Tim Crouch, an old friend of the PuSh Festival, is back this year with I, Malvolio, on for an extended run at The Cultch (who are co-presenting the show) through February 10.
Beginning in 2003, Crouch has been writing a series of short solo works told from the point of view of secondary characters in Shakespeare's plays (Caliban from The Tempest, Peaseblossom from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Banquo from Macbeth, the poet Cinna from Julius Caesar). Now it's the turn of Malvolio, the Puritanical steward to Olivia in Twelfth Night who is tricked by Sir Toby Belch and crew into thinking that his mistress loves him, and is imprisoned as a lunatic when he foolishly tries to reciprocate her phantom desire.
In Crouch's hands, Malvolio's vow at the end of Shakespeare's play to be revenged for his humiliations becomes a bravura riff on our complicity, as an audience, in those humiliations. The house lights remain up through the entire 60-minute show and various individuals are targeted to either abet Malvolio's indignities--or suffer their own--on stage. Crouch is an amazing performer, never wavering in his squint-eyed scowl, condensing the entire plot of Twelfth Night into an explosive torrent of perfectly articulated verbiage, calling out our sustained laughter with a wagging finger that is less vindictive than vindication.
Which is, finally, what Crouch achieves for this much-maligned character at the end of the show--in a conceit that is an anti-theatrical stroke of theatrical genius. For if, having lectured and hectored us for the past hour, our revels are nevertheless to continue unabated, then there is only one thing for this theatre-hating stoic to do: walk out of his own play.
P.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
PuSh 2013: Still Standing You
Still Standing You, a PuSh Festival co-production with The Dance Centre that continues tomorrow and Friday and Saturday, opens with Pieter Ampe lying on the floor, legs stretched in the air, supporting the full weight of Guilherme Garrido, who sits perched on Ampe's feet. Garrido proceeds to make casual conversation with the audience, mostly about the duo's explorations of Vancouver since their arrival, and their delight at discovering the nearby Elbow Room and owner Patrick Savoie and his staff's famous schtick of insulting their breakfasting patrons. The idea that a) we might willingly seek to be abused, debased, and humiliated, and b) that we might delight in watching this happen to others, more or less sums up the premise of this eye-opening show, which is as much an extended wrestling match as it is contemporary dance.
For sixty minutes Ampe and Garrido stomp around the stage, and on each other, grunting and sweating like cave men as they test the limits of what they can take from the other, and what they will give back in return. This includes whipping each other with their belt straps and, in the piece's most aggressively intimate sequence, manipulating each other's penises as they spiral and twist around each other in a gymnastic (and presumably painful) pas de deux. And all the while we watch avidly, laughing while wincing, enthusiastic and willing voyeurs to an S/M spectacle that is as tender as it is tough.
Still Standing You is unlike anything you've seen before--which more or less sums up what PuSh is all about.
P.
For sixty minutes Ampe and Garrido stomp around the stage, and on each other, grunting and sweating like cave men as they test the limits of what they can take from the other, and what they will give back in return. This includes whipping each other with their belt straps and, in the piece's most aggressively intimate sequence, manipulating each other's penises as they spiral and twist around each other in a gymnastic (and presumably painful) pas de deux. And all the while we watch avidly, laughing while wincing, enthusiastic and willing voyeurs to an S/M spectacle that is as tender as it is tough.
Still Standing You is unlike anything you've seen before--which more or less sums up what PuSh is all about.
P.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
PuSh 2013: Haptic + Holistic Strata
The multidisciplinary dance artist Hiroaki Umeda, who first visited the PuSh Festival in 2009, is back this year at The Dance Centre (our partners on the show) with two new works that combine light, sound, and movement in stunning and visceral ways.
As Umeda said last night in a talkback after the show, his goal is to transmit sensation rather than meaning to his audience. In Haptic, the first piece on the program, that means bathing the stage in a succession of primary colours as Umeda slowly moves his body--in a succession of rippling waves and jerky spasms depending on the pulsating music--from upstage left to centre stage. In Holistic Strata, Umeda's body is dotted in particles of light, the floor and backdrop awash in a sea of black and white that resembles the snow on a television screen, or the swirl of stars colliding in a magnified galaxy. With the aid of sensors, and in tune with the electronic score, Umeda moves back and forth in a version of popping and locking, the projections often moving with or in counterpoint to him, creating a vertiginous, disorienting effect, much like we're falling down a strobe-lit black hole.
