of the opposite: this is a show. But does it even matter one way or another?
Extreme close-up of a needle on a vinyl record. To say that it’s just music is to undermine the kind of emotional manipulation that art is involved in.
At the beginning of Mélanie Demers’s Goodbye, dancer Jacques Poulin-Denis opens with a typical Demers move, a series of statements paradoxical in their juxtaposition: “This is not the show,” he tells us. “Not a flat screen, not reality.” The question that always emerges with Demers is: then what is it? One should never readily believe what the performers are saying. Of course, when Poulin-Denis is claiming, “This is not the show,” he is reminding us of the opposite: this is a show. But does it even matter one way or another?
Extreme close-up of a needle on a vinyl record. To say that it’s just music is to undermine the kind of emotional manipulation that art is involved in.
A large checkerboard, a trivial human figure.
Even the electric guitar riffs in Goodbye are reminiscent of Lynch, most particularly Angelo Badalamenti’s score for the Twin Peaks series. That’s not to mention the floor, a black-and-white checkerboard of inhuman proportions that dramatizes the space and makes the dancers look trivial, like mere chess pieces. The Black Lodge.
A woman watches television, though on it there is nothing but static. Soon, however, the TV image gives way to animated rabbits in their apartment. It could all be in her head. Se faire son cinéma.
Do we need to believe that Brianna Lombardo and Poulin-Denis are really a couple to be affected by their dance? Of course not. The moment they interact, the moment they touch, the moment they move together, they enter into a relationship, their actions have consequences.
A woman watches television, though on it there is nothing but static. Soon, however, the TV image gives way to animated rabbits in their apartment. It could all be in her head. Se faire son cinéma.
Do we need to believe that Brianna Lombardo and Poulin-Denis are really a couple to be affected by their dance? Of course not. The moment they interact, the moment they touch, the moment they move together, they enter into a relationship, their actions have consequences.
Every action is a performance, every performance has consequences. Photo by Mathieu Doyon.
We don’t need to believe that Grace Zabriskie is not Grace Zabriskie. She just needs to walk in, creepy as fuck. If you don’t feel anything, it’s because you’re taking Zabriskie for granted; as real. Suspension of disbelief is a myth. The true power of cinema lies in complete and utter disbelief.
Acting or not, if this face doesn't have an effect on you, there's something wrong with you.
Demers is not even trying to pretend. When a performer needs to have tears running down their face, they use eye drops. The microphones they hold are fake, aluminum paper balls on black sticks; the knife, an aluminum paper blade. No one will get hurt. At least not because of objects. No matter how much I hate metaphors, I must recognize that most blades are metaphorical. Artistic ones, always.
Brianna Lombardo and her clown tears. Photo by Mathieu Doyon.
When Laura Dern gets fake stabbed, she runs down Hollywood Boulevard before falling in front of one of the stars from the Walk of Fame. Lynch will not allow you to believe any of it is real. It doesn’t matter. If you are only affected by things that are real, you’re not human.
When Poulin-Denis looks up at the audience while Demers is sucking on his nipple, his reaction is to say, “No, no… It’s not what you think. This is not the show.” The statement is of course hilariously ironic. Demers knows that such a strong image is bound to have an effect on the audience. Would it have any less of an effect if we were to take it in as reality? Of course not. Quite the contrary.
Whenever Dern and Justin Theroux have a scene together, we never quite know whether they are the actors they are portraying in the movie or the characters the actors are portraying in the movie in the movie. At one point, Dern screams out, “Damn! This sounds like dialogue from our script!” That’s because, of course, it is. First and foremost, and if nothing else, every movie is about people making a movie.
Another typical Demers move: when Poulin-Denis is wiping the water off the floor, he is of course doing so for the dancers’ safety; but, by virtue of being performed onstage, the action is also necessarily dramatic. An everyday gesture becomes an artistic one. “Il y a de l’éclairage, des costumes…” he says, laying out the reasons why we might be inclined to think that this is a show. As if those things didn’t exist outside of the theatre…
“Is this our set?” Dern asks. She means in the movie in the movie. However, the set only ends up getting used in the movie. Every space is one location scout away from becoming a set.
Later, when Poulin-Denis is the one sucking on Lombardo’s nipple, Chi Long shouts, “This is it! This is the show!” Yet the gesture is essentially the same as before. If anything, the gender reversal and repetition (and therefore lack of surprise) have made it more socially acceptable, less dramatic. It’s always been the show, even before Goodbye ever started.
The needle on the record, the music, the emotional manipulation... The viewer cries. She cries because she relates with the character Dern is playing. (What in The Wars Timothy Findley beautifully refers to as “shouts of recognition.”) They encounter each other and kiss in the television. Art as a meeting ground, as the space where artist and audience come into contact, where the line between the artistic and the everyday gets blurred.
When Poulin-Denis looks up at the audience while Demers is sucking on his nipple, his reaction is to say, “No, no… It’s not what you think. This is not the show.” The statement is of course hilariously ironic. Demers knows that such a strong image is bound to have an effect on the audience. Would it have any less of an effect if we were to take it in as reality? Of course not. Quite the contrary.
Whenever Dern and Justin Theroux have a scene together, we never quite know whether they are the actors they are portraying in the movie or the characters the actors are portraying in the movie in the movie. At one point, Dern screams out, “Damn! This sounds like dialogue from our script!” That’s because, of course, it is. First and foremost, and if nothing else, every movie is about people making a movie.
Another typical Demers move: when Poulin-Denis is wiping the water off the floor, he is of course doing so for the dancers’ safety; but, by virtue of being performed onstage, the action is also necessarily dramatic. An everyday gesture becomes an artistic one. “Il y a de l’éclairage, des costumes…” he says, laying out the reasons why we might be inclined to think that this is a show. As if those things didn’t exist outside of the theatre…
“Is this our set?” Dern asks. She means in the movie in the movie. However, the set only ends up getting used in the movie. Every space is one location scout away from becoming a set.
Later, when Poulin-Denis is the one sucking on Lombardo’s nipple, Chi Long shouts, “This is it! This is the show!” Yet the gesture is essentially the same as before. If anything, the gender reversal and repetition (and therefore lack of surprise) have made it more socially acceptable, less dramatic. It’s always been the show, even before Goodbye ever started.
The needle on the record, the music, the emotional manipulation... The viewer cries. She cries because she relates with the character Dern is playing. (What in The Wars Timothy Findley beautifully refers to as “shouts of recognition.”) They encounter each other and kiss in the television. Art as a meeting ground, as the space where artist and audience come into contact, where the line between the artistic and the everyday gets blurred.
Tears as shouts of recognition.
Goodbye. No, really, goodbye. Poulin-Denis keeps telling the audience the show is over, in so many different ways that it becomes comical, yet the audience doesn’t leave. This is still the show. When does it really end? What are the cues? When the stage lights fade out, when the house lights come on, when the performers take a bow, when we clap, when we leave the theatre, when we finally stop thinking about the show… Some shows never end. And, even when shows do end, what awaits us outside the theatre? More metaphorical blades. Theatre.
usine-c.com
maydaydanse.ca
usine-c.com
maydaydanse.ca
T.r.a.s.h.: A Review
TtBernadette, photo by Ernest Potters
Enchanted Room, by Kristel van Issum &
Guilherme Miotto
“I feel like my heart’s going to explode!”
The trees are bare. This is not an enchanted forest, but a room and, really, the enchanted part of it probably only exists in the characters’ head. Like the trunks without leaves around them, their bodies are strong, but their heads are weak. Their bodies are a joke played on them, athletic, but useless. Their pirouettes look ridiculous given that they’re barely holding it together otherwise. They’re delusional and the room in question might very well be a psych ward.
Performer Oona Doherty looks like she’s channeling Saturday Night Live’s Molly Shannon’s most neurotic characters: Mary Katherine Gallagher, Sally O’Malley, Anna Nicole Smith, Courtney Love… She takes on a sexualized persona the façade of which she cannot maintain because too fragile, and it crumbles around her.
“There is so much beauty in this world! I can’t take it in!” They may be quoting American Beauty, but the result is ironic. They’re not upper-middle class. They can’t just quit their job, work in a fast-food joint, and still buy the car of their dreams. They’re taking the piss out of it. That kind of beauty is also a privilege, one they will never be able to experience.
TtBernadette, by Kristel van Issum
TtBernadette shares a lot of similarities with Enchanted Room. The choreography is messy. Joss Carter and Doherty jump around, fall down, and spin without grace. They mostly function independently, but when they touch it’s harsh.
As in the former, there are also costume and wig changes, like they’re sporting different personas, but it’s only an illusion; they don’t ever really change. It’s disheartening, leaving them and us with little hope. There is no escape.
The washing machine in the middle of the stage highlights the lack of domesticity rather than its presence. The only thing domestic about their relationship is the sadomasochism that permeates it.
All this to say that T.r.a.s.h. are so hardcore that they’re not for the faint of heart.
I’m kidding. They really aren’t.
March 5-9 at 8pm
Danse Danse / Cinquième Salle
www.dansedanse.net / laplacedesarts.com
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 40,71$
“I feel like my heart’s going to explode!”
The trees are bare. This is not an enchanted forest, but a room and, really, the enchanted part of it probably only exists in the characters’ head. Like the trunks without leaves around them, their bodies are strong, but their heads are weak. Their bodies are a joke played on them, athletic, but useless. Their pirouettes look ridiculous given that they’re barely holding it together otherwise. They’re delusional and the room in question might very well be a psych ward.
Performer Oona Doherty looks like she’s channeling Saturday Night Live’s Molly Shannon’s most neurotic characters: Mary Katherine Gallagher, Sally O’Malley, Anna Nicole Smith, Courtney Love… She takes on a sexualized persona the façade of which she cannot maintain because too fragile, and it crumbles around her.
“There is so much beauty in this world! I can’t take it in!” They may be quoting American Beauty, but the result is ironic. They’re not upper-middle class. They can’t just quit their job, work in a fast-food joint, and still buy the car of their dreams. They’re taking the piss out of it. That kind of beauty is also a privilege, one they will never be able to experience.
TtBernadette, by Kristel van Issum
TtBernadette shares a lot of similarities with Enchanted Room. The choreography is messy. Joss Carter and Doherty jump around, fall down, and spin without grace. They mostly function independently, but when they touch it’s harsh.
As in the former, there are also costume and wig changes, like they’re sporting different personas, but it’s only an illusion; they don’t ever really change. It’s disheartening, leaving them and us with little hope. There is no escape.
The washing machine in the middle of the stage highlights the lack of domesticity rather than its presence. The only thing domestic about their relationship is the sadomasochism that permeates it.
All this to say that T.r.a.s.h. are so hardcore that they’re not for the faint of heart.
I’m kidding. They really aren’t.
March 5-9 at 8pm
Danse Danse / Cinquième Salle
www.dansedanse.net / laplacedesarts.com
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 40,71$
Corps de Walk: A Review
Corps de Walk, photo by Erik Berg
You might be hearing animal sounds, but human beings are already somewhere else. They are no longer a manifestation of life itself; they have taken it and placed it outside of themselves. It’s now in the nature around them, the nature that used to inhabit them, and in the heavens above.
At the beginning of choreographer Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Corps de Walk, the twelve Carte Blanche dancers lift their arms up to the sky like they’re in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations. However, while in the latter the performers couldn’t be more earnest, here something is already off. It reads like parody. By spiritualizing themselves, human beings have become more disembodied, less animal, less human.
In her previous show presented in Montreal, Bertolina, Eyal already offered us a microcosm of human society, though in this former vision each was still allowed to retain some individuality. Here, differences are eradicated until uniformity takes over both their appearance and movement. It’s at first funny, then unsettling, and eventually nightmarish.
From robots to ballet dancers, there’s only one step. They go there. By dehumanizing themselves, human beings end up parodying themselves. In Corps de Walk, uniformity and synchronicity reach obsessive heights, falling into sci-fi horror territory. Think Village of the Damned, The Stepford Wives, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and any other movie where a single entity controls multiple bodies. The resulting creatures are androgynous and beige, desexualized, deracialized. Their bodies, overly controlled, are troubling.
A dancer shouts: “Now”? Their synchronicity is regimented from the outside, dictated military-style. Obedience is necessary; and disturbing. They are a mindless herd. The togetherness does not feed them; it feeds off them. As opposed to Karine Denault’s Pleasure Dome or Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Cesena, they are but empty vessels. In Denault’s show, you witnessed the ego fade away; here, it is the self itself that is eradicated. The oppression is claustrophobic.
On the rare occasions when a dancer escapes the group to execute their own movement, it is liberating; but they inevitably get swallowed back into the mass. (After the show, I heard an astute audience member compare it to Jean-Pierre Perreault’s work.)
Dance music blasts over the speakers. As the lights slowly fade, the dancers (barely) move to the beat in a tight formation. They are zombies at the club. Just do like everybody else. Don’t bring any attention to yourself. Don’t stand out. Don’t be.
February 28-March 2 at 8pm
Danse Danse / Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.dansedanse.net / laplacedesarts.com
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 34,85$-62,34$
At the beginning of choreographer Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Corps de Walk, the twelve Carte Blanche dancers lift their arms up to the sky like they’re in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations. However, while in the latter the performers couldn’t be more earnest, here something is already off. It reads like parody. By spiritualizing themselves, human beings have become more disembodied, less animal, less human.
In her previous show presented in Montreal, Bertolina, Eyal already offered us a microcosm of human society, though in this former vision each was still allowed to retain some individuality. Here, differences are eradicated until uniformity takes over both their appearance and movement. It’s at first funny, then unsettling, and eventually nightmarish.
From robots to ballet dancers, there’s only one step. They go there. By dehumanizing themselves, human beings end up parodying themselves. In Corps de Walk, uniformity and synchronicity reach obsessive heights, falling into sci-fi horror territory. Think Village of the Damned, The Stepford Wives, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and any other movie where a single entity controls multiple bodies. The resulting creatures are androgynous and beige, desexualized, deracialized. Their bodies, overly controlled, are troubling.
A dancer shouts: “Now”? Their synchronicity is regimented from the outside, dictated military-style. Obedience is necessary; and disturbing. They are a mindless herd. The togetherness does not feed them; it feeds off them. As opposed to Karine Denault’s Pleasure Dome or Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Cesena, they are but empty vessels. In Denault’s show, you witnessed the ego fade away; here, it is the self itself that is eradicated. The oppression is claustrophobic.
On the rare occasions when a dancer escapes the group to execute their own movement, it is liberating; but they inevitably get swallowed back into the mass. (After the show, I heard an astute audience member compare it to Jean-Pierre Perreault’s work.)
