Thursday, February 26, 2009

Nous deux, translations and history, Intertextuality of Ties…



I walked by a store in Paris with old magazines including “Nous Deux.” My favourite magazine cover featured a picture of a couple. The man was relaxing on a sofa reading a book. Beside him was a large bookshelf including a ladder. On the ladder was a woman with a big pile of books and an alarmed expression on her face. There were too many books in her pile and a few books had spilled out of her arms and were aimed right at the man’s head.

“Nous Deux” makes me think of
Julia Kristeva’s article: "Nous deux" or a (hi)story of intertextuality
about America, history (personal and political) and intertextuality. She fell in love with America with the same tempo that I now fall in love with France. She loves the simplicity of American streets, bustle and academic pursuits. Here the love affair differs. I love the intertextuality of watching movies with subtitles in France. I also enjoy wandering the streets and prefer the moments when the speed of life is leisurely and casual. I'm on vacation after all...

I walked by a store of sorts that read “La Maison de La Cravate.” I said to myself, “cravate, where do I know this word from?” I knew I had seen the word recently and often. Finally it hit me: watching “Frenzy” (directed by Hitchcock) in Nantes just a few days prior with French subtitles. La cravate means tie, which is what the killer uses to strangle his female victims in the movie. The word had come up often on the screen. Have you seen this film? A protagonist without a carefully plotted reputation (he drinks on the job, has an anger management problem and ‘to be helpful’ goes down in his divorce papers as the guilty party) is set to take the fall for the murders of his ex-wife and current fling. He is sent to jail and then escapes to pursue the killer. I could somehow relate (to the protagonist not the murderer just to be clear).

The film is 'set' in the present moment with only one or two rare memories surfacing in the minds of the protagonist and cop on the case. The cop replays our hero's words in court which echo in his mind and the voice-over track (I know the use of the word soundtrack is bad via Gorbman's translation of Michel Chion. Lately I've been wondering what the french word for 'soundtrack' is that Gorbman has translated. ?). Memory stumps me still. Of mice and men. I am stuck in a memory of 'la cravate' and thinking of 'nous deux' wandering the streets.

Maybe a video of dance will help break the spell?

Here is the equivalent of 'Nous Deux.'

Apparently b-boy Junior is battling Kujo at the end of March. There's a battle to watch out for.

B-boy Junior:



vs. Kujo:

Friday, February 20, 2009

Amen Break

Check it.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Fusik; living in and out of tune...


Fusik, the funk band that played the b-boy battle at Hip OPsessions, covered this song and it has been in my mind all day:



There is no singer in Fusik so the guitar player was handling the melody. I never thought about the lyrics before although I've heard this song so many times. I wonder if my knowledge of the song has deepened by taking a closer look at the words or if I'm more confused now that I know what they are:


Her daddy got a big aeroplane,
Her mommy holds all the family cash,
A beautiful blows, I stay at the corner,
She is living in and out of tune.

Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C.
Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C,
Your vitamin C.

And at Christmas riding on her pony
Or she is stepping on the pigman’s head,
A beautiful blows, I stay at the corner,
She is living in and out of tune.

Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C.
Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C,
Your vitamin C.

Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C.
Hey you,
You’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your vitamin C.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Moulin Rouge, Paris and I



I'm in Paris wondering why I don't live here. Just down the street the lights of the Moulin Rouge are out. Morning is in.

Nasty crews of past and present from France are on my mind. Let's review some of my favorites (words of chapter drafts are drifting through my mind all day and there is nothing left for blogging it seems):

Aktuel Force (the nastiest b-boy crew from France back in the days featuring b-girl Karima):



Aktuel Force pioneering cool theatrical numbers:



B-girls from France battling Japanese b-girls (who win!) IBE 2008:


Vagabond crew being nasty for TV:




More French b-boys and b-girls to come...

Finally, the ladies' man SALAH:

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Bach, Ballet, Children and Obama Art






TATE MODERN EXHIBITS

Visiting the Tate on a Saturday is the perfect time because there are children everywhere enjoying art the right way. They camp out with their parents in front of one work of art, get out their complementary art booklet, and then start getting really creative. Their bodies stretched out along the floor so they can get a perspective of the painting from the ground up and focus in on the real art; their crayons can attest to this fact.

Unfortunately, there isn't a moment of calm or rest in what resembles a chaotic circus rather than a church service. People are everywhere and they are moving fast, zooming up and down the escalators, making casual noise, storming past art on their way to the art store to pick out some postcards. No judgment. I almost bought a cardboard ghetto blaster ipod stand with 'real speakers' for my friends' office. If it had looked like a bit more fun to put together I would have bought it.

In the midst of the zoo, when I learned that the Rothko exhibit had ended Feb. 1st, I was disappointed. The Rothko room provided the one moment of peace, distillation and calm from the chaos the last time I visited the Tate. I am going to make my own Rothko room when I move back to Toronto.

Altermodern: Tate Triennial

So off on a boat across to another exhibit. This exhibit was mostly disappointing (but in a good way). I found my replacement for the Rothko room: Gustav Metzger whose Liquid Crystal Environment provides pillows and a carpeted floor to lie on in darkness as his colors gradually shift from projected light sources that make shadows of the spectators as they move in and out of the room. If there hadn't been soft carpet then it just wouldn't have been the same experience. I mainly enjoyed the carpet and pillows and a moment of quiet. I would have happily fallen asleep there.