A DJ of visual, acoustic, and kinespheric space, Umeda's work defies easy description. Instead, it needs to be experienced.
P.
As Umeda said last night in a talkback after the show, his goal is to transmit sensation rather than meaning to his audience. In Haptic, the first piece on the program, that means bathing the stage in a succession of primary colours as Umeda slowly moves his body--in a succession of rippling waves and jerky spasms depending on the pulsating music--from upstage left to centre stage. In Holistic Strata, Umeda's body is dotted in particles of light, the floor and backdrop awash in a sea of black and white that resembles the snow on a television screen, or the swirl of stars colliding in a magnified galaxy. With the aid of sensors, and in tune with the electronic score, Umeda moves back and forth in a version of popping and locking, the projections often moving with or in counterpoint to him, creating a vertiginous, disorienting effect, much like we're falling down a strobe-lit black hole.
A DJ of visual, acoustic, and kinespheric space, Umeda's work defies easy description. Instead, it needs to be experienced.
P.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
PuSh 2013: Ballet BC
Although Richard and I are subscribers to Ballet BC, and although we had seen all of the pieces that make up this weekend's Encore program before, last night still felt special, as for the first time this year the company is pairing up with the PuSh Festival. It was great to see all the PuSh program guides being perused by audience members, and I took the opportunity to make several recommendations.
Having earlier that morning talked about William Forsythe's Improvisation Technologies with my SFU Contemporary Arts students in the Dance-Theatre class I'm teaching this semester, I was newly attuned to how his Herman Schmerman, the first piece on the program, was put together in terms of shapes and phrasings and tempo. I detected a few stumbles among the dancers in the opening quintet, Forsythe's steps being notoriously difficult, and the pacing of this piece particularly brutal. However, Alexis Fletcher and Connor Gnam were on fire in the signature duet that follows.
Jorma Elo's 1st Flash is choreographed to Sibelius' stunning Violin Concerto in D minor, and features equally spectacular lighting. But the dancing more than holds its own, beginning and ending not just in half-light, but in silence, as if to say, which is more virtuosic: the music or the movement? With newer company members Alexander Burton and Livona Ellis (who emerged as the star of last night's program) joining veterans Maggie Forgeron, Alyson Fretz, Gnam, and Gilbert Small in realizing Elo's intensely physical but slightly quirky movement patterns (lush arabesques and lifts followed by squats and hops), the answer to that question in my mind was very clear.
Petite Cérémonie, created especially for Ballet BC in 2011 by Medhi Walerski, concluded the program, a showcase for the full company's athleticism and witty theatricality (I had forgotten about Dario Dinuzzi's juggling and spoken word bit). Beginning with the exterior rear wall of the stage exposed, the dancers enter in turn from the wings, but also the audience, eventually joining each other in a quasi-chorus line, the only movement a simple shifting from one foot to the other. Things get decidedly more dynamic from there, especially when Vivaldi's Four Seasons starts blaring. I still think the piece, overall, is more style than substance, but one of the things I did notice this time in ruminating on Walerski's somewhat too-obvious metaphor of "life-in-a-box," was how (in addition to gender and the black box of the theatre) it could be applied to the choreographic box of unison vs. non-unison in movement.
P.
Having earlier that morning talked about William Forsythe's Improvisation Technologies with my SFU Contemporary Arts students in the Dance-Theatre class I'm teaching this semester, I was newly attuned to how his Herman Schmerman, the first piece on the program, was put together in terms of shapes and phrasings and tempo. I detected a few stumbles among the dancers in the opening quintet, Forsythe's steps being notoriously difficult, and the pacing of this piece particularly brutal. However, Alexis Fletcher and Connor Gnam were on fire in the signature duet that follows.