Dance music blasts over the speakers. As the lights slowly fade, the dancers (barely) move to the beat in a tight formation. They are zombies at the club. Just do like everybody else. Don’t bring any attention to yourself. Don’t stand out. Don’t be.
February 28-March 2 at 8pm
Danse Danse / Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.dansedanse.net / laplacedesarts.com
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 34,85$-62,34$
Pleasure Dome : une critique
Pleasure Dome, photo de Yannick Grandmont
Si vous mettez une perruque, vous pouvez tout faire. Si vous ajoutez des lunettes de soleil, vous pouvez dépasser toutes les limites de ce qui est considéré comme un comportement acceptable. Le déguisement sert à camoufler certains aspects de soi pour permettre à de nouveaux d’émerger. Il en est de même de l’art. L’art est un mensonge qui révèle la vérité, Picasso a dit.
Dans Pleasure Dome, la chorégraphe Karine Denault et les cinq autres interprètes (Dana Gingras, k.g. Guttman, Jonathan Parant, Alexandre St-Onge, Alexander Wilson) se cachent sous des perruques pour pouvoir aller au-delà du préconçu. Dès que l’on entre dans la salle de l’Agora de la danse, on le remarque; ce sont les trois danseuses qui se trouvent aux consoles de son, alors que les musiciens sont étendus sur le plancher. Après cette inversion des rôles, les interprètes marchent autour de la scène à quatre pattes. Certains se lèvent pour les guider pour un moment, pour ensuite retourner sur leurs quatre pattes et suivre le troupeau à nouveau. Les paramètres des rôles demeurent fluides, malléables, comme dans Cesena d’Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
En laissant libre cours à leur id, les interprètes abandonnent leur ego, phénomène rare en performance scénique, et donc rafraichissant. En début de spectacle, Denault demeure coucher sur le plancher, s’efface. On avait déjà aperçu cet aspect de la chorégraphe dans son dernier solo, Not I & Others.
Le plaisir, c’est aussi l’abandon de l’idéal – virgule – de la beauté. La beauté, si superficielle peut-elle être, pèse tout de même lourdement; le plaisir, quant à lui, est léger, comme les interprètes, qui semblent parfois flotter au-dessus de la scène, ou tout du moins au-dessus de nous, spectateurs assis directement sur le plancher.
De façon surprenante (mais qui rejoint encore Cesena), le plaisir, aussi communautaire soit-il, demeure solitaire. Les interprètes se touchent rarement, mais le besoin d’une collectivité demeure nécessaire et indéniable.
À intervalles réguliers, les interprètes retournent à un état contemplatif, comme s’il y avait toujours la possibilité d’un retour en arrière, d’un recommencement si le résultat est jugé insatisfaisant, à la manière d’un jeu vidéo. Rien ne doit être accepté comme étant définitif. Pleasure Dome aussi semble transitoire. Si on revenait la semaine prochaine, on ne serait pas surpris que ça l’ait une toute autre allure.
Subjectif subjectif subjectif : j’ai une prédisposition pour un éclairage scénique minimale. Ça dramatise l’espace, surtout quand on veut tellement voir ce qui se passe. Je crois qu’ici aussi ça aurait pu avoir des effets bénéfiques. Ça aurait accentué l’espace entre les spectateurs et les interprètes; car malgré notre proximité (assis tout autour de la salle, nous sommes tous au premier rang), nous ne faisons pas partie de cet univers de plaisir. La distance virtuelle aurait souligné l’aspect participatif du plaisir; on ne peut pas compter sur les autres pour nous le transmettre. Le pleasure dome aurait paru tel le saint graal, une destination à atteindre, si on le désire. (J’aurais voulu qu’un des interprètes me donne la main, me donne la permission d’y entrer.)
La plus grande force de Pleasure Dome est son refus du symbolique. Tout comme on ne peut parvenir au plaisir par un raccourci, le sens d’une œuvre d’art ne s’impose que s’il émerge de lui-même. C’est ici le cas.
6-8 février à 20h & 9 février à 16h
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Billets : 28$ / Réduits : 20$
Dans Pleasure Dome, la chorégraphe Karine Denault et les cinq autres interprètes (Dana Gingras, k.g. Guttman, Jonathan Parant, Alexandre St-Onge, Alexander Wilson) se cachent sous des perruques pour pouvoir aller au-delà du préconçu. Dès que l’on entre dans la salle de l’Agora de la danse, on le remarque; ce sont les trois danseuses qui se trouvent aux consoles de son, alors que les musiciens sont étendus sur le plancher. Après cette inversion des rôles, les interprètes marchent autour de la scène à quatre pattes. Certains se lèvent pour les guider pour un moment, pour ensuite retourner sur leurs quatre pattes et suivre le troupeau à nouveau. Les paramètres des rôles demeurent fluides, malléables, comme dans Cesena d’Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
En laissant libre cours à leur id, les interprètes abandonnent leur ego, phénomène rare en performance scénique, et donc rafraichissant. En début de spectacle, Denault demeure coucher sur le plancher, s’efface. On avait déjà aperçu cet aspect de la chorégraphe dans son dernier solo, Not I & Others.
Le plaisir, c’est aussi l’abandon de l’idéal – virgule – de la beauté. La beauté, si superficielle peut-elle être, pèse tout de même lourdement; le plaisir, quant à lui, est léger, comme les interprètes, qui semblent parfois flotter au-dessus de la scène, ou tout du moins au-dessus de nous, spectateurs assis directement sur le plancher.
De façon surprenante (mais qui rejoint encore Cesena), le plaisir, aussi communautaire soit-il, demeure solitaire. Les interprètes se touchent rarement, mais le besoin d’une collectivité demeure nécessaire et indéniable.
À intervalles réguliers, les interprètes retournent à un état contemplatif, comme s’il y avait toujours la possibilité d’un retour en arrière, d’un recommencement si le résultat est jugé insatisfaisant, à la manière d’un jeu vidéo. Rien ne doit être accepté comme étant définitif. Pleasure Dome aussi semble transitoire. Si on revenait la semaine prochaine, on ne serait pas surpris que ça l’ait une toute autre allure.
Subjectif subjectif subjectif : j’ai une prédisposition pour un éclairage scénique minimale. Ça dramatise l’espace, surtout quand on veut tellement voir ce qui se passe. Je crois qu’ici aussi ça aurait pu avoir des effets bénéfiques. Ça aurait accentué l’espace entre les spectateurs et les interprètes; car malgré notre proximité (assis tout autour de la salle, nous sommes tous au premier rang), nous ne faisons pas partie de cet univers de plaisir. La distance virtuelle aurait souligné l’aspect participatif du plaisir; on ne peut pas compter sur les autres pour nous le transmettre. Le pleasure dome aurait paru tel le saint graal, une destination à atteindre, si on le désire. (J’aurais voulu qu’un des interprètes me donne la main, me donne la permission d’y entrer.)
La plus grande force de Pleasure Dome est son refus du symbolique. Tout comme on ne peut parvenir au plaisir par un raccourci, le sens d’une œuvre d’art ne s’impose que s’il émerge de lui-même. C’est ici le cas.
6-8 février à 20h & 9 février à 16h
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Billets : 28$ / Réduits : 20$
In Which We Talk to Ourselves Out Loud
Which man will Candida choose?
MARCHBANKS: I know. You feel that you could love anybody that offered–
PROSERPINE (exasperated): Anybody that offered! No, I do not. What do you take me for?
MARCHBANKS (discouraged): No use. You won't make me real answers – only those things that everybody says.
MARCHBANKS (hopelessly): Nothing that's worth saying is proper.
One of the biggest realizations I’ve had this past year is that there are relationship people and single people. Relationship people continue to be so even when they are single; those periods are usually brief anyway. Single people continue to be so even when they are in relationships; those periods are usually brief anyway.
In 1986, Newsweek caused a firestorm by claiming that women over 40 were “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to find a husband. "’The Marriage Crunch’ was based on a study by Harvard and Yale researchers that projected college-educated women had a 20 percent chance of getting married if they were still single at 30, a 5 percent chance at age 35, and just a 2.6 percent chance at age 40.” (Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2007889&page=1)
Though the statement that women over 40 are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to find a husband seems ludicrous, it is only so if one believes that a relationship is something that happens to someone, like getting killed by a terrorist or struck by lightning. However, if one looks at relationships as something that one is, it oddly starts making sense. Someone who was in a relationship when they were 25 is more likely to be in a relationship when they are 30 (or 35 or 40) than someone who wasn’t. Being in a relationship is not like playing the lotto; it is not a simple matter of chance.
As if to confirm my beliefs, at the end of 2012, I happened to read George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. In some way – though more poetically, of course – I feel he is saying the same thing. Morell and Candida are relationship people. Marchbanks and Proserpine are single people.
The play was first published in 1898, which proves that some things don’t change, except maybe the names we give them. For example, Marchbanks is a hipster. If you don’t believe me, read Shaw’s lengthy but appropriately revealing introduction to the character:
"He is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitiveness of very swift and acute apprehensiveness in youth, before the character has grown to its full strength. […] He is so uncommon as to be almost unearthly; and to prosaic people [i.e. dudebros] there is something noxious in this unearthliness, just as to poetic people [i.e. other hipsters] there is something angelic in it. His dress is anarchic. He wears an old blue serge jacket, unbuttoned, over a woolen lawn tennis shirt, with a silk handkerchief for a cravat, trousers matching the jacket, and brown canvas shoes. In these garments he has apparently lain in the heather and waded through the waters; and there is no evidence of his having ever brushed them.”
PROSERPINE (exasperated): Anybody that offered! No, I do not. What do you take me for?
MARCHBANKS (discouraged): No use. You won't make me real answers – only those things that everybody says.
MARCHBANKS (hopelessly): Nothing that's worth saying is proper.
One of the biggest realizations I’ve had this past year is that there are relationship people and single people. Relationship people continue to be so even when they are single; those periods are usually brief anyway. Single people continue to be so even when they are in relationships; those periods are usually brief anyway.
In 1986, Newsweek caused a firestorm by claiming that women over 40 were “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to find a husband. "’The Marriage Crunch’ was based on a study by Harvard and Yale researchers that projected college-educated women had a 20 percent chance of getting married if they were still single at 30, a 5 percent chance at age 35, and just a 2.6 percent chance at age 40.” (Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2007889&page=1)
Though the statement that women over 40 are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to find a husband seems ludicrous, it is only so if one believes that a relationship is something that happens to someone, like getting killed by a terrorist or struck by lightning. However, if one looks at relationships as something that one is, it oddly starts making sense. Someone who was in a relationship when they were 25 is more likely to be in a relationship when they are 30 (or 35 or 40) than someone who wasn’t. Being in a relationship is not like playing the lotto; it is not a simple matter of chance.
As if to confirm my beliefs, at the end of 2012, I happened to read George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. In some way – though more poetically, of course – I feel he is saying the same thing. Morell and Candida are relationship people. Marchbanks and Proserpine are single people.
The play was first published in 1898, which proves that some things don’t change, except maybe the names we give them. For example, Marchbanks is a hipster. If you don’t believe me, read Shaw’s lengthy but appropriately revealing introduction to the character:
"He is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitiveness of very swift and acute apprehensiveness in youth, before the character has grown to its full strength. […] He is so uncommon as to be almost unearthly; and to prosaic people [i.e. dudebros] there is something noxious in this unearthliness, just as to poetic people [i.e. other hipsters] there is something angelic in it. His dress is anarchic. He wears an old blue serge jacket, unbuttoned, over a woolen lawn tennis shirt, with a silk handkerchief for a cravat, trousers matching the jacket, and brown canvas shoes. In these garments he has apparently lain in the heather and waded through the waters; and there is no evidence of his having ever brushed them.”
Believe it or not, she chooses the laughing idiot on the right. Arguably because she doesn't want to live on the street, though Shaw doesn't broach that subject.
I’ll be perfectly honest: I might have overrelated to Marchbanks. If he lived in the internet age, Marchbanks would be at his computer writing “missed connections” on Craigslist, though in his hands they would magically manage to escape being utterly nauseating. (I, of course, have never been guilty of writing internet bullshit ripe for ridicule.) Though he feels intensely, he is crippled when comes the time to act out on his emotions: “You must be [shy]: that is the reason there are so few love affairs in the world,” he secretly tells Proserpine, projecting himself onto her, though he is not wrong in doing so. “We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the first prayer of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy.”
Marchbanks realizes that love (I mean a relationship) is not something that merely happens, that it is conjured up in the least magical ways, as he continues:
“I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things—foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. (Almost whispering.) It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. (At his normal pitch, but with deep melancholy.) All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy, shy, shy. That is the world's tragedy.”
He has no illusions about relationships. He understands that they are not (arguably because they cannot be) based on feelings alone; it would make them too vulnerable. The strength of such relationships can be found in that love cannot disappear if it were never there. It gives the relationship a stronger footing; there is no rug to be pulled from under it.
MARCHBANKS (scrambling up almost fiercely): Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. (He collapses into his seat, and adds, mournfully) But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others: we cannot utter a word.
Though he reverses cause and consequence, Marchbanks still has a sense that his unfulfilled love feeds his art. “That is what all poets do: they talk to themselves out loud; and the world overhears them,” he admits. “But it's horribly lonely not to hear someone else talk sometimes.” Of course, were he to hear someone else talk, he might no longer be a poet. Poetry comes from a lack. If everything were to be fulfilled, nothing would ever need to be written or spoken. We could all look at one another knowingly.
The all-knowing omnipotent Candida also realizes the fundamental difference between Marchbanks and her husband Morell. When asked to choose between the two, Candida – with her motherly love – picks the weaker of the two. At this statement, both men are devastated. This proves that, despite his dramatic nature, Marchbanks is still more self-aware than Morell.
CANDIDA: You remember what you told me about yourself, Eugene: how nobody has cared for you since your old nurse died: how those clever, fashionable sisters and successful brothers of yours were your mother's and father's pets: how miserable you were at Eton: how your father is trying to starve you into returning to Oxford: how you have had to live without comfort or welcome or refuge, always lonely, and nearly always disliked and misunderstood, poor boy!
Marchbanks realizes that love (I mean a relationship) is not something that merely happens, that it is conjured up in the least magical ways, as he continues:
“I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things—foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. (Almost whispering.) It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. (At his normal pitch, but with deep melancholy.) All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy, shy, shy. That is the world's tragedy.”
He has no illusions about relationships. He understands that they are not (arguably because they cannot be) based on feelings alone; it would make them too vulnerable. The strength of such relationships can be found in that love cannot disappear if it were never there. It gives the relationship a stronger footing; there is no rug to be pulled from under it.
MARCHBANKS (scrambling up almost fiercely): Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. (He collapses into his seat, and adds, mournfully) But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others: we cannot utter a word.
