Learning backwards

SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM: Timecode Break

Choreographer and artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre, Christopher House, has dabbled with dance and images before, but never on a large scale. With his newest piece, Timecode Break, he took the leap. In creating the hour-long pas de deux for stage and screen, House worked closely with filmmaker Nico Stagias to create a work that manipulates time and space by integrating video images with live choreography.

“The video really amplifies what is happening on stage, and vice versa,” House explains, adding that editing software has become an invaluable creative tool for his choreographies, and that Final Cut Pro is flat-out addictive.

In his piece for a dozen dancers, House incorporates what he calls “retrograde” movement, the result of playing back sequences to his dancers in reverse and teaching them the morphed versions. “Once you learn things backwards, the body tends to normalize the movement,” he explains. “It’s a different way of looking at the body and how it looks in space.” Catch Timecode Break until April 14, 8 p.m. nightly at the Centre Pierre-Péladeau (300 de Maisonneuve E.), info: (514) 790-1245.

by MARITES CARINO

Pile of rocks

INSPIRED BY CONSTRUCTION: Stillwell’s work

Can’t a pile of gravel and some green plastic baskets sometimes be just that and nothing more? Winnipeg artist Jennifer Stillwell has spread said gravel on the floor and put it into small plastic containers around the cavernous Darling Foundry (745 Ottawa). “Their juxtaposition,” states the exhibition text, “produces a visual contrast between the raw nature of stone and the suppleness of plastic material.”

Stillwell credits construction sites she passed while walking along McGill Street as the inspiration behind this installation. There is a monitor on the gallery’s reception desk showing a video documenting the creation of the work, where the construction site origins can be imagined. But once inside the gallery, the artfully arranged rocks and plastic just seem superfluous, unable to compete with the large, fabulous industrial space of the foundry.

Stillwell is no art neophyte or slouch, having been a Sobey Award semi-finalist twice. But, I’m sorry to say, it might be better to go stare at some real construction sites instead of this art because there’s a much better chance you’ll spy something deeper beneath the surface. The exhibition runs until May 27, info: (514) 392-1554.

by CHRISTINE REDFERN

Juggling words

CIRCUS ACT: Taqralik Partridge

With the annual Circus of Words, eclecticism is the name of the game—the stage is the alchemical space where poetry moves beyond
the page to express itself in all the dimensions of theatricality and movement. “I’m pretty much a page poet, so participating in this in the past three years has really opened up my horizons,” says Circus co-organizer Carolyn Marie Souaid. “Every year is different and every year is so much fun.”

The trilingual event features the North-inflected urban tales of Taqralik Partridge, chanteuse Fabiola Toupin and guitarist Manu Trudel, multitasking playwrights Karen Kaderavek, Steve Orlov and Anana Rydvald, and the return of Lucien Francoeur. It’ll also introduce new audiences to the special realm of Bill Bissett’s ever-unfolding sound poetry universe. “Just getting Bill Bissett’s e-mails and telephone messages has been theatrical in itself,” Souaid says. The Circus gets underway Tuesday, April 17, 7:30 p.m., at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent), $15.

by VINCENT TINGUELY

Drawing stories

Hey, there may not be word-bubbles, panels and text to tell you what’s going on, but This Drawing Is a Story is very much an exhibition of drawings that are stories, however odd, open-ended or just plain obtuse. And while the artists continue the quest for new narrative grounds, we’ll stick to the facts: local pencilsmiths Rebecca Rosen, Jack Dylan, Lee McClure, Nick Diamonds, Naomi Cook and Chris Taylor will unleash imagination-heavy comic-style works at My Hero Gallery (3655 St-Laurent, #206). Catch the vernissage Friday, April 13, or the art through the show’s run until April 20.

HAIRY GUY: By Lee McClure

by MATTHEW WOODLEY

Is it art?

FOAM IS WHERE THE HEART IS: “This press release,” reads the press release, “will self-destruct in three years.” Not exactly Inspector Gadget grade, but decent for a piece of polystyrene foam. Traditional polystyrene containers—say, your run-of-the-mill disposable coffee cup—take several hundred years to vanish from landfills, so one with a short lifespan is good news for greenness. And what’s the secret? The product (manufactured by toilet paper bigwig Cascades) is made of a substance called Bioxo™, the key ingredient of which is TDPA (Totally Degradable Plastic Additives), which totally degrades quickly under heat, UV radiation or mechanical stress, breaking it down into a fine powder that micro-organisms and other bacteria can digest. Bioxo has been approved for contact with food in North America and should hit the market soon.

Arts hole

SMELLS LIKE SCENE SPIRIT: With the principle that a photo should smell like sweat, Sophie Samson has shot Montreal rockers les Breastfeeders, les Prostiputes, les Georges Leningrad, Patrick Watson, Sunny Duval and many more, all to be experienced in her exhibition Décibal sur papier, at le Divan Orange (4234 St-Laurent) until April 30. • BOYOKANI BARD: Hamlet gets a French twist, with bonus chants in Congolese, Ivorian and Benin languages in the Boyokani Company’s production of Shakespeare’s 1600 hit tragedy. It’s at the MAI (3680 Jeanne Mance, #103) from April 18–29. • OFF THE ROAD: After four years of seven-city cycles, bringing over 100 indie artists ’round and ’round the spoken word and performance circuit, the Perpetual Motion Roadshow has come to a halt due to organizers running out of gas.

Artistat

Number of musicians, actors, filmmakers and more representing la belle province in what organizers claim will be the largest-ever gathering of Quebec artists outside the province, Ottawa’s Quebec Scene festival, running April 20–May 5: 700+

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