Jorma Elo's 1st Flash is choreographed to Sibelius' stunning Violin Concerto in D minor, and features equally spectacular lighting. But the dancing more than holds its own, beginning and ending not just in half-light, but in silence, as if to say, which is more virtuosic: the music or the movement? With newer company members Alexander Burton and Livona Ellis (who emerged as the star of last night's program) joining veterans Maggie Forgeron, Alyson Fretz, Gnam, and Gilbert Small in realizing Elo's intensely physical but slightly quirky movement patterns (lush arabesques and lifts followed by squats and hops), the answer to that question in my mind was very clear.
Petite Cérémonie, created especially for Ballet BC in 2011 by Medhi Walerski, concluded the program, a showcase for the full company's athleticism and witty theatricality (I had forgotten about Dario Dinuzzi's juggling and spoken word bit). Beginning with the exterior rear wall of the stage exposed, the dancers enter in turn from the wings, but also the audience, eventually joining each other in a quasi-chorus line, the only movement a simple shifting from one foot to the other. Things get decidedly more dynamic from there, especially when Vivaldi's Four Seasons starts blaring. I still think the piece, overall, is more style than substance, but one of the things I did notice this time in ruminating on Walerski's somewhat too-obvious metaphor of "life-in-a-box," was how (in addition to gender and the black box of the theatre) it could be applied to the choreographic box of unison vs. non-unison in movement.
P.
PuSh 2013: Do You See What I Mean?
Yesterday at the PuSh Festival I went on a blindfolded tour that awakened in me an extraordinary new sensory experience of my city--and my body.
Do You See What I Mean?, the brainchild of Martin Chaput and Martial Chazallon, of France's Projet in situ, begins at the Access Gallery on Georgia Street, just east of Main. After checking in at the box office, you are greeted by Martial, who explains a bit about the concept of the piece, before placing a blind fold around your eyes and introducing you to your guide. In my case, I was paired with Mariana, and while over the course of the next 2.5 hours we chatted only briefly about ourselves and our lives (neither of us being big talkers), we nevertheless experienced what I am certain was for both of us an incredibly intimate social and physical exchange. In my case, not only did this involve placing my life literally in Marianna's hands, but, in taking hold of her right elbow and beginning to walk alongside her, shifting the whole kinespheric axis of my body in her direction.
The experience was uncanny and disorienting and exhilarating all at once, as guided only by Marianna's voice and the pace of her movements and subtle shifts in direction was I able to do what under any other circumstances I automatically take for granted: walk. And what a walk: so immersive, so sensual, so loud! Take away the visual sense, and suddenly you realize just how noisy your city is: car horns and engines accelerating; music from storefronts; the click-click-click of heels on sidewalks; shouted greetings. The snippets of overheard conversation provided an audio track all their own as I assembled different bits of information--and different languages--into a running narrative.
Then there was the heightened haptic sense: the texture of the sidewalk or road underneath my feet; the warmth of the sun on my face; always the nubbly fabric of Mariana's sweater at my fingertips. In a thrift shop I'd like to say was still somewhere in Chinatown (although I can't be sure) I was delighted to discover in my felt explorations of the wares a horse's stirrup: so unexpected amid all of the coats and leather goods and knick-knacks, and such a joyful surprise for that. This was the first of several stops that Mariana and I made on our journey: a pastry shop where I got to taste an orange-blossom macaroon; an apartment where our host Stephen gave me a motorcycle helmet to hold and told us the story of his ill-fated purchase of a vintage Vespa; an indoor-outdoor pool where Jimmy, himself non-sighted, tested my sense of smell and touch; and finally what I would discover later (once my blindfold had been removed) was the Roundhouse Community Centre, where I got to dance in the dark with Ziyian Kwan as I discovered new centres of gravity I never knew I had.
As I said to Martin afterwards, the whole experience was one of the most stimulating and emotional of my life. I'm still processing all the feelings (physical and affective) it produced. But one thing I know for sure: even if I never see Mariana again, I have some other sense that a part of her will always remain beside me.
P.