Though he reverses cause and consequence, Marchbanks still has a sense that his unfulfilled love feeds his art. “That is what all poets do: they talk to themselves out loud; and the world overhears them,” he admits. “But it's horribly lonely not to hear someone else talk sometimes.” Of course, were he to hear someone else talk, he might no longer be a poet. Poetry comes from a lack. If everything were to be fulfilled, nothing would ever need to be written or spoken. We could all look at one another knowingly.
The all-knowing omnipotent Candida also realizes the fundamental difference between Marchbanks and her husband Morell. When asked to choose between the two, Candida – with her motherly love – picks the weaker of the two. At this statement, both men are devastated. This proves that, despite his dramatic nature, Marchbanks is still more self-aware than Morell.
CANDIDA: You remember what you told me about yourself, Eugene: how nobody has cared for you since your old nurse died: how those clever, fashionable sisters and successful brothers of yours were your mother's and father's pets: how miserable you were at Eton: how your father is trying to starve you into returning to Oxford: how you have had to live without comfort or welcome or refuge, always lonely, and nearly always disliked and misunderstood, poor boy!
Even in this production she chooses her husband. She couldn't at least have an affair like a normal person?
Candida understands that, despite all appearances to the contrary, Marchbanks is the stronger of the two, for he has learned to be alone, so he can be. By weakly trying to defend himself, he only proves her right: “I had my books. I had Nature. And at last I met you.” The things he has: not human beings; the human being he could only meet, never have.
Candida continues to outline the difference between the two men by turning her attention to her husband:
“Now I want you to look at this other boy here—my boy—spoiled from his cradle. We go once a fortnight to see his parents. You should come with us, Eugene, and see the pictures of the hero of that household. James as a baby! the most wonderful of all babies. James holding his first school prize, won at the ripe age of eight! James as the captain of his eleven! James in his first frock coat! James under all sorts of glorious circumstances! You know how strong he is (I hope he didn't hurt you)—how clever he is—how happy! (With deepening gravity.) Ask James's mother and his three sisters what it cost to save James the trouble of doing anything but be strong and clever and happy. Ask me what it costs to be James's mother and three sisters and wife and mother to his children all in one.”
Morell is the weaker of the two because he has never been alone and therefore has never learned to be alone. He couldn’t. He doesn’t love Candida with the same passion that Marchbanks loves her; but he has something more important working in his favour: he needs her; needs her in a way that Marchbanks will never need her, for the poet can be alone. Morell is not alone because he could not function otherwise. If Candida were to die, he would need to find a new wife as quickly as possible.
As Marchbanks capitulates, Morell demonstrates that his own alterity still prevents him from understanding the poet:
MARCHBANKS: Out, then, into the night with me!
CANDIDA (rising quickly and intercepting him): You are not going like that, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS (with the ring of a man's voice—no longer a boy's—in the words): I know the hour when it strikes. I am impatient to do what must be done.
MORELL (rising from his knee, alarmed): Candida: don't let him do anything rash.
CANDIDA (confident, smiling at Eugene): Oh, there is no fear. He has learnt to live without happiness.
MARCHBANKS: I no longer desire happiness: life is nobler than that.
Before he leaves, Candida attempts to rationalize with Marchbanks; but, with his poetic mind, he out-rationalizes her and even manages to have the last word:
CANDIDA: One last word. (He stops, but without turning to her.) How old are you, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS: As old as the world now. This morning I was eighteen.
CANDIDA (going to him, and standing behind him with one hand caressingly on his shoulder): Eighteen! Will you, for my sake, make a little poem out of the two sentences I am going to say to you? And will you promise to repeat it to yourself whenever you think of me?
MARCHBANKS (without moving): Say the sentences.
CANDIDA: When I am thirty, she will be forty-five. When I am sixty, she will be seventy-five.
MARCHBANKS (turning to her): In a hundred years, we shall be the same age. But I have a better secret than that in my heart. Let me go now. The night outside grows impatient.
CANDIDA: Good-bye. (She takes his face in her hands; and as he divines her intention and bends his knee, she kisses his forehead. Then he flies out into the night. She turns to Morell, holding out her arms to him.) Ah, James! (They embrace. But they do not know the secret in the poet's heart.)
Candida continues to outline the difference between the two men by turning her attention to her husband:
“Now I want you to look at this other boy here—my boy—spoiled from his cradle. We go once a fortnight to see his parents. You should come with us, Eugene, and see the pictures of the hero of that household. James as a baby! the most wonderful of all babies. James holding his first school prize, won at the ripe age of eight! James as the captain of his eleven! James in his first frock coat! James under all sorts of glorious circumstances! You know how strong he is (I hope he didn't hurt you)—how clever he is—how happy! (With deepening gravity.) Ask James's mother and his three sisters what it cost to save James the trouble of doing anything but be strong and clever and happy. Ask me what it costs to be James's mother and three sisters and wife and mother to his children all in one.”
Morell is the weaker of the two because he has never been alone and therefore has never learned to be alone. He couldn’t. He doesn’t love Candida with the same passion that Marchbanks loves her; but he has something more important working in his favour: he needs her; needs her in a way that Marchbanks will never need her, for the poet can be alone. Morell is not alone because he could not function otherwise. If Candida were to die, he would need to find a new wife as quickly as possible.
As Marchbanks capitulates, Morell demonstrates that his own alterity still prevents him from understanding the poet:
MARCHBANKS: Out, then, into the night with me!
CANDIDA (rising quickly and intercepting him): You are not going like that, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS (with the ring of a man's voice—no longer a boy's—in the words): I know the hour when it strikes. I am impatient to do what must be done.
MORELL (rising from his knee, alarmed): Candida: don't let him do anything rash.
CANDIDA (confident, smiling at Eugene): Oh, there is no fear. He has learnt to live without happiness.
MARCHBANKS: I no longer desire happiness: life is nobler than that.
Before he leaves, Candida attempts to rationalize with Marchbanks; but, with his poetic mind, he out-rationalizes her and even manages to have the last word:
CANDIDA: One last word. (He stops, but without turning to her.) How old are you, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS: As old as the world now. This morning I was eighteen.
CANDIDA (going to him, and standing behind him with one hand caressingly on his shoulder): Eighteen! Will you, for my sake, make a little poem out of the two sentences I am going to say to you? And will you promise to repeat it to yourself whenever you think of me?
MARCHBANKS (without moving): Say the sentences.
CANDIDA: When I am thirty, she will be forty-five. When I am sixty, she will be seventy-five.
MARCHBANKS (turning to her): In a hundred years, we shall be the same age. But I have a better secret than that in my heart. Let me go now. The night outside grows impatient.
CANDIDA: Good-bye. (She takes his face in her hands; and as he divines her intention and bends his knee, she kisses his forehead. Then he flies out into the night. She turns to Morell, holding out her arms to him.) Ah, James! (They embrace. But they do not know the secret in the poet's heart.)
BLEU–VERT–ROUGE: une critique
BLEU—VERT—ROUGE, photo de Martin Flamand
Quel est notre rapport à la chose vidéographique? Avec l’omniprésence du médium, qui ouvre et clôt son nouveau spectacle, la chorégraphe Marie Béland se met les deux pieds dans la question. Une création aux trois couleurs cathodiques, en trois épisodes – peut-être le même – utilisant principalement trois médiums différents.
BLEU, ou la vidéo
D’abord jeu d’ombres – et donc nécessairement de proportions et perspectives – qui s’entremêlent ensuite avec la projection vidéo live des trois danseurs : Simon-Xavier Lefebvre, Marilyne St-Sauveur, et Ashlea Watkin. C’est plus qu’une rencontre des éléments; C’est le réel et l’art(ificiel) qui effacent les lignes, se fondent ensemble, et s’influencent jusqu’à ce qu’on ne sache plus lequel des deux l’on regarde.
Les interprètes font dans le jeu d’acteur de Télé-Québec (même si Watkin, comme dans n’importe quel autre spectacle de danse dans lequel elle se trouve, est toujours la meilleure actrice). De façon appropriée, ils sont vêtus de couleurs primaires et secondaires (rouge, bleu, jaune, vert), comme s’ils étaient des adultes retardés dans une émission pour enfants.
Leurs corps se découpent sur fond noir, ce qui n’est pas sans rappeler certaines des premières vidéos d’art qui servaient souvent à capter des performances. Dans une galerie, le blanc est l’espace vierge; en vidéo, comme au théâtre, c’est le noir. Devant des images d’Elvis (le vrai ou un imitateur? Il y a une différence?) et d’Arnold à l’ère de Commando, leurs corps se dédoublent en formations psychédéliques, tel une vidéo de Nam June Paik qui s’extase à l’idée du global village. Bref, le genre de chose dont la seule chance de passer à la télé serait sur PBS. Ça veut être bon, mais c’est pas sexy du tout. Ce n’est pas nécessairement une mauvaise chose.
VERT, ou la marionnette
La partie la plus faible du spectacle, heureusement camouflée dans le milieu, où trois pompons aux couleurs de la pièce deviennent des marionnettes, les alter egos des interprètes. La performance dansée vient rejoindre le jeu d’acteur, comme si Béland a dicté aux interprètes, « Faites comme si vous étiez de mauvais danseurs. » Les idées demeurent intéressantes, mais leur mise en scène est moins convaincante.
ROUGE, ou le théâtre
Et l’histoire se répète, beaucoup plus verbale. Les échanges entre les interprètes glissent entre l’emphatique et les petites cruautés, et peut virer dans le non-sens à n’importe quel moment. Avec le bon accent, « Cat a va capoter! » peut devenir une phrase pseudo-italienne.
Devant les images qui déferlent (de The Bold & The Beautiful au hockey en passant par The Price Is Right), l’absurdité de l’humain dans la petitesse de ses intrigues inévitablement dramatisées parce que justement futiles se dessine. Béland conserve son sens de l’humour mais – surprise! – BLEU—VERT—ROUGE est aussi étrangement opaque, parfois aussi illisible que le texte confus vocalisé par les interprètes. C’est sûrement l’un des aspects les plus intrigants de la pièce (et dans le parcours de la chorégraphe).
Pour faire compétition à l’image télévisuelle et cinématographique, est-ce que la danse et le théâtre doivent eux aussi faire dans le chaos qui dégénère jusqu’à la folie schizophrénique? Pour retenir notre attention, est-ce que tout doit maintenant se terminer dans la violence?
23-25 janvier à 20h & 26 janvier à 16h
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Billets : 28$ / Réduits : 20$
BLEU, ou la vidéo
D’abord jeu d’ombres – et donc nécessairement de proportions et perspectives – qui s’entremêlent ensuite avec la projection vidéo live des trois danseurs : Simon-Xavier Lefebvre, Marilyne St-Sauveur, et Ashlea Watkin. C’est plus qu’une rencontre des éléments; C’est le réel et l’art(ificiel) qui effacent les lignes, se fondent ensemble, et s’influencent jusqu’à ce qu’on ne sache plus lequel des deux l’on regarde.
Les interprètes font dans le jeu d’acteur de Télé-Québec (même si Watkin, comme dans n’importe quel autre spectacle de danse dans lequel elle se trouve, est toujours la meilleure actrice). De façon appropriée, ils sont vêtus de couleurs primaires et secondaires (rouge, bleu, jaune, vert), comme s’ils étaient des adultes retardés dans une émission pour enfants.
Leurs corps se découpent sur fond noir, ce qui n’est pas sans rappeler certaines des premières vidéos d’art qui servaient souvent à capter des performances. Dans une galerie, le blanc est l’espace vierge; en vidéo, comme au théâtre, c’est le noir. Devant des images d’Elvis (le vrai ou un imitateur? Il y a une différence?) et d’Arnold à l’ère de Commando, leurs corps se dédoublent en formations psychédéliques, tel une vidéo de Nam June Paik qui s’extase à l’idée du global village. Bref, le genre de chose dont la seule chance de passer à la télé serait sur PBS. Ça veut être bon, mais c’est pas sexy du tout. Ce n’est pas nécessairement une mauvaise chose.
VERT, ou la marionnette
La partie la plus faible du spectacle, heureusement camouflée dans le milieu, où trois pompons aux couleurs de la pièce deviennent des marionnettes, les alter egos des interprètes. La performance dansée vient rejoindre le jeu d’acteur, comme si Béland a dicté aux interprètes, « Faites comme si vous étiez de mauvais danseurs. » Les idées demeurent intéressantes, mais leur mise en scène est moins convaincante.
ROUGE, ou le théâtre
Et l’histoire se répète, beaucoup plus verbale. Les échanges entre les interprètes glissent entre l’emphatique et les petites cruautés, et peut virer dans le non-sens à n’importe quel moment. Avec le bon accent, « Cat a va capoter! » peut devenir une phrase pseudo-italienne.
Devant les images qui déferlent (de The Bold & The Beautiful au hockey en passant par The Price Is Right), l’absurdité de l’humain dans la petitesse de ses intrigues inévitablement dramatisées parce que justement futiles se dessine. Béland conserve son sens de l’humour mais – surprise! – BLEU—VERT—ROUGE est aussi étrangement opaque, parfois aussi illisible que le texte confus vocalisé par les interprètes. C’est sûrement l’un des aspects les plus intrigants de la pièce (et dans le parcours de la chorégraphe).
Pour faire compétition à l’image télévisuelle et cinématographique, est-ce que la danse et le théâtre doivent eux aussi faire dans le chaos qui dégénère jusqu’à la folie schizophrénique? Pour retenir notre attention, est-ce que tout doit maintenant se terminer dans la violence?
23-25 janvier à 20h & 26 janvier à 16h
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Billets : 28$ / Réduits : 20$
Twelve: Fragments
Choose your pain
Carefully
Only sometimes
Can the beautiful houses
By the highway lead you to
Recognize: you’d rather not get it
Than not have it in this
Beautifully designed, artless world
And I am left
To wonder
Where one finds
Comfort today, in a world
Where the only people
Who ever meet IRL
Are barebackers – but,
Of course, the problem
With cumming is
After
The smallworldness of
Everything can only be
Glimpsed at in a foreign city
Or on a pill, and even then
It will only bring you
The comfort of these words:
You will always be
As alone as this
So you turn
To a non-memory of
A real love as you reach
The limit of loneliness, you
Turn to the thought
Of a year of kissing,
You turn to the floor – flat
Against your back – and as tears escape
Your closed eyes and slide
Down your temples, you
Realize: the humanness of me
Carefully
Only sometimes
Can the beautiful houses
By the highway lead you to
Recognize: you’d rather not get it
Than not have it in this
Beautifully designed, artless world
And I am left
To wonder
Where one finds
Comfort today, in a world
Where the only people
Who ever meet IRL
Are barebackers – but,
Of course, the problem
With cumming is
After
The smallworldness of
Everything can only be
Glimpsed at in a foreign city
Or on a pill, and even then
It will only bring you
The comfort of these words:
You will always be
As alone as this
So you turn
To a non-memory of
A real love as you reach
The limit of loneliness, you
Turn to the thought
Of a year of kissing,
You turn to the floor – flat
Against your back – and as tears escape
Your closed eyes and slide
Down your temples, you
Realize: the humanness of me
2012 as Dance Memories
My wish for the Montreal dance scene in 2013 is for Marie-Hélène Falcon to quit her job as artistic director of the Festival TransAmériques. I’m hoping she’ll become the director of a theatre so that the most memorable shows will be spread more evenly throughout the year instead of being all bunched up together in a few weeks at the end of spring. With that being said, here are the ten works that still resonated with me as 2012 came to an end.