Metzger charms subtly while most of the other artists try to offend or prove points that are a bit too obvious or theoretically sapped. For example, there is Subodh Gupta's sculpture of a mushroom cloud made of pots and pans. Reminds me of what my brain feels like most days. Then, there is a piece that says "I wish I could have voted for Obama" sign with a life-size toy truck wedged underneath. My favorite part of the exhibit was watching a little boy try to pull the toy truck out from under the sign while his brother pointed at him and yelled for his parents who, like everyone else, seemed not to be too alarmed that he was actually trying to yank the toy from under the so-called 'art.' I think he had the right idea. I was going to help him out or take a picture but having a genuine laugh at a desire so entertaining and sincere was the best art I could have asked for.

My other favorite of the exhibit, besides Metzger, was a 'special deilvery' of "Fedex Large Craft Boxes" by Walead Besht. He sent six boxes with Fed Ex with glass squares in them and put on display the result of the delivery. Some squares are shattered more than others... Brilliant.

C. de la B.

The ballet company C. de la B. left me breathless and exhausted last night. This is Alain Platel's re-versioning of Bach's "Matthew Passion." It's a story about the crucifixion told from the mother's perspective. It's an attempt to restore the word compassion from what it has become, a dirty and condescending word. There are deformed moments in the dancing that require the compassion of the audience. If the audience gives the proper reception then everything is revealed in its beauty, all that is humorous, different, troubled and unwell becomes raw movement and love.

I have never seen so many ideas for movements displayed at the same time and the innovations kept coming. It reminded me of going to a b-boy jam full of great dancers and being exhausted after watching for about half an hour, your brain already having reached saturation point for new ideas in art.

As with any good ballet company, the first solo of the night is done by a b-boy! As soon as he started moving I knew there was at least one b-boy in the cast and in my head I was thinking, "well of course Jesus is a b-boy in a contemporary version of the story." As it turns out there is a bit of Jesus in all the characters as they navigate through their relationships. Nobody 'plays' Jesus. It's not that kind of production. There is no false sense of characters to latch on to. It's not 'just' straight b-boying either. The b-boy prances around and imagines b-boy anew. All of the choreography fits into a particular style of movement even as the dancers display diverse cultural and technical backgrounds as a group. That's what's so brilliant about Platel's vision of dance. Difference works organically out of the dancers backgrounds into a cohesive style front and the relationship between music and dance is pure suture.

The composer of the night is Fabrizio Cassol who has worked with the choreographer, Platel, before. The orchestra appears on stage in bright colored hats and t-shirts on the 'upper floor'. I'm assuming they are the sounds of the heavens: sometimes they play with the enthusiasm of a funk band enjoying themselves and at other times they have the enthusiasm of a working band that imagines themselves to be invisible from the audience in the pit. Both attitudes reflect what I imagine a heavenly orchestra would be like. The singers, however, are fully interactive with the dancers. They dance as well sometimes and smoothly navigate their way through the movements of the other performers.

I became a fan of Claron McFadden, the soprano of the night who has an angelic voice that can only be described as sounding "like butta." Her parents were the children of poor farmers from the South of the United States who moved up North for a better life. She began singing a range of styles of music that include a children's choir, gospel, funk and jazz (this is straight out of an interview with her), and then discovered Bach and Mozart at fourteen. Her idol, however, is Sarah Vaughan. She debated between a career in jazz and classical music, but picked classical because she loves the theatre (and she says she wanted to live a 'disciplined life' - so you can see she picked the ideology of the classical world as well!).

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Barbican - Shun-kin


"Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides."
Junichiro Tanizaki

SHUN-KIN
Directed by Simon McBurney
Composer Hidetaro Honjo

I visited the Barbican Theatre last night to see a play "Shun-Kin." At first I just wanted to mention that the play was a great experience. So struggling with my common foe, writer's block, I did a little google search and found a scathing review of the piece here. Although the review is laugh out loud funny (in the sense that the reviewer missed everything that was beautiful about the performance and didn't understand a thing) this has compelled me somewhat to talk about the aspects I enjoyed. Wait! I've just read another review, this time by a Guardian reviewer, that also suggests this theatre piece isn't much good!

The piece was Inspired by two texts by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: 'A Portrait of Shunkin' and 'In Praise of Shadows.' The good news is that the aesthetic theory on which the play is founded only comes up in the final moment. Like all good theory, the evidence is shown to us first followed by a quick commentary about where this might fit. A request at the end of the piece comes to go out into the light; the play of shadow and light was a product of ancestors forced into darkened rooms and the representational art of this experience.

The story itself is not about love, sacrifice and sado-masochism, although those elements are foregrounded. I read things differently. The story is about fantasy in love, about how much of the love between two people fits somewhere between reality and representation and happens backstage and in memories. There is a moment when Sasuke's face is in excruciating pain but he hides this from his master and lover, Shun-Kin. When she calls him to fulfill her demands to come warm her feet, he puts her foot to his pained cheek to cool it down. Angered by his action of helping himself rather than serving her needs (even if the two needs, his and hers, were indeed compatible) she begins to abuse him by repeatedly kicking him in the face. She has been blind since youth and hitting him since she was quite young as well (to discipline him at becoming a better music player). As the puppet Shun-Kin, and her ventriloquist, continues to kick Sasuke and he rolls away, he shares in the abuse with the old version of Sasuke also onstage, and a character who follows the story from the inside (although he remains a shadow of a character). Each of the men takes their place, and Shun-Kin kicks each one rhythmically, over and over again, in time with the shamisen player who is onstage as well. The timing and quality of movement of each man being kicked is perfectly executed and gives an aesthetic quality to the action, and the desire to participate in the memory of the older Shun-Kin is a perfect symbol for what the story is about. This same sequence was derided in one of the reviews so I thought I would try my hand at another take because what I saw completely moved me.


(Next up - a commentary about Hitchcock's "Family Plot")