Local Gestures
because the personal is cultural
Peter Trosztmer is both dancer and conductor in AQUA KHORIA, his collaboration with musician-digital artist Zack Zettle. Set within the dome of the SAT, Trosztmer evolves against a 360-degree animated projection that reacts to light and movement. In the middle of the floor: a small circular pond.
As we enter the room, we are surrounded by buoys, gently rocking their bells in the middle of the night. After the doors close behind the last spectator, Trosztmer whips the waters into a storm with his rain dance, looking like Mickey Mouse moving brooms about with his magic. The tumultuous waters swallow us into the calmness of its depth, pushes us back out, and ultimately pulls us back in. Follows an exploration of this underwater world, like an animated documentary without voice-over narration where experience is privileged over knowledge. A drop of water falls into the pond. (How nice it would have been had it been mic’ed.) As the pond is lit, we perceive its reflection as light play on the dome, a sky made of water. Sometimes I find myself believing that through art we’re looking to capture something of nature that we’ve lost: the chaos and the beauty. It would explain why there’s so much art in the city and so little in the country. Trosztmer approaches the water on all fours. When he finally dips his paws in, he stands but remains hunched over. We are simultaneously witnessing evolution and regression as a human being goes back to the water that we came from. The drop of water falls on him before turning into a stream in a quasi-Flashdance moment, as Trosztmer is now down to his underwear. We reach a cave of moving shadows as Trosztmer walks around the space holding a candle, and travel through a tunnel without taking a single step. Trosztmer then goes back to playing conductor with his movement, which espouses the shape of the dome: height and circumference, what we are guessing are the two main ways of controlling the sound. The music is provided by harp-like-sounding notes from a synthesizer backed by a chill beat, which ends up sounding like Muzak for a spa. We then find ourselves in what looks like lava inside a whale (or at least its bones), like Jonah. Soon, the whale is caught in a whirlpool and we are spat back out to the surface of the water, now calm again, as seagulls fly overhead. There is something of IMAX in the simplistic narrative followed here: exposition (calm waters), conflict (storm), journey (cave), climax (whirlpool), resolution (calm waters). Of course, we’re more interested in the 360-degree projection than we are in the dance. Who could possibly compete with technology? There could be a ten-inch screen broadcasting hockey behind a dancer and we’d find ourselves watching the game. Some transitions could have been smoother as the music, projection and performance keep changing at the same time, but ultimately AQUA KHORIA does play like an IMAX movie: pleasant while it lasts but otherwise unmemorable. October 11-21 www.tangente.qc.ca / www.danse-cite.org 514.844.2033 Tickets: 25$
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Une lumière stroboscopique si brève qu’elle pourrait être un éclair. Vacarme entre quatre murs de béton. Les ombres nous entourent. Une femme vêtue d’un col roulé et d’une jupe étroite se lève et ramasse des câbles. Elle s’assoit dans une chaise de bois et se bande les yeux. Nous sommes plongés dans le noir. Elle utilise les câbles pour se ligoter. Clouée à la chaise, elle est victime et bourreau. Elle se débat. Le bois craque. Il craque si fort qu’il cesse d’être un craquement. Il devient fracture du crâne. Le chandail blanc de la femme est à peine visible dans la noirceur. Ses bras semblent bouger. Est-elle encore ligotée ou a-t-elle réussi à s’échapper? Une lame de couteau fend le grain du bois. Notre chair sera beaucoup plus silencieuse. La lumière frappe la lame et nous transperce les yeux. Malheureusement, l’effet sensoriel jusque là si bien orchestré se dissout lorsque des mots parviennent à nos oreilles. La femme (Anne Thériault) chuchote une histoire. Bien que les chuchotements font partie de bon nombre de films d’horreur, je l’ai déjà dit et je le redis : ils ne fonctionnent pas dans un espace théâtral. La disjonction entre le désir de parler tout bas et celui de se faire entendre (théâtre oblige) les vole de leurs qualités sur lesquelles on tente spécifiquement de capitaliser. L’ambiguïté du chuchotement (Est-ce que j’entends des voix? Ai-je bien entendu?) est perdue. Les mots eux-mêmes défont l’expérience sensorielle. Thériault fait toujours dans la cinématique, mais cette fois plus dans la trame narrative que dans l’image. C’est pour cette raison que je me dois de citer le court mais brillant essai de Virginia Woolf sur le cinéma : « For a moment it seemed as if thought could be conveyed by shape more effectively than by words. The monstrous quivering tadpole seemed to be fear itself, and not the statement 'I am afraid'. In fact, the shadow was accidental and the effect unintentional. But if a shadow at a certain moment can suggest so much more than the actual gestures and words of men and women in a state of fear, it seems plain that the cinema has within its grasp innumerable symbols for emotions that have so far failed to find expression. […] The likeness of the thought is for some reason more beautiful, more comprehensible, more available, than the thought itself. » Il faut dire qu’il s’agit aussi du spectacle du compositeur et performeur Martin Messier, qui fait un excellent travail de créer un environnement sonore inquiétant. Le son fait vibrer les chaises et résonne à travers nos corps. Malgré les mots, Derrière le rideau demeure une expérience intrigante. Derrière le rideau, il fait peut-être nuit 27 mai à 19h; 28 mai à 18h et 19h Société des Arts Technologiques [SAT] www.fta.qc.ca 514.844.3822 Billets : 15$ / 30 ans et moins, 65 ans et plus : 13$ |
Sylvain Verstricht
has an MA in Film Studies and works in contemporary dance. His fiction has appeared in Headlight Anthology, Cactus Heart, and Birkensnake. s.verstricht [at] gmail [dot] com Categories
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