Cesena, a utopia for 19 performers, photo by Anne Van Aerschot
1. Cesena, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker + Björn Schmelzer (Festival TransAmériques)
I’ve been thinking about utopias a lot this year. I’ve come to the conclusion that – since one man’s utopia is another’s dystopia – they can only be small in nature: one person or, if one is lucky, maybe two. With Cesena, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker showed me that it could be done with as many as nineteen people, if only for two hours, if only in a space as big as a stage. Dancers and singers all danced and sang, independently of their presupposed roles, and sacrificed the ego’s strive for perfection for something better: the beauty of being in all its humanly imperfect manifestations. They supported each other (even more spiritually than physically) when they needed to and allowed each other the space to be individuals when a soul needed to speak itself.
2. Sideways Rain, Guilherme Botelho (Festival TransAmériques)
I often speak of full commitment to one’s artistic ambitions as extrapolated from a clear and precise concept carried out to its own end. Nowhere was this more visible this year than in Botelho’s Sideways Rain, a show for which fourteen dancers (most) always moved from stage left to stage right in a never-ending loop of forward motion. More than a mere exercise, the choreography veered into the metaphorical, highlighting both the perpetual motion and ephemeral nature of human life, without forgetting the trace it inevitably leaves behind, even in that which is most inanimate. More importantly, it left an unusual trace in the body of the audience too, making it hard to even walk after the show.
3. (M)IMOSA: Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (M), Cecilia Bengolea + François Chaignaud + Trajal Harrell + Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Festival TransAmériques)
By mixing post-modern dance with queer performance, the four choreographer-dancers of (M)IMOSA offered a show that refreshingly flipped the bird to the usual conventions of the theatre. Instead of demanding silence and attention, they left all the house lights on and would even walk in the aisles during the show, looking for their accessories between or underneath audience members. Swaying between all-eyes-on-me performance and dancing without even really trying, as if they were alone in their bedroom, they showed that sometimes the best way to dramatize the space is by rejecting the sanctity of theatre altogether.
4. Goodbye, Mélanie Demers (Festival TransAmériques)
Every time I think about Demers’s Goodbye (and it’s quite often), it’s always in conjunction with David Lynch’s Inland Empire. The two have a different feel, for sure, but they also do something quite similar. In Inland Empire, at times, an actor will perform an emotional scene, and Lynch will then reveal a camera filming them, as if to say, “It’s just a movie.” Similarly, in Goodbye, dancer Jacques Poulin-Denis can very well say, “This is not the show,” it still doesn’t prevent the audience from experiencing affect. Both works show the triviality of the concept of suspension of disbelief, that art does not affect us in spite of its artificiality, but because of it.
5. The Parcel Project, Jody Hegel + Jana Jevtovic (Usine C)
One of the most satisfying days of dance I’ve had all year came as a bit of a surprise. Five young choreographers presented the result of their work after but a few weeks of residencies at Usine C. I caught three of the four works, all more invigorating than some of the excessively polished shows that some choreographers spend years on. It showed how much Montreal needs a venue for choreographers to experiment rather than just offer them a window once their work has been anesthetically packaged. The most memorable for me remains Hegel & Jevtovic’s The Parcel Project, which began with a surprisingly dynamic and humorous 20-minute lecture. The second half was an improvised dance performance, set to an arbitrarily selected pop record, which ended when the album was over, 34 minutes later. It was as if John Cage had decided to do dance instead of music. Despite its explanatory opening lecture, The Parcel Project was as hermetic as it was fascinating.
6. Spin, Rebecca Halls (Tangente)
Halls took her hoop dancing to such a degree that she exceeded the obsession of the whirling dervish that was included in the same program as her, and carried it out to its inevitable end: exhaustion.
7. Untitled Conscious Project, Andrew Tay (Usine C)
Also part of the residencies at Usine C, Tay produced some of his most mature work to date, without ever sacrificing his playfulness.
8. 1001/train/flower/night, Sarah Chase (Agora de la danse)
Always, forever, Sarah Chase, the most charming choreographer in Canada, finding the most unlikely links between performers. She manages to make her “I have to take three boats to get to the island where I live in BC” and her “my dance studio is the beach in front of my house” spirit emerge even in the middle of the city.
9. Dark Sea, Dorian Nuskind-Oder + Simon Grenier-Poirier (Wants & Needs Danse/Studio 303)
Choreographer Nuskind-Oder and her partner-in-crime Grenier-Poirier always manage to create everyday magic with simple means, orchestrating works that are as lovely as they are visually arresting.
10. Hora, Ohad Naharin (Danse Danse)
A modern décor. The legs of classical ballet and the upper body of post-modern dance, synthesized by the athletic bodies of the performers of Batsheva. These clear constraints were able to give a coherent shape to Hora, one of Naharin’s most abstract works to date.
Scrooge Moment of the Year
Kiss & Cry, Michèle Anne De Mey + Jaco Van Dormael (Usine C)
Speaking of excessively polished shows… La Presse, CIBL, Nightlife, Le Devoir, and everyone else seemingly loved Kiss & Cry. Everyone except me. To me, it felt like a block of butter dipped in sugar, deep fried, and served with an excessive dose of table syrup; not so much sweet as nauseating. It proved that there’s no point in having great means if you have nothing great to say. Cinema quickly ruined itself as an art form; now it apparently set out to ruin dance too. And I’m telling you this so that, if Kiss & Cry left you feeling dead on the inside, you’ll know you’re not alone.
I’ve been thinking about utopias a lot this year. I’ve come to the conclusion that – since one man’s utopia is another’s dystopia – they can only be small in nature: one person or, if one is lucky, maybe two. With Cesena, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker showed me that it could be done with as many as nineteen people, if only for two hours, if only in a space as big as a stage. Dancers and singers all danced and sang, independently of their presupposed roles, and sacrificed the ego’s strive for perfection for something better: the beauty of being in all its humanly imperfect manifestations. They supported each other (even more spiritually than physically) when they needed to and allowed each other the space to be individuals when a soul needed to speak itself.
2. Sideways Rain, Guilherme Botelho (Festival TransAmériques)
I often speak of full commitment to one’s artistic ambitions as extrapolated from a clear and precise concept carried out to its own end. Nowhere was this more visible this year than in Botelho’s Sideways Rain, a show for which fourteen dancers (most) always moved from stage left to stage right in a never-ending loop of forward motion. More than a mere exercise, the choreography veered into the metaphorical, highlighting both the perpetual motion and ephemeral nature of human life, without forgetting the trace it inevitably leaves behind, even in that which is most inanimate. More importantly, it left an unusual trace in the body of the audience too, making it hard to even walk after the show.
3. (M)IMOSA: Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (M), Cecilia Bengolea + François Chaignaud + Trajal Harrell + Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Festival TransAmériques)
By mixing post-modern dance with queer performance, the four choreographer-dancers of (M)IMOSA offered a show that refreshingly flipped the bird to the usual conventions of the theatre. Instead of demanding silence and attention, they left all the house lights on and would even walk in the aisles during the show, looking for their accessories between or underneath audience members. Swaying between all-eyes-on-me performance and dancing without even really trying, as if they were alone in their bedroom, they showed that sometimes the best way to dramatize the space is by rejecting the sanctity of theatre altogether.
4. Goodbye, Mélanie Demers (Festival TransAmériques)
Every time I think about Demers’s Goodbye (and it’s quite often), it’s always in conjunction with David Lynch’s Inland Empire. The two have a different feel, for sure, but they also do something quite similar. In Inland Empire, at times, an actor will perform an emotional scene, and Lynch will then reveal a camera filming them, as if to say, “It’s just a movie.” Similarly, in Goodbye, dancer Jacques Poulin-Denis can very well say, “This is not the show,” it still doesn’t prevent the audience from experiencing affect. Both works show the triviality of the concept of suspension of disbelief, that art does not affect us in spite of its artificiality, but because of it.
5. The Parcel Project, Jody Hegel + Jana Jevtovic (Usine C)
One of the most satisfying days of dance I’ve had all year came as a bit of a surprise. Five young choreographers presented the result of their work after but a few weeks of residencies at Usine C. I caught three of the four works, all more invigorating than some of the excessively polished shows that some choreographers spend years on. It showed how much Montreal needs a venue for choreographers to experiment rather than just offer them a window once their work has been anesthetically packaged. The most memorable for me remains Hegel & Jevtovic’s The Parcel Project, which began with a surprisingly dynamic and humorous 20-minute lecture. The second half was an improvised dance performance, set to an arbitrarily selected pop record, which ended when the album was over, 34 minutes later. It was as if John Cage had decided to do dance instead of music. Despite its explanatory opening lecture, The Parcel Project was as hermetic as it was fascinating.
6. Spin, Rebecca Halls (Tangente)
Halls took her hoop dancing to such a degree that she exceeded the obsession of the whirling dervish that was included in the same program as her, and carried it out to its inevitable end: exhaustion.
7. Untitled Conscious Project, Andrew Tay (Usine C)
Also part of the residencies at Usine C, Tay produced some of his most mature work to date, without ever sacrificing his playfulness.
8. 1001/train/flower/night, Sarah Chase (Agora de la danse)
Always, forever, Sarah Chase, the most charming choreographer in Canada, finding the most unlikely links between performers. She manages to make her “I have to take three boats to get to the island where I live in BC” and her “my dance studio is the beach in front of my house” spirit emerge even in the middle of the city.
9. Dark Sea, Dorian Nuskind-Oder + Simon Grenier-Poirier (Wants & Needs Danse/Studio 303)
Choreographer Nuskind-Oder and her partner-in-crime Grenier-Poirier always manage to create everyday magic with simple means, orchestrating works that are as lovely as they are visually arresting.
10. Hora, Ohad Naharin (Danse Danse)
A modern décor. The legs of classical ballet and the upper body of post-modern dance, synthesized by the athletic bodies of the performers of Batsheva. These clear constraints were able to give a coherent shape to Hora, one of Naharin’s most abstract works to date.
Scrooge Moment of the Year
Kiss & Cry, Michèle Anne De Mey + Jaco Van Dormael (Usine C)
Speaking of excessively polished shows… La Presse, CIBL, Nightlife, Le Devoir, and everyone else seemingly loved Kiss & Cry. Everyone except me. To me, it felt like a block of butter dipped in sugar, deep fried, and served with an excessive dose of table syrup; not so much sweet as nauseating. It proved that there’s no point in having great means if you have nothing great to say. Cinema quickly ruined itself as an art form; now it apparently set out to ruin dance too. And I’m telling you this so that, if Kiss & Cry left you feeling dead on the inside, you’ll know you’re not alone.
Cru d'automne 2012: A Review
Jean-Sébastien Lourdais's Trois peaux, photo by Luc Lavergne
Here it is, the last dance show of the year. As customary, it is provided by the third-year students of L’École de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal and involves three pieces. The first two come courtesy of Montréal Danse and the last, an original creation for ÉDCM, is by visiting French choreographer Julien Desplantez.
Trois peaux, by Jean-Sébastien Lourdais
The human body transformed until it is no longer human, transformed until it is animal, but no particular animal: humanimal. Fists instead of hands, hunched over, head hanging low, on all fours. Mouvement half fluid/half stops, the organic interrupted by the robotic. (The music, which could be described as electrogrunts, reflects this aspect.) Sometimes, in passing, the dancers appear to be flexing, with their awkward arm positions. The body shakes, organic, too organic, uncontrollable. The movement is other, less articulated than that of human beings, but it says plenty of other things, things that cannot be understood and that are therefore unsettling.
Husk, by George Stamos
Already discussed at length here: http://www.localgestures.com/1/post/2012/02/husk-a-review.html
Only thing to add: did the costume Rachel Harris wore in the Montréal Danse version lose its dick? Why? Are the third-year students at ÉDCM not all adults? Is it because the show is mostly performed in front of their family and friends? And, most importantly, who cares? L’art n’est pas fait pour les demi-mesures.
Il y avait ce fou…, by Julien Desplantez
Thank God, the fashion-trash music that opens the piece soon subsides to offer us what school dance shows do best, i.e. the superficial pleasures of excess: a dozen dancers onstage from beginning to end, so much action that the eye cannot take it all in, synchronicity. Did Desplantez steal his small stationary steps from Hofesh Shechter’s Political Mother? If so, good for him. Even though his choreography is not particularly innovative, it’s still less lazy and juvenile than Shechter’s. De la danse-bonbon.
December 19-22 at 7:30pm
Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal
www.edcmtl.com
514.873.4031 ext. 313
Tickets: 18$ / Students: 10$
Trois peaux, by Jean-Sébastien Lourdais
The human body transformed until it is no longer human, transformed until it is animal, but no particular animal: humanimal. Fists instead of hands, hunched over, head hanging low, on all fours. Mouvement half fluid/half stops, the organic interrupted by the robotic. (The music, which could be described as electrogrunts, reflects this aspect.) Sometimes, in passing, the dancers appear to be flexing, with their awkward arm positions. The body shakes, organic, too organic, uncontrollable. The movement is other, less articulated than that of human beings, but it says plenty of other things, things that cannot be understood and that are therefore unsettling.
Husk, by George Stamos
Already discussed at length here: http://www.localgestures.com/1/post/2012/02/husk-a-review.html
Only thing to add: did the costume Rachel Harris wore in the Montréal Danse version lose its dick? Why? Are the third-year students at ÉDCM not all adults? Is it because the show is mostly performed in front of their family and friends? And, most importantly, who cares? L’art n’est pas fait pour les demi-mesures.
Il y avait ce fou…, by Julien Desplantez
Thank God, the fashion-trash music that opens the piece soon subsides to offer us what school dance shows do best, i.e. the superficial pleasures of excess: a dozen dancers onstage from beginning to end, so much action that the eye cannot take it all in, synchronicity. Did Desplantez steal his small stationary steps from Hofesh Shechter’s Political Mother? If so, good for him. Even though his choreography is not particularly innovative, it’s still less lazy and juvenile than Shechter’s. De la danse-bonbon.