Do You See What I Mean?, the brainchild of Martin Chaput and Martial Chazallon, of France's Projet in situ, begins at the Access Gallery on Georgia Street, just east of Main. After checking in at the box office, you are greeted by Martial, who explains a bit about the concept of the piece, before placing a blind fold around your eyes and introducing you to your guide. In my case, I was paired with Mariana, and while over the course of the next 2.5 hours we chatted only briefly about ourselves and our lives (neither of us being big talkers), we nevertheless experienced what I am certain was for both of us an incredibly intimate social and physical exchange. In my case, not only did this involve placing my life literally in Marianna's hands, but, in taking hold of her right elbow and beginning to walk alongside her, shifting the whole kinespheric axis of my body in her direction.
The experience was uncanny and disorienting and exhilarating all at once, as guided only by Marianna's voice and the pace of her movements and subtle shifts in direction was I able to do what under any other circumstances I automatically take for granted: walk. And what a walk: so immersive, so sensual, so loud! Take away the visual sense, and suddenly you realize just how noisy your city is: car horns and engines accelerating; music from storefronts; the click-click-click of heels on sidewalks; shouted greetings. The snippets of overheard conversation provided an audio track all their own as I assembled different bits of information--and different languages--into a running narrative.
Then there was the heightened haptic sense: the texture of the sidewalk or road underneath my feet; the warmth of the sun on my face; always the nubbly fabric of Mariana's sweater at my fingertips. In a thrift shop I'd like to say was still somewhere in Chinatown (although I can't be sure) I was delighted to discover in my felt explorations of the wares a horse's stirrup: so unexpected amid all of the coats and leather goods and knick-knacks, and such a joyful surprise for that. This was the first of several stops that Mariana and I made on our journey: a pastry shop where I got to taste an orange-blossom macaroon; an apartment where our host Stephen gave me a motorcycle helmet to hold and told us the story of his ill-fated purchase of a vintage Vespa; an indoor-outdoor pool where Jimmy, himself non-sighted, tested my sense of smell and touch; and finally what I would discover later (once my blindfold had been removed) was the Roundhouse Community Centre, where I got to dance in the dark with Ziyian Kwan as I discovered new centres of gravity I never knew I had.
As I said to Martin afterwards, the whole experience was one of the most stimulating and emotional of my life. I'm still processing all the feelings (physical and affective) it produced. But one thing I know for sure: even if I never see Mariana again, I have some other sense that a part of her will always remain beside me.
P.
Friday, January 25, 2013
PuSh 2013: Testament
Testament, one of three Shakespeare-themed works programmed as part of this year's PuSh Festival (and the first of two based on Lear), opened last night at SFU Woodward's Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. It was a revelation, a highlight among the consistently excellent offerings I have seen at the Festival so far.
The brainchild of the Berlin-based theatrical collective She She Pop, these "Belated Preparations for a New Generation based on King Lear" features three members of the collective--Sebastian Bark, Mieke Matzke, and Ilia Papatheodorou--acting on stage with their own fathers (Joachim, Manfred, and Theo, respectively), all of them retired, and none with previous performance training or experience. (A fourth member of the group, Lisa Lucassen, also appears, although sans paterfamilias.) What could have quickly become an exhausted gimmick instead turns into a moving exploration of the always complex bonds of debt and obligation between father and child--bonds that we cannot help but read through the lens of our own filial relationships. What's more, the piece is surprisingly faithful to Shakespeare's text (which scrolls across a projection screen throughout the performance), revealing new depths to key passages and scenes, while also updating themes of inheritance and post-retirement care for a generation of aging Boomers and their kids.
Everything about this production is dramaturgically apt: from the use of live video monitors to frame the patriarchs' grizzled faces as portraits projected onto the upstage wall, to the use of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra duet "Something Stupid" as a leitmotif for what--to paraphrase the program notes--is the always delicate public negotiation of the terms of love's exchange between daughters and their fathers.
Testament runs for three more performances, and I believe there are lots of tickets left. I strongly recommend snapping some up, as this show will be the talk of the Festival.
P.