December 19-22 at 7:30pm
Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal
www.edcmtl.com
514.873.4031 ext. 313
Tickets: 18$ / Students: 10$
Aube + Tout est dit, il ne reste rien : une critique
Tout est dit, il ne reste rien, photo de Frédéric Chais
Je l’avoue, parfois j’aimerais être une personne plus sociale. Mais, la plupart du temps, ce désir meurt lorsque j’écoute les conversations autour de moi, comme cette conversation à propos de films « oscarisables. » Who fucking cares?
Alors j’essaie de ne plus entendre; j’essaie de méditer. Je me concentre sur ma respiration. Il y a ces deux femmes assises en face de moi. Je ne vois que leur dos et leurs cheveux, mais je sais qu’elles y sont déjà. Malgré les quelques pieds et le silence qui nous séparent, je suis avec elles, et non pas avec les hommes de chaque côté de moi, dont les bras me frôlent, dont les paroles sont audibles, mais ne veulent (plus) rien dire.
Les femmes assises à même le plancher bougent de façon presque imperceptible. Un léger mouvement de tête ici et là, pas synchro, mais ensemble. C’est l’Aube de la chorégraphe Katia-Marie Germain.
Dans la petitesse de ses gestes et l’intériorité qui s’en découle, la chorégraphie n’est pas sans rappeler celle d’Erin Flynn. Les yeux des quatre interprètes demeurent fermés. Leur synchro, sentie plutôt que vue, révèle leur connexion psychique. Un beau silence partagé dans un monde de bruit.
La pièce aurait aussi bien pu s’appeler Tout est dit, il ne reste rien, mais c’est plutôt celle de Geneviève C. Ferron qui porte ce titre, tout aussi à propos. Phénomène rare : je n’ai pris aucune note durant la performance. Je ne voulais aucune distraction. Je voulais juste porter attention, tout absorber ce que je pouvais absorber.
Dans le noir, une montagne de lumières de Noël blanches apparaît, doucement. À ses pieds, cinq jeunes femmes, immobiles. Leurs corps se réveillent, réchauffer par les ampoules, s’activent tranquillement. Elles sont éclairées au minimum, à peine perceptibles.
Avec leur mouvement synchro, ralenti, souvent dans des positions où doigts et orteils s'étendent jusqu'au sol, elles ont l’air d’un troupeau s’adonnant à un rituel empreint de religiosité. Elles s’inclinent devant la montagne de lumière. Une jambe s’élève, droite, puis se fracture au genou. Elles arriveront éventuellement, sans empressement, à la rencontre de la source lumineuse, s'y mêleront même.
Je veux cette rencontre commune, silencieuse et patiente, avec la lumière. Pendant une heure, à Tangente, je l'ai eue.
6-8 décembre à 19h30 & 9 décembre à 16h
Monument-National
www.tangente.qc.ca
514.871.2224
Billets : 20$ / Étudiant : 16$
Alors j’essaie de ne plus entendre; j’essaie de méditer. Je me concentre sur ma respiration. Il y a ces deux femmes assises en face de moi. Je ne vois que leur dos et leurs cheveux, mais je sais qu’elles y sont déjà. Malgré les quelques pieds et le silence qui nous séparent, je suis avec elles, et non pas avec les hommes de chaque côté de moi, dont les bras me frôlent, dont les paroles sont audibles, mais ne veulent (plus) rien dire.
Les femmes assises à même le plancher bougent de façon presque imperceptible. Un léger mouvement de tête ici et là, pas synchro, mais ensemble. C’est l’Aube de la chorégraphe Katia-Marie Germain.
Dans la petitesse de ses gestes et l’intériorité qui s’en découle, la chorégraphie n’est pas sans rappeler celle d’Erin Flynn. Les yeux des quatre interprètes demeurent fermés. Leur synchro, sentie plutôt que vue, révèle leur connexion psychique. Un beau silence partagé dans un monde de bruit.
La pièce aurait aussi bien pu s’appeler Tout est dit, il ne reste rien, mais c’est plutôt celle de Geneviève C. Ferron qui porte ce titre, tout aussi à propos. Phénomène rare : je n’ai pris aucune note durant la performance. Je ne voulais aucune distraction. Je voulais juste porter attention, tout absorber ce que je pouvais absorber.
Dans le noir, une montagne de lumières de Noël blanches apparaît, doucement. À ses pieds, cinq jeunes femmes, immobiles. Leurs corps se réveillent, réchauffer par les ampoules, s’activent tranquillement. Elles sont éclairées au minimum, à peine perceptibles.
Avec leur mouvement synchro, ralenti, souvent dans des positions où doigts et orteils s'étendent jusqu'au sol, elles ont l’air d’un troupeau s’adonnant à un rituel empreint de religiosité. Elles s’inclinent devant la montagne de lumière. Une jambe s’élève, droite, puis se fracture au genou. Elles arriveront éventuellement, sans empressement, à la rencontre de la source lumineuse, s'y mêleront même.
Je veux cette rencontre commune, silencieuse et patiente, avec la lumière. Pendant une heure, à Tangente, je l'ai eue.
6-8 décembre à 19h30 & 9 décembre à 16h
Monument-National
www.tangente.qc.ca
514.871.2224
Billets : 20$ / Étudiant : 16$
Weight x 3 + 2 : une critique
2, photo de Lars-Ake Stomfelt
Oublions temporairement le 3, c’est le « third wheel, » et concentrons-nous plutôt sur le 2. C’est ce chiffre qui a marqué le passage de TAO Dance Theater à la Cinquième Salle de la Place des Arts. Deux duos, donc, et un solo coincé entre les deux, la cinquième roue du char.
Premier duo, extrait de Weight x 3, introduction du chorégraphe Tao Ye et de la danseuse, Wang Hao ou Lei Yan. Les deux interprètes apparaissent main dans la main, comme deux enfants qui refusent de se lâcher, sauf pour faire une pirouette ici et là, reprenant immédiatement la main de l’autre comme si c’était une question de vie ou de mort. Chorégraphie aux airs enfantins, donc, mais pour laquelle les danseurs refusent de laisser transparaitre le plaisir sur leurs visages. Leurs mouvements se font miroir ou sont synchros, surtout composés de ballotements de tête, les pieds transportant le corps de part et d’autre, les bras étant évidemment limités.
Deuxième extrait de la même pièce, solo de Duan Ni, où la danseuse fait tourner un long bâton autour de son corps. Toujours la même réaction de ma part face à l’accessoire en danse : ce qui est intéressant de l’objet est la contrainte qu’il impose au corps en mouvement, mais il distrait du corps lui-même; je voudrais toujours revoir la même pièce sans l’accessoire. Sinon, ici, ça donne une performance plus appropriée pour une cérémonie d’ouverture aux Olympiques. Enough said.
Au final, 2, une pièce qui, contrairement à ses interprètes (Tao Ye et Duan Ni ou Lei Yan), se tient debout. Les danseurs y apparaissent plutôt comme des corps-cadavres manipulés en mouvements isolés, parfois comme des marionnettes suspendus par des fils, abandonnés dans des positions plus inconfortables les unes que les autres.
Enfin, une force motrice les habite, mais le corps conserve une fluidité qui les laisse cloués au sol. Ils demeurent accroupis et leurs têtes basses, parallèles au sol, se ballotent comme dans Weight x 3, suivant le mouvement des corps. Ceux-ci sont toujours en relation, souvent près l’un de l’autre, mais jamais en contact.
Comme si l’invisibilité de leur visage – qui rappelle le solo If you couldn’t see me (1994) de Trisha Brown – n’était pas assez, les interprètes sont rendus encore plus anonymes. Leurs cranes sont rasés, grisâtres, effaçant les différences entre eux tout comme leurs costumes eux aussi gris, et ils sont souvent dos au public. Même lors que leur visage devient visible, ils se cachent derrière leurs paupières, presque toujours fermées.
Ce sont ces contraintes, multiples mais cohérentes, qui élèvent 2 au-dessus des pièces qui la précèdent.
www.dansedanse.net
www.facebook.com/TAO.Dance.Theater
www.youtube.com/user/TDT1026
Premier duo, extrait de Weight x 3, introduction du chorégraphe Tao Ye et de la danseuse, Wang Hao ou Lei Yan. Les deux interprètes apparaissent main dans la main, comme deux enfants qui refusent de se lâcher, sauf pour faire une pirouette ici et là, reprenant immédiatement la main de l’autre comme si c’était une question de vie ou de mort. Chorégraphie aux airs enfantins, donc, mais pour laquelle les danseurs refusent de laisser transparaitre le plaisir sur leurs visages. Leurs mouvements se font miroir ou sont synchros, surtout composés de ballotements de tête, les pieds transportant le corps de part et d’autre, les bras étant évidemment limités.
Deuxième extrait de la même pièce, solo de Duan Ni, où la danseuse fait tourner un long bâton autour de son corps. Toujours la même réaction de ma part face à l’accessoire en danse : ce qui est intéressant de l’objet est la contrainte qu’il impose au corps en mouvement, mais il distrait du corps lui-même; je voudrais toujours revoir la même pièce sans l’accessoire. Sinon, ici, ça donne une performance plus appropriée pour une cérémonie d’ouverture aux Olympiques. Enough said.
Au final, 2, une pièce qui, contrairement à ses interprètes (Tao Ye et Duan Ni ou Lei Yan), se tient debout. Les danseurs y apparaissent plutôt comme des corps-cadavres manipulés en mouvements isolés, parfois comme des marionnettes suspendus par des fils, abandonnés dans des positions plus inconfortables les unes que les autres.
Enfin, une force motrice les habite, mais le corps conserve une fluidité qui les laisse cloués au sol. Ils demeurent accroupis et leurs têtes basses, parallèles au sol, se ballotent comme dans Weight x 3, suivant le mouvement des corps. Ceux-ci sont toujours en relation, souvent près l’un de l’autre, mais jamais en contact.
Comme si l’invisibilité de leur visage – qui rappelle le solo If you couldn’t see me (1994) de Trisha Brown – n’était pas assez, les interprètes sont rendus encore plus anonymes. Leurs cranes sont rasés, grisâtres, effaçant les différences entre eux tout comme leurs costumes eux aussi gris, et ils sont souvent dos au public. Même lors que leur visage devient visible, ils se cachent derrière leurs paupières, presque toujours fermées.
Ce sont ces contraintes, multiples mais cohérentes, qui élèvent 2 au-dessus des pièces qui la précèdent.
www.dansedanse.net
www.facebook.com/TAO.Dance.Theater
www.youtube.com/user/TDT1026
Diptych : une critique
Diptych, photo de Valerie Simmons
José Navas traite ses danseurs comme s’ils étaient des ballerines. Tous ses danseurs.
Bien que Navas ait toujours joué avec les genres, avec sa nouvelle pièce de groupe Diptych, c’est surtout sur les hommes que le jeu se remarque. C’est que le chorégraphe donne le même style de mouvement à tous ses danseurs, un style qui pourrait être décrit comme plus féminin de part ses similarités avec celui épousé par les ballerines. Un style fluide, léger, même délicat.
À un certain moment, un homme et une femme soulève un de leurs confrères comme s’il était la prima ballerina. Même, vers la fin, un homme élevé sur le bout des orteils donne un coup de pied métaphorique dans la face de Nathalie Portman en se dandinant les bras comme si c’était lui le vrai black swan. C’est comme si Navas dépoussiérait enfin le ballet de ses conceptions antiques de genres.
En même temps, il délaisse aussi la théâtricalité de celui-ci et conserve plutôt la pureté qu’on lui connaît. En fait, la scénographie de Diptych rappelle beaucoup Hora d’Ohad Naharin (vu à Danse Danse plus tôt cette année), même si contrairement à Hora la danse ici n’est pas po-mo pour deux sous.
Contrairement au ballet, toutefois, les bras se font ici très angulaires. Ils s’allongent jusqu’au bout des doigts, la paume ouverte et plate pour y éliminer toute rondeur. Cette dernière se trouve plutôt dans les tours exécutés dans les nombreux déplacements des dix danseurs.
Comme pour refléter la musique de Bach, le mouvement est très bavard, même agaçant. Malgré la richesse du propos, c’est ce qui fait qu’au final, Dyptich est la pièce de groupe de Navas dont on se délaisse le plus facilement depuis un bout.
Anecdote : à la sortie du spectacle, j’ai entendu un homme dire « s’habiller en femme, » comme si le sexe n’était qu’une question de vêtements! Comme quoi il y a encore beaucoup de travail à faire pour éclairer la question des genres; on peut donc remercier Navas de continuer la discussion.
www.dansedanse.net
www.flak.org
Bien que Navas ait toujours joué avec les genres, avec sa nouvelle pièce de groupe Diptych, c’est surtout sur les hommes que le jeu se remarque. C’est que le chorégraphe donne le même style de mouvement à tous ses danseurs, un style qui pourrait être décrit comme plus féminin de part ses similarités avec celui épousé par les ballerines. Un style fluide, léger, même délicat.
À un certain moment, un homme et une femme soulève un de leurs confrères comme s’il était la prima ballerina. Même, vers la fin, un homme élevé sur le bout des orteils donne un coup de pied métaphorique dans la face de Nathalie Portman en se dandinant les bras comme si c’était lui le vrai black swan. C’est comme si Navas dépoussiérait enfin le ballet de ses conceptions antiques de genres.
En même temps, il délaisse aussi la théâtricalité de celui-ci et conserve plutôt la pureté qu’on lui connaît. En fait, la scénographie de Diptych rappelle beaucoup Hora d’Ohad Naharin (vu à Danse Danse plus tôt cette année), même si contrairement à Hora la danse ici n’est pas po-mo pour deux sous.
Contrairement au ballet, toutefois, les bras se font ici très angulaires. Ils s’allongent jusqu’au bout des doigts, la paume ouverte et plate pour y éliminer toute rondeur. Cette dernière se trouve plutôt dans les tours exécutés dans les nombreux déplacements des dix danseurs.
Comme pour refléter la musique de Bach, le mouvement est très bavard, même agaçant. Malgré la richesse du propos, c’est ce qui fait qu’au final, Dyptich est la pièce de groupe de Navas dont on se délaisse le plus facilement depuis un bout.
Anecdote : à la sortie du spectacle, j’ai entendu un homme dire « s’habiller en femme, » comme si le sexe n’était qu’une question de vêtements! Comme quoi il y a encore beaucoup de travail à faire pour éclairer la question des genres; on peut donc remercier Navas de continuer la discussion.
www.dansedanse.net
www.flak.org
Usually Beauty Fails: A Review
Usually Beauty Fails, photo by Denis Farley
Usually, I take notes during a performance to make it easier to write the review later. Last night though, at the premiere of Frédérick Gravel’s Usually Beauty Fails, I barely wrote anything. Instead, I kept thinking that I would simply recycle lines from reviews of previous Gravel shows I’d already written.
However, now that I’m rereading those, it seems like a bad plan. It’s that, when I was first introduced to the work of Gravel over four years ago, I was still somewhat of a dance virgin, and most definitely a Gravel virgin. It was all new to me.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel the need to take notes last night because I felt like I’d already seen it all before. And it’s about the only feeling I had. While Gravel’s choreography used to pack emotional punch, last night I felt nothing.
I was ready to say that maybe it was official, that I was dead on the inside; but I was comforted by the fact that I just finished reading Jacques Poulin’s Le Vieux Chagrin this week and my heart can definitely still feel things.
So, if I’m not dead on the inside, what changed? After the show, my date told me something to the effect that the show didn’t have as much impact on her as the choreographer’s GravelWorks (2008) had, maybe because the element of surprise was gone.
Funnily enough, her statement echoed what little I had written in my notebook: “L’émotion est une surprise? Comment expliquer son retour? Ou, plutôt, l’émotion nous prend par surprise?” No matter how it works, the result here is: no surprise, no emotion.
The one thing that was useful from a review of Tout se pète la gueule, chérie (2010) that I had written was this: “It is as if, in the absence of women, [Gravel] does not quite know how to make men dance together.” Now that women have been reintroduced into the mix, I realized that he doesn’t know how to make women dance together either.
At a certain point in your life, you want to stop fucking virgins and hopefully have better sex. Usually Beauty Fails has yet to reach that point.
P.S. While I was revising this text, I came across this quote by Lewis Mumford: “Because of their origin and purpose, the meanings of art are of a different order from the operational meanings of science and technics: they relate, not to external means and consequences, but to internal transformations, and unless it produce these internal transformations the work of art is either perfunctory or dead.”
November 7-10 & 14-17 at 8pm
Cinquième Salle
www.dansedanse.net
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 36.10$
However, now that I’m rereading those, it seems like a bad plan. It’s that, when I was first introduced to the work of Gravel over four years ago, I was still somewhat of a dance virgin, and most definitely a Gravel virgin. It was all new to me.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel the need to take notes last night because I felt like I’d already seen it all before. And it’s about the only feeling I had. While Gravel’s choreography used to pack emotional punch, last night I felt nothing.
I was ready to say that maybe it was official, that I was dead on the inside; but I was comforted by the fact that I just finished reading Jacques Poulin’s Le Vieux Chagrin this week and my heart can definitely still feel things.
So, if I’m not dead on the inside, what changed? After the show, my date told me something to the effect that the show didn’t have as much impact on her as the choreographer’s GravelWorks (2008) had, maybe because the element of surprise was gone.
Funnily enough, her statement echoed what little I had written in my notebook: “L’émotion est une surprise? Comment expliquer son retour? Ou, plutôt, l’émotion nous prend par surprise?” No matter how it works, the result here is: no surprise, no emotion.
The one thing that was useful from a review of Tout se pète la gueule, chérie (2010) that I had written was this: “It is as if, in the absence of women, [Gravel] does not quite know how to make men dance together.” Now that women have been reintroduced into the mix, I realized that he doesn’t know how to make women dance together either.
At a certain point in your life, you want to stop fucking virgins and hopefully have better sex. Usually Beauty Fails has yet to reach that point.
P.S. While I was revising this text, I came across this quote by Lewis Mumford: “Because of their origin and purpose, the meanings of art are of a different order from the operational meanings of science and technics: they relate, not to external means and consequences, but to internal transformations, and unless it produce these internal transformations the work of art is either perfunctory or dead.”
November 7-10 & 14-17 at 8pm
Cinquième Salle
www.dansedanse.net
514.842.2112 / 1.866.842.2112
Tickets: 36.10$
Snakeskins : une critique
Snakeskins, photo de Christine Rose Divito
Qui ne voudrait pas d’une toile d’araignée? Je ne parle pas dans le coin du plafond de sa chambre à coucher, mais bien comme chambre à coucher. Ou sur scène pour une performance. C’est le fantasme scénique que le chorégraphe Benoît Lachambre s’est permis avec Snakeskins, un quasi-solo qu’il présente en première nord-américaine cette semaine à l’Usine C.
De minces câbles s’échappent d’une structure métallique en arrière-scène et s’étendent vers le public. À leur point de rencontre l’œil est incapable de lire l’abondance de lignes qui se confondent. Il se doit de voyager constamment vers l’extérieur pour ressaisir la structure dans son ensemble.
Lachambre se trouve à ce centre visuellement saturé, suspendu à la structure métallique par des bandes de cuir attachées au cou de son harnais. Ainsi, il peut se pencher vers l’arrière sans jamais tomber. Il flotte donc au-dessus du sol, les pieds ancrés sur un tuyau, ses bras libres de se dandiner. C’est la rencontre du kink et de l’art.
Le danseur offre une performance sentie comme très peu d’interprètes peuvent se le permettre (Gillis, Prieur). Peut-être ceux-ci peuvent se permettre ce genre de performance car ils sont convaincants parce que convaincus. Il y a quelque chose à dire pour l’expérience. Le corps de Lachambre en entier semble réagir à la musique live de Hahn Rowe, être secoué par elle. Le musicien réussit même à faire vibrer la salle en agitant à peine une feuille de métal devant un microphone.
Avec abandon, Lachambre se lance dans sa toile d’araignée et se trouve rescapé de sa chute. Les fils le supportent, mais sont difficiles à naviguer. Il doit se battre pour demeurer en équilibre alors qu’il escalade leur verticalité.
S’en suit une longue respiration (les pièces de Lachambre en sont souvent saupoudrées) où le chorégraphe abandonne sa toile pour s’adonner à la performance en avant-scène. « C’est le temps d’une transition! », il s’exclame, la tête cachée sous un ballon de basket muni d’un micro.
Mais c’est bien dans l’exploration de son dispositif scénique que le spectacle trouve sa force. Vers la fin du spectacle, les cordes se relâchent et Lachambre les secouent vigoureusement. Dans la noirceur, des faisceaux de lumière fragmentent les fils en points lumineux dansant. Et, sur les bras, les poils se dressent.
10-12 octobre à 20h
Usine C
usine-c.com
514.521.4493
Billets : 28$ / 30 ans et moins : 22$
De minces câbles s’échappent d’une structure métallique en arrière-scène et s’étendent vers le public. À leur point de rencontre l’œil est incapable de lire l’abondance de lignes qui se confondent. Il se doit de voyager constamment vers l’extérieur pour ressaisir la structure dans son ensemble.
Lachambre se trouve à ce centre visuellement saturé, suspendu à la structure métallique par des bandes de cuir attachées au cou de son harnais. Ainsi, il peut se pencher vers l’arrière sans jamais tomber. Il flotte donc au-dessus du sol, les pieds ancrés sur un tuyau, ses bras libres de se dandiner. C’est la rencontre du kink et de l’art.
Le danseur offre une performance sentie comme très peu d’interprètes peuvent se le permettre (Gillis, Prieur). Peut-être ceux-ci peuvent se permettre ce genre de performance car ils sont convaincants parce que convaincus. Il y a quelque chose à dire pour l’expérience. Le corps de Lachambre en entier semble réagir à la musique live de Hahn Rowe, être secoué par elle. Le musicien réussit même à faire vibrer la salle en agitant à peine une feuille de métal devant un microphone.
Avec abandon, Lachambre se lance dans sa toile d’araignée et se trouve rescapé de sa chute. Les fils le supportent, mais sont difficiles à naviguer. Il doit se battre pour demeurer en équilibre alors qu’il escalade leur verticalité.
S’en suit une longue respiration (les pièces de Lachambre en sont souvent saupoudrées) où le chorégraphe abandonne sa toile pour s’adonner à la performance en avant-scène. « C’est le temps d’une transition! », il s’exclame, la tête cachée sous un ballon de basket muni d’un micro.
Mais c’est bien dans l’exploration de son dispositif scénique que le spectacle trouve sa force. Vers la fin du spectacle, les cordes se relâchent et Lachambre les secouent vigoureusement. Dans la noirceur, des faisceaux de lumière fragmentent les fils en points lumineux dansant. Et, sur les bras, les poils se dressent.
10-12 octobre à 20h
Usine C
usine-c.com
514.521.4493
Billets : 28$ / 30 ans et moins : 22$
Solitudes Solo : une critique
Solitudes Solo, photo de Denis Farley
Peu de chorégraphes au Québec ont un style aussi unique que Daniel Léveillé. Comme on peut le voir dans le solo d’Emmanuel Proulx dans la nouvelle pièce Solitudes Solo, Léveillé élargit quelque peu son vocabulaire, mais conserve une cohérence à travers l’isolation des mouvements.
Le chorégraphe pousse toujours ses interprètes aux limites de la difficulté, là où la grâce n’est plus dans l’air de la facilité, mais dans l’effort requis pour tout simplement se tenir debout. Dès le premier solo, le danseur Justin Gionet doit sauter le plus loin qu’il peut d’une position statique à une autre. La distance couverte est minimale malgré l’effort déployé. Le poids de l’interprète se trouve aussi souvent ancré dans un seul pied alors qu’il se démène pour demeurer en équilibre.
Suit Manuel Roque, qui épouse à son tour des positions empreintes de symétrie. Entre chacune d’entre elles, le corps s’immobilise, respire. D’une position statique, il saute et exécute un tour complet. Il y avait un bail que Léveillé avait fait porter des chandails à ses danseurs. Avec ce nouveau choix, c’est la musculature des jambes qui est soulignée.
Avec Gaëtan Viau, c’est dans les positions accroupies que le travail des cuisses peut être remarqué. À l’opposé, ses membres s’étirent vers les quatre coins de la salle, le transformant en homme-étoile.
Au retour de Gionet, on remarque qu’il est difficile pour l’interprète de retrouver son équilibre à la fin d’un mouvement précisément parce que la fin demandée est si abrupte. Aussi, on trouve ici moins d’humour fortuit.
Avec Lucie Vigneault, on retrouve la géométrie dans la création des formes tracées par le mouvement. Par contre, on aperçoit ici une nouveauté pour Léveillé : des expressions faciales. Il arrive même que Vigneault ait l’air d’être sur le bord d’un précipice.
C’est sur la musique de Bach que ces soli s’enfilent, sauf pour le dernier, où Viau doit se contenter d’un cover folk pop merdique de « Somewhere Over the Rainbow » d’Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, comme si Léveillé voulait prouver que c’est de la musique classique dont sa danse a besoin. Et il a raison.
www.agoradanse.com
www.danielleveilledanse.org
Le chorégraphe pousse toujours ses interprètes aux limites de la difficulté, là où la grâce n’est plus dans l’air de la facilité, mais dans l’effort requis pour tout simplement se tenir debout. Dès le premier solo, le danseur Justin Gionet doit sauter le plus loin qu’il peut d’une position statique à une autre. La distance couverte est minimale malgré l’effort déployé. Le poids de l’interprète se trouve aussi souvent ancré dans un seul pied alors qu’il se démène pour demeurer en équilibre.
Suit Manuel Roque, qui épouse à son tour des positions empreintes de symétrie. Entre chacune d’entre elles, le corps s’immobilise, respire. D’une position statique, il saute et exécute un tour complet. Il y avait un bail que Léveillé avait fait porter des chandails à ses danseurs. Avec ce nouveau choix, c’est la musculature des jambes qui est soulignée.
Avec Gaëtan Viau, c’est dans les positions accroupies que le travail des cuisses peut être remarqué. À l’opposé, ses membres s’étirent vers les quatre coins de la salle, le transformant en homme-étoile.
Au retour de Gionet, on remarque qu’il est difficile pour l’interprète de retrouver son équilibre à la fin d’un mouvement précisément parce que la fin demandée est si abrupte. Aussi, on trouve ici moins d’humour fortuit.
Avec Lucie Vigneault, on retrouve la géométrie dans la création des formes tracées par le mouvement. Par contre, on aperçoit ici une nouveauté pour Léveillé : des expressions faciales. Il arrive même que Vigneault ait l’air d’être sur le bord d’un précipice.
C’est sur la musique de Bach que ces soli s’enfilent, sauf pour le dernier, où Viau doit se contenter d’un cover folk pop merdique de « Somewhere Over the Rainbow » d’Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, comme si Léveillé voulait prouver que c’est de la musique classique dont sa danse a besoin. Et il a raison.
www.agoradanse.com
www.danielleveilledanse.org
Ta douleur: A Review
Ta douleur, photo by Nicolas Ruel
The problem with pain is that one’s is always felt, whereas that of others is merely seen. What I’m saying is: one’s most minimal pain is more felt than the most extreme suffering of others.
It might be for this reason that director Brigitte Haentjens chose the second person for the title of the duet she choreographed for Anne Le Beau and Francis Ducharme: Ta douleur. Your pain… never as great as mine.
It’s the kind of detachment that each performer exhibits when confronted with the other’s suffering. The same could be said for this spectator. To be fair, Ta douleur gains self-awareness in its most humorous moments. Early in the show, after feeding into the melodramatic acting that constitutes the bulk of the performance, Le Beau and Ducharme purge all the platitudes we tell each other: “C’est pas facile, hein?”
For the most part however, Haentjens is interested in when the body is the object of such pain that it becomes unintelligible. The victim of an overabundance of emotion, it merely cries, trembles, convulses. It is but the physical appearance of pain, little more than a blocking of emotional states.
This is only enhanced by the decision to constantly fade in and out of black. This fragmentation prevents Haentjens from finding the links that would have made Ta douleur more choreographic. It is as though, without words, the woman who is more used to directing plays did not know how to make one scene flow into the next.
Despite its minimal story and movement, the pain explored here is concrete. Too concrete. It is uniform in its capitalization on pain as and from violence. This might be an effort to make it theatrical, but it only ends up undermining itself by constantly striking the same loud note.
In the end, Ta douleur plays like other people’s pain: overly dramatic, blown out of proportion, easy to disregard.
Ta douleur
18-22 & 25-29 September at 8pm
Théâtre La Chapelle
lachapelle.org
514.843.7738
Tickets: 30$ / Students: 25$
It might be for this reason that director Brigitte Haentjens chose the second person for the title of the duet she choreographed for Anne Le Beau and Francis Ducharme: Ta douleur. Your pain… never as great as mine.