The brainchild of the Berlin-based theatrical collective She She Pop, these "Belated Preparations for a New Generation based on King Lear" features three members of the collective--Sebastian Bark, Mieke Matzke, and Ilia Papatheodorou--acting on stage with their own fathers (Joachim, Manfred, and Theo, respectively), all of them retired, and none with previous performance training or experience. (A fourth member of the group, Lisa Lucassen, also appears, although sans paterfamilias.) What could have quickly become an exhausted gimmick instead turns into a moving exploration of the always complex bonds of debt and obligation between father and child--bonds that we cannot help but read through the lens of our own filial relationships. What's more, the piece is surprisingly faithful to Shakespeare's text (which scrolls across a projection screen throughout the performance), revealing new depths to key passages and scenes, while also updating themes of inheritance and post-retirement care for a generation of aging Boomers and their kids.
Everything about this production is dramaturgically apt: from the use of live video monitors to frame the patriarchs' grizzled faces as portraits projected onto the upstage wall, to the use of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra duet "Something Stupid" as a leitmotif for what--to paraphrase the program notes--is the always delicate public negotiation of the terms of love's exchange between daughters and their fathers.
Testament runs for three more performances, and I believe there are lots of tickets left. I strongly recommend snapping some up, as this show will be the talk of the Festival.
P.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
PuSh 2013: Look Mummy, I'm Dancing
Last night it was another intimate and exhilarating solo show at Club PuSh. Look Mummy, I'm Dancing is a stunning, emotionally raw monologue by Belgian actress Vanessa Van Durme that strips both the theatre experience and one's soul bare. Dressed only in a simple pink shift, Van Durme is alone on stage for 90 minutes: no background music of fancy lighting effects; a kitchen table and chairs, a glass of water, and two dolls--one male, the other female--her only props; the audience an uncertain witness to her story.
And what a story. Beginning with a casual, almost banal account of her frustration at being stuck behind a bickering couple in a supermarket checkout line, Van Durme dryly observes how much work it is to be a woman and, given the choice, who would willingly take up such a job? Van Durme did, and she proceeds to tell us about her life as a transgender person: from her difficult birth and boyhood joy at dressing up in her mother's clothes, to her courageous decision to undergo a risky sex change operation in Morocco in the 1970s and an unexpected 16-year marriage.
Van Durme's life is epic, and epically hilarious: a May-December romance with an American G.I. from Ohio; a catalogue of walk-on parts during her early career as an actor; waking up in a maternity ward following her sex change operation with the kindly nurse Fatimah telling her in Arabic that she has a lovely pussy; getting married in a Spanish prison. But at the heart of this piece is Van Durme's tender and heartfelt account of her relationship with her mother, who shielded her from her father's emotional abuse as a child, but who nevertheless feared and mourned the loss of the boy she loved as Van Durme grew into an adult woman--even as the once cold and distant patriarch welcomed a new daughter into the family.
It is Van Durme's willingness to explore with such honesty and openness the pathways and byways of family connection that cannot be explained by DNA or chromosomes that makes this such a rich and rewarding performance.
Look Mummy, I'm Dancing continues tonight and tomorrow night at Club PuSh. It is not to be missed.
P.
And what a story. Beginning with a casual, almost banal account of her frustration at being stuck behind a bickering couple in a supermarket checkout line, Van Durme dryly observes how much work it is to be a woman and, given the choice, who would willingly take up such a job? Van Durme did, and she proceeds to tell us about her life as a transgender person: from her difficult birth and boyhood joy at dressing up in her mother's clothes, to her courageous decision to undergo a risky sex change operation in Morocco in the 1970s and an unexpected 16-year marriage.
Van Durme's life is epic, and epically hilarious: a May-December romance with an American G.I. from Ohio; a catalogue of walk-on parts during her early career as an actor; waking up in a maternity ward following her sex change operation with the kindly nurse Fatimah telling her in Arabic that she has a lovely pussy; getting married in a Spanish prison. But at the heart of this piece is Van Durme's tender and heartfelt account of her relationship with her mother, who shielded her from her father's emotional abuse as a child, but who nevertheless feared and mourned the loss of the boy she loved as Van Durme grew into an adult woman--even as the once cold and distant patriarch welcomed a new daughter into the family.
It is Van Durme's willingness to explore with such honesty and openness the pathways and byways of family connection that cannot be explained by DNA or chromosomes that makes this such a rich and rewarding performance.
Look Mummy, I'm Dancing continues tonight and tomorrow night at Club PuSh. It is not to be missed.
P.
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