It’s the kind of detachment that each performer exhibits when confronted with the other’s suffering. The same could be said for this spectator. To be fair, Ta douleur gains self-awareness in its most humorous moments. Early in the show, after feeding into the melodramatic acting that constitutes the bulk of the performance, Le Beau and Ducharme purge all the platitudes we tell each other: “C’est pas facile, hein?”
For the most part however, Haentjens is interested in when the body is the object of such pain that it becomes unintelligible. The victim of an overabundance of emotion, it merely cries, trembles, convulses. It is but the physical appearance of pain, little more than a blocking of emotional states.
This is only enhanced by the decision to constantly fade in and out of black. This fragmentation prevents Haentjens from finding the links that would have made Ta douleur more choreographic. It is as though, without words, the woman who is more used to directing plays did not know how to make one scene flow into the next.
Despite its minimal story and movement, the pain explored here is concrete. Too concrete. It is uniform in its capitalization on pain as and from violence. This might be an effort to make it theatrical, but it only ends up undermining itself by constantly striking the same loud note.
In the end, Ta douleur plays like other people’s pain: overly dramatic, blown out of proportion, easy to disregard.
Ta douleur
18-22 & 25-29 September at 8pm
Théâtre La Chapelle
lachapelle.org
514.843.7738
Tickets: 30$ / Students: 25$
Duels: A Review
Duels, photo by Damian Siqueiros
Fight your partner to the death. If you win, they can always be replaced anyway.
It’s a feeling that can come from living in a city with an endless supply of single people, or from witnessing a dance show with an unusually high number of performers: twenty-one of them in the case of Cas Public’s Duels, which includes the entire company, plus a few choice guests. Helen Blackburn and Pierre Lecours share choreographing duties for the twenty short pieces that make up the programme.
Despite the possibilities that such a high number of performers and pieces offer, the numbers are often repetitive. The opening prologue sets us up for what can be expected for most of the night: a man and a woman, the latter fragile, on pointes, needing the help of the man to support her. When she loses the duel, another man picks her up from the floor, less from compassion than opportunism.
It’s not the first time that Cas Public flirts with gendered violence. It was also at the core of Suites Cruelles, their last show not aimed at children. There seems to be a tension between wanting to deal with the world as it is, recognizing that sexism still exists, and wanting to transcend these confines.
Unfortunately, the latter happens too rarely, though it does offer Duels its most invigorating moments. In the second duet, Blackburn herself dances with Sébastien Cossette-Masse, a younger male dancer, and it begins and ends with her lifting him and carrying him a few steps across the floor. Beyond the pleasure of seeing Blackburn, who usually sticks to the role of choreographer, onstage, there is also the satisfaction of witnessing this reversal of typical ideas surrounding age and gender.
There is but one duet that involves two women (Geneviève Bolla and Daphnée Laurendeau) and one that involves two men (Lecours and Simon-Xavier Lefebvre). For better of for worse, they don’t look much different from the rest.
The most subversive moments occur in straight couplings, like when Daniel Soulières and Merryn Kritzinger both lift each other off the floor independently of their gender or age difference. Or in the duet with relative newcomers, choreographer Virginie Brunelle and dancer Alexandre Carlos, where the overall violence of the show finally lets up to give us something refreshingly gentler, with little physical contact. However, the duel ends with Brunelle being carried off by another man with her legs wide open as her partner goes on to dance with another woman. Like what women can always be replaced.
A couple of men do figuratively put themselves in women’s shoes as they pull off a few ballerina steps. Soulières, lifted by three other men, dances above the ground as if he were lighter than a feather. Cai Glover, in his duet with Laurendeau, has a few brief moments on the tip of his toes, as though on pointes.
After all the ass slapping that women in the show have to endure, each time with the sting of female objectification, it is also a mild compensation when actress Sylvie Moreau gives the same treatment to Carlos.
For the most part, Duels bathes in the themes that might be expected given the title of the show: couples, fighting, mirror images, and – though dance critics see sex whenever two dancers happen to touch one another – indeed, sex. As the motionless bodies pile up onstage, it becomes clear that, as Pat Benatar’s catchy anthem goes, love is a battlefield.
Duels
12-14 & 19-21 September at 8pm / 22 September at 4pm
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Tickets: 32$ / Students: 24$
It’s a feeling that can come from living in a city with an endless supply of single people, or from witnessing a dance show with an unusually high number of performers: twenty-one of them in the case of Cas Public’s Duels, which includes the entire company, plus a few choice guests. Helen Blackburn and Pierre Lecours share choreographing duties for the twenty short pieces that make up the programme.
Despite the possibilities that such a high number of performers and pieces offer, the numbers are often repetitive. The opening prologue sets us up for what can be expected for most of the night: a man and a woman, the latter fragile, on pointes, needing the help of the man to support her. When she loses the duel, another man picks her up from the floor, less from compassion than opportunism.
It’s not the first time that Cas Public flirts with gendered violence. It was also at the core of Suites Cruelles, their last show not aimed at children. There seems to be a tension between wanting to deal with the world as it is, recognizing that sexism still exists, and wanting to transcend these confines.
Unfortunately, the latter happens too rarely, though it does offer Duels its most invigorating moments. In the second duet, Blackburn herself dances with Sébastien Cossette-Masse, a younger male dancer, and it begins and ends with her lifting him and carrying him a few steps across the floor. Beyond the pleasure of seeing Blackburn, who usually sticks to the role of choreographer, onstage, there is also the satisfaction of witnessing this reversal of typical ideas surrounding age and gender.
There is but one duet that involves two women (Geneviève Bolla and Daphnée Laurendeau) and one that involves two men (Lecours and Simon-Xavier Lefebvre). For better of for worse, they don’t look much different from the rest.
The most subversive moments occur in straight couplings, like when Daniel Soulières and Merryn Kritzinger both lift each other off the floor independently of their gender or age difference. Or in the duet with relative newcomers, choreographer Virginie Brunelle and dancer Alexandre Carlos, where the overall violence of the show finally lets up to give us something refreshingly gentler, with little physical contact. However, the duel ends with Brunelle being carried off by another man with her legs wide open as her partner goes on to dance with another woman. Like what women can always be replaced.
A couple of men do figuratively put themselves in women’s shoes as they pull off a few ballerina steps. Soulières, lifted by three other men, dances above the ground as if he were lighter than a feather. Cai Glover, in his duet with Laurendeau, has a few brief moments on the tip of his toes, as though on pointes.
After all the ass slapping that women in the show have to endure, each time with the sting of female objectification, it is also a mild compensation when actress Sylvie Moreau gives the same treatment to Carlos.
For the most part, Duels bathes in the themes that might be expected given the title of the show: couples, fighting, mirror images, and – though dance critics see sex whenever two dancers happen to touch one another – indeed, sex. As the motionless bodies pile up onstage, it becomes clear that, as Pat Benatar’s catchy anthem goes, love is a battlefield.
Duels
12-14 & 19-21 September at 8pm / 22 September at 4pm
Agora de la danse
www.agoradanse.com
514.525.1500
Tickets: 32$ / Students: 24$
Dance Season 2012/13: The Grocery List
Sharon Eyal & Gai Bachar’s Corps de Walk, photo by Erik Berg
Benoît Lachambre’s Snakeskins: because you can only accuse Lachambre of being so hit-or-miss due to his uncompromising commitment to his artistic pursuits… and he’s due for a hit.
(October 10-12, Usine C)
Nicolas Cantin’s Grand singe: because nobody else manages to pack as much punch by doing so little.
(October 30-November 1, Usine C)
Brian Brooks’s Big City & Motor: because Brooks explores concepts that only push his choreography further into the physical world, turning the human body into little more than a machine.
(November 22-25, Tangente)
Karine Denault’s PLEASURE DOME: because we haven’t seen her work since 2007, when she presented the intimate Not I & Others using only half of the small Tangente space, dancing with humility, as though the line between performer and spectator simply hinged on a matter of perspective.
(February 6-9, Agora de la danse)
Pieter Ampe & Guilherme Garrido’s Still Standing You: because Ampe & Garrido have created one of the most compelling shows of the past few years, a dense study of masculinity and friendship covered with a thick layer of Jackass trash.
(February 12-16, La Chapelle)
Sharon Eyal & Gai Bachar’s Corps de Walk: because it’s the first time we get to see a work by Eyal in six years, when she blew us away with a non-stop human parade that was decidedly contemporary in its transnationalism and use of everyday movements like talking on cell phones.
(February 28-March 2, Danse Danse)
Mélanie Demers’s Goodbye: because, much like David Lynch did with Inland Empire, Demers demonstrated that an artist doesn’t need to instill suspension of disbelief in its audience to work, that dance can be powerful as dance just as film can be powerful as film.
(March 20-22, Usine C)
Maïgwenn Desbois’s Six pieds sur terre: because Desbois demonstrated that one doesn’t need to sacrifice art in order to make integrated dance.
(March 21-24, Tangente)
Yaëlle & Noémie Azoulay’s Haute Tension: because Yaëlle Azoulay came up with the most exclamative piece ever presented at the Biennales de Gigue Contemporaine.
(March 28-30, Tangente)
Dorian Nuskind-Oder’s Pale Water: because with simple means Nuskind-Oder manages to create everyday magic.
(May 10-12, Tangente)
(October 10-12, Usine C)
Nicolas Cantin’s Grand singe: because nobody else manages to pack as much punch by doing so little.
(October 30-November 1, Usine C)
Brian Brooks’s Big City & Motor: because Brooks explores concepts that only push his choreography further into the physical world, turning the human body into little more than a machine.
(November 22-25, Tangente)
Karine Denault’s PLEASURE DOME: because we haven’t seen her work since 2007, when she presented the intimate Not I & Others using only half of the small Tangente space, dancing with humility, as though the line between performer and spectator simply hinged on a matter of perspective.
(February 6-9, Agora de la danse)
Pieter Ampe & Guilherme Garrido’s Still Standing You: because Ampe & Garrido have created one of the most compelling shows of the past few years, a dense study of masculinity and friendship covered with a thick layer of Jackass trash.
(February 12-16, La Chapelle)
Sharon Eyal & Gai Bachar’s Corps de Walk: because it’s the first time we get to see a work by Eyal in six years, when she blew us away with a non-stop human parade that was decidedly contemporary in its transnationalism and use of everyday movements like talking on cell phones.
(February 28-March 2, Danse Danse)
Mélanie Demers’s Goodbye: because, much like David Lynch did with Inland Empire, Demers demonstrated that an artist doesn’t need to instill suspension of disbelief in its audience to work, that dance can be powerful as dance just as film can be powerful as film.
(March 20-22, Usine C)
Maïgwenn Desbois’s Six pieds sur terre: because Desbois demonstrated that one doesn’t need to sacrifice art in order to make integrated dance.
(March 21-24, Tangente)
Yaëlle & Noémie Azoulay’s Haute Tension: because Yaëlle Azoulay came up with the most exclamative piece ever presented at the Biennales de Gigue Contemporaine.
(March 28-30, Tangente)
Dorian Nuskind-Oder’s Pale Water: because with simple means Nuskind-Oder manages to create everyday magic.
(May 10-12, Tangente)
Neo-Psychedelic Film Studies #1: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors or The Nutcracker?
Near the end of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, there is a 360-degree non-stop pan of characters in a circle around the camera that builds to such speed that people lose their edge and bleed externally as objects dissolve into spirographs of colours. This shot is representative of Shadows as a whole, a film that constantly points to everything around it, becoming a kaleidoscope of everything other than itself. The film pegs itself as a “poetic drama", a term surely used to warn any audience member against the hopes of a straightforward narrative.
Shadows can get away with its “Look at me, I’m artsy!” claims, mainly because it is indeed so boldly artistic that, despite being released in 1964, it looks like it’s from the 80s. If art begins at the level of excess – as in beyond the everyday – then the 80s might just be the most artistic decade of the century. Despite what its critics might have had to say about the infamous decade in its wake, its vacuousness – that is to say its disconnect from the everyday – and its revelling in artifice are the qualities that are now ensuring our enduring fascination with it. Of course, part of the appeal is also that we have vastly been ignoring that entertainment creates itself by exceeding its own excess, so that any blockbuster currently in theatres makes a movie like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) look downright quaint.
So when Parajanov offers a point-of-view shot from a falling tree – after all, vacuousness ensures that a tree isn’t any more lifeless than a human being – it’s hard not to think of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) and its own malevolent tree. It too was given a P.O.V., as though trees had more consciousness and agency than human beings. In fact, the acting in Shadows is often just as wooden as the trees, which only contributes to its artifice. If good acting is a craft, bad acting is an art.
Shadows can get away with its “Look at me, I’m artsy!” claims, mainly because it is indeed so boldly artistic that, despite being released in 1964, it looks like it’s from the 80s. If art begins at the level of excess – as in beyond the everyday – then the 80s might just be the most artistic decade of the century. Despite what its critics might have had to say about the infamous decade in its wake, its vacuousness – that is to say its disconnect from the everyday – and its revelling in artifice are the qualities that are now ensuring our enduring fascination with it. Of course, part of the appeal is also that we have vastly been ignoring that entertainment creates itself by exceeding its own excess, so that any blockbuster currently in theatres makes a movie like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) look downright quaint.
So when Parajanov offers a point-of-view shot from a falling tree – after all, vacuousness ensures that a tree isn’t any more lifeless than a human being – it’s hard not to think of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) and its own malevolent tree. It too was given a P.O.V., as though trees had more consciousness and agency than human beings. In fact, the acting in Shadows is often just as wooden as the trees, which only contributes to its artifice. If good acting is a craft, bad acting is an art.
They don't wake up looking like this.
Soon, however, the film settles on a 70s aesthetic of faded images, both in terms of focus and colour. It looks like my European heritage playing on Télé-Québec, which might explain the costume and art direction similarities with Astérix & Obélix. Even moustaches become works of art, sculpted into perfect shapes, which might contribute in making the men look like figures on playing cards. Ivan, the main character, is the Jack of Hearts or Diamonds. Definitely a red suit.
Jack of Hearts, meet Queen of Spades.
The editing dares to be non-chronological, beyond the demands of storytelling. Like memory, it jumps from year to year, from moment to moment. Each image defies positioning, neither before nor after, never present.
The older actor eerily resembles the younger one playing the same character, unlike most movies for which we must suspend our disbelief and pretend a character grew up to look completely different, yet believe they are indeed one and the same person simply because they both happen to have blond hair.
The older actor eerily resembles the younger one playing the same character, unlike most movies for which we must suspend our disbelief and pretend a character grew up to look completely different, yet believe they are indeed one and the same person simply because they both happen to have blond hair.
So maybe he got coloured contacts at some point in his life...
Watching a movie that takes place in nineteenth-century Ukraine can leave one perplexed with questions such as “Why does the characters’ house look better than mine?” or “Why are these people sharper dressers than me given that there’s not a single fashion magazine in sight?” One must find comfort in knowing that, at least, if it were to rain, one’s floor wouldn’t turn to mud; or that the characters look more uncomfortable in their oppressive outfits.
And the spirograph continues. Surely, Ridley Scott must have been influenced by Parajanov’s misty forest shots for The Duellists (1977). George Lucas must too have been influenced by the look of Shadows for Star Wars (1977), in his case when it comes to the cloaks some of the characters wear. In turn, this might explain the similarities with Masters of the Universe (1983-1985), as the toys were produced after Mattel CEO Ray Wagner had rejected the offer to produce action figures based on Star Wars back in 1976, clearly not anticipating the wild success the movie franchise would obtain.
And the spirograph continues. Surely, Ridley Scott must have been influenced by Parajanov’s misty forest shots for The Duellists (1977). George Lucas must too have been influenced by the look of Shadows for Star Wars (1977), in his case when it comes to the cloaks some of the characters wear. In turn, this might explain the similarities with Masters of the Universe (1983-1985), as the toys were produced after Mattel CEO Ray Wagner had rejected the offer to produce action figures based on Star Wars back in 1976, clearly not anticipating the wild success the movie franchise would obtain.
It doesn't get much thicker than this wood.
As for the influences on Shadows, we could speak of Tarkovskian shots of reflections in water, or the series of fake still images for which the female protagonist remains immobile, much like Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). The main difference with the latter is that, while the shots of Hedren were of her reacting to an explosive action, in Shadows the woman is not reacting to anything. Like everything else about Shadows, it’s this nothingness that makes it extra artsy.
Tarkovskiy's The Steamroller and the Violin.
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Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
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Criticism Is Not Advertising: A Manifesto
Cartoon by Lindsay Foyle
1. The only reader who cares whether you like an artwork is one who has the exact same taste as you. In other words, no one cares if you like an artwork or not.
2. One of the most overrated qualities in a critic is good taste. It is often a limited and limiting concept that ends up discrediting a lot of artworks that refuse to play by bourgeois or hipster rules. Art does not need to be well made so much as it needs to make well.
3. Avoid any sentence that might be quoted for publicity purposes. Criticism is not advertising, nor is it public relations.
4. Avoid empty rhetorical words such as “good/better/best,” “bad/worse/worst,” and their synonyms. Instead, use words such as “regressive/progressive”, “sexist/feminist”, “racist/anti-racist,” “homophobic/transphobic/queer-positive,” etc. These words carry weight, as they actually mean something.
5. The role of the critic is not to tell readers what is worth their time and money. Criticism is not consumerism. The role of the critic, much like that of the artist, is to create meaning. The critic should not be an informed consumer, but an informed thinker.
6. It is indeed hard to see the forest for the trees, especially when it comes to newer artworks, but that is precisely and imperatively what the critic must do. The role of the critic is to contextualize, to argue why a work is significant or relevant, or not.
7. It is a mistake to believe that good criticism can only be about good artworks. Criticism is a form of thought, and the artwork is not doing the thinking for the critic.
8. Like (hopefully) the artists they review, critics should have political and artistic convictions. These produce meaning, which is what a critic should be seeking.
9. Turn your hate for works you despise for artistic reasons rather than political ones into admiration. These works will haunt you for much longer than the ones you merely like, and works that fail to be remembered also fail to create meaning.
10. Reward risks taken by artists, even if they ultimately fail. There is no point in rewarding those who play it safe and simply copy the success of their predecessors.
11. Do not emulate the style of critics who put out generic reviews for mainstream publications. There is no point in putting out a review that could have been produced just as well by another writer with no personality. If you are replaceable, you will be replaced.
2. One of the most overrated qualities in a critic is good taste. It is often a limited and limiting concept that ends up discrediting a lot of artworks that refuse to play by bourgeois or hipster rules. Art does not need to be well made so much as it needs to make well.
3. Avoid any sentence that might be quoted for publicity purposes. Criticism is not advertising, nor is it public relations.
4. Avoid empty rhetorical words such as “good/better/best,” “bad/worse/worst,” and their synonyms. Instead, use words such as “regressive/progressive”, “sexist/feminist”, “racist/anti-racist,” “homophobic/transphobic/queer-positive,” etc. These words carry weight, as they actually mean something.
5. The role of the critic is not to tell readers what is worth their time and money. Criticism is not consumerism. The role of the critic, much like that of the artist, is to create meaning. The critic should not be an informed consumer, but an informed thinker.
6. It is indeed hard to see the forest for the trees, especially when it comes to newer artworks, but that is precisely and imperatively what the critic must do. The role of the critic is to contextualize, to argue why a work is significant or relevant, or not.
7. It is a mistake to believe that good criticism can only be about good artworks. Criticism is a form of thought, and the artwork is not doing the thinking for the critic.
8. Like (hopefully) the artists they review, critics should have political and artistic convictions. These produce meaning, which is what a critic should be seeking.
9. Turn your hate for works you despise for artistic reasons rather than political ones into admiration. These works will haunt you for much longer than the ones you merely like, and works that fail to be remembered also fail to create meaning.
10. Reward risks taken by artists, even if they ultimately fail. There is no point in rewarding those who play it safe and simply copy the success of their predecessors.
11. Do not emulate the style of critics who put out generic reviews for mainstream publications. There is no point in putting out a review that could have been produced just as well by another writer with no personality. If you are replaceable, you will be replaced.
Piss in the Pool 2012: the emails
Leanne Dyer's Flotsam from last year's edition of Piss in the Pool
SYLVAIN VERSTRICHT: For the first time, Piss in the Pool will be shown at Bain Mathieu rather than at Bain Saint-Michel. Has this change of venue also meant any changes for the show itself?
ANDREW TAY: The venue for Piss in the Pool is different this year, and that's exciting for us to see how choreographers use the new space. Sight lines will be different, there are more options for getting in and out of the pool and there is a bar directly in the venue (which we are hoping will add to the party atmosphere of the event). Other than that the show will have the same spirit, and we're still allowing choreographers to place the audience anywhere in the space to view their work. There will definitely be some changes but I guess we won't really see how the new venue affects the show until premiere night.
SYLVAIN: There’s often been a lot of humour in the pieces presented at the event. This year, there are many artists who are known to be a bit more on the dramatic side (like Dorian Nuskind-Oder and Virginie Brunelle). Was this a conscious decision to balance things out?
SASHA KLEINPLATZ: Not at all actually. With Piss in the Pool we generally invite artists that we think represent different aspects of the Montreal dance and performance community, but we weren't really thinking about the drama/humour balance.
SYLVAIN: [Both of] you have been really busy working on a lot of projects this year, so it’s the first time that neither of you will be presenting work at Piss in the Pool. How do you feel about it? Has it changed the way you view your role in the event?
ANDREW: Sasha and I won't be presenting work in the event this year. We're working on a big project in Quebec City at the same time as organizing Piss in the Pool so we decided to sit this one out. The event has been growing over the last 8 years, and we've been thinking a lot about our role as curators. Piss in the Pool has become a great window for emerging artists and Sasha and I want to keep giving more opportunities to these artists. It's not to say that we won't ever show work again at Piss in the Pool, but we want to open the event up so that we (and the public) can discover and meet new dance artists and creators.
Piss in the Pool
20, 22 & 24 June at 8:30pm
Bain Mathieu, 2915 Ontario East
www.studio303.ca
514.393.3771
Tickets: 12$
ANDREW TAY: The venue for Piss in the Pool is different this year, and that's exciting for us to see how choreographers use the new space. Sight lines will be different, there are more options for getting in and out of the pool and there is a bar directly in the venue (which we are hoping will add to the party atmosphere of the event). Other than that the show will have the same spirit, and we're still allowing choreographers to place the audience anywhere in the space to view their work. There will definitely be some changes but I guess we won't really see how the new venue affects the show until premiere night.
SYLVAIN: There’s often been a lot of humour in the pieces presented at the event. This year, there are many artists who are known to be a bit more on the dramatic side (like Dorian Nuskind-Oder and Virginie Brunelle). Was this a conscious decision to balance things out?
SASHA KLEINPLATZ: Not at all actually. With Piss in the Pool we generally invite artists that we think represent different aspects of the Montreal dance and performance community, but we weren't really thinking about the drama/humour balance.
SYLVAIN: [Both of] you have been really busy working on a lot of projects this year, so it’s the first time that neither of you will be presenting work at Piss in the Pool. How do you feel about it? Has it changed the way you view your role in the event?
ANDREW: Sasha and I won't be presenting work in the event this year. We're working on a big project in Quebec City at the same time as organizing Piss in the Pool so we decided to sit this one out. The event has been growing over the last 8 years, and we've been thinking a lot about our role as curators. Piss in the Pool has become a great window for emerging artists and Sasha and I want to keep giving more opportunities to these artists. It's not to say that we won't ever show work again at Piss in the Pool, but we want to open the event up so that we (and the public) can discover and meet new dance artists and creators.
Piss in the Pool
20, 22 & 24 June at 8:30pm
Bain Mathieu, 2915 Ontario East
www.studio303.ca
514.393.3771
Tickets: 12$
Cesena : une critique
Cesena, photo d'Anne Van Aerschot
L’impression que Cesena – le spectacle de près de deux heures da la chorégraphe belge Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker – laisse pourrait être traître. Je ne peux qu’y penser comme une utopie.
Pourtant, si je m’efforce, je dois me rappeler que les premières 30-40 minutes sont exigeantes. Une seule lumière éclaire à peine la scène, de sorte que l’action est pratiquement invisible même lorsqu’elle est excessivement dynamique. Les interprètes sont alors moins corps que contours, moins physiques qu’audibles.
La scène est parsemée de sable formant un large cercle et, typique pour De Keersmaeker, les pieds des interprètes trainent sur le sol. Pied contre sable, sable contre sol. Plancher sablé. Les interprètes ne volent pas, ne flottent pas. Leur danse est bien ancrée dans le poids indéniable du corps qui les humanise.
Ils sont dix-neuf en tout, certains danseurs, certains chanteurs, sans toujours qu’on puisse les différencier, même si on peut souvent le deviner. C’est que tous les interprètes s’adonnent autant à la danse qu’au chant. Pour cette dernière, on retourne au quatorzième siècle avec l’ars subtilior, ici dirigé par Björn Schmelzer.
Le peu que l’on aperçoit nous laisse déjà entrevoir la communauté. Les mains des uns reposent sur les épaules des autres alors qu’ils se déplacent à l’unisson. Une note, un pas. Silence, immobilité. La danse et le chant deviennent indissociables. Après tout, ils émanent tous deux du mouvement.
Et une deuxième lumière. Ce n’est qu’à ce moment qu’on découvre le genre, qui se trouve être hors du commun pour un spectacle de danse contemporaine. Seize hommes et seulement trois femmes.
Et une troisième lumière. J’ai parlé d’utopie parce qu’il y a ici une parfaite balance entre la communauté et l’individu. Les interprètes se supportent, souvent plus moralement que physiquement, mais aussi s’effacent vers les côtés de la scène lorsqu’ils doivent laisser de la place aux individus qui se démènent dans l’extase.
On retrouve aussi cette dualité dans les costumes. Leurs chandails, pantalons et robes sont tous foncés, clairement le fruit d’une coordination esthétique. Par contre, aux pieds, on devine de par l’éclectisme coloré qu’on y trouve que chacun porte ses espadrilles préférées. Vers la fin du spectacle, certains échangeront leur sombre chandail pour un plus coloré.
Je parle aussi d’utopie à cause de l’effacement des rôles prédéterminés qui permet à tous les interprètes de s’adonner à la danse et au chant. Oui, on peut deviner que certains sont plus danseur que chanteur (et vice versa), mais ce n’est pas perçu comme étant « meilleur » ou « pire. » Ce sont tout simplement différentes qualités de mouvement et de voix qui émergent. Ils sont tous beaux.
Cesena
1-2 juin à 20h
Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Billets à partir de 35$
Pourtant, si je m’efforce, je dois me rappeler que les premières 30-40 minutes sont exigeantes. Une seule lumière éclaire à peine la scène, de sorte que l’action est pratiquement invisible même lorsqu’elle est excessivement dynamique. Les interprètes sont alors moins corps que contours, moins physiques qu’audibles.
La scène est parsemée de sable formant un large cercle et, typique pour De Keersmaeker, les pieds des interprètes trainent sur le sol. Pied contre sable, sable contre sol. Plancher sablé. Les interprètes ne volent pas, ne flottent pas. Leur danse est bien ancrée dans le poids indéniable du corps qui les humanise.
Ils sont dix-neuf en tout, certains danseurs, certains chanteurs, sans toujours qu’on puisse les différencier, même si on peut souvent le deviner. C’est que tous les interprètes s’adonnent autant à la danse qu’au chant. Pour cette dernière, on retourne au quatorzième siècle avec l’ars subtilior, ici dirigé par Björn Schmelzer.
Le peu que l’on aperçoit nous laisse déjà entrevoir la communauté. Les mains des uns reposent sur les épaules des autres alors qu’ils se déplacent à l’unisson. Une note, un pas. Silence, immobilité. La danse et le chant deviennent indissociables. Après tout, ils émanent tous deux du mouvement.
Et une deuxième lumière. Ce n’est qu’à ce moment qu’on découvre le genre, qui se trouve être hors du commun pour un spectacle de danse contemporaine. Seize hommes et seulement trois femmes.
Et une troisième lumière. J’ai parlé d’utopie parce qu’il y a ici une parfaite balance entre la communauté et l’individu. Les interprètes se supportent, souvent plus moralement que physiquement, mais aussi s’effacent vers les côtés de la scène lorsqu’ils doivent laisser de la place aux individus qui se démènent dans l’extase.
On retrouve aussi cette dualité dans les costumes. Leurs chandails, pantalons et robes sont tous foncés, clairement le fruit d’une coordination esthétique. Par contre, aux pieds, on devine de par l’éclectisme coloré qu’on y trouve que chacun porte ses espadrilles préférées. Vers la fin du spectacle, certains échangeront leur sombre chandail pour un plus coloré.
Je parle aussi d’utopie à cause de l’effacement des rôles prédéterminés qui permet à tous les interprètes de s’adonner à la danse et au chant. Oui, on peut deviner que certains sont plus danseur que chanteur (et vice versa), mais ce n’est pas perçu comme étant « meilleur » ou « pire. » Ce sont tout simplement différentes qualités de mouvement et de voix qui émergent. Ils sont tous beaux.
Cesena
1-2 juin à 20h
Théâtre Maisonneuve
www.fta.qc.ca
514.844.3822 / 1.866.984.3822
Billets à partir de 35$
