Raving out
of Israel
LEADING THE CHARGE: Batsheva Dance Company
Montreal dance audiences are no doubt familiar with the playful and intense work, like Minus One, of Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company.
It’s been four years since we’ve seen the Tel Aviv-based company, which was founded by Martha Graham more than 40 years ago, and they’re back with Bertolina, a work by resident choreographer and long-time company dancer Sharon Eyal.
Only in her mid-30s, Eyal has been dancing with the troupe for over 17 years, and in this latest work, she and 18 dancers, decked out in a hodgepodge of ornate costumes inspired by different time periods, perform in her frenzied piece that some have likened to a chaotic rave party.
Set to an eclectic soundtrack, Bertolina includes tunes by the Butthole Surfers and Art of Noise. Check it out Nov. 22–24 at 8 p.m. at the Théâtre Maisonneuve (Place des Arts), (514) 842-2112.
by MARITES CARINO
It’s alive!
SALVAGED SOLES: “Symphony for 54 Shoes”The first machine I remember expressing its own personality was Hal misbehaving in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, though I suppose Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the classic example. Currently, at 3520 St-Jacques in St-Henri, three artists are presenting their own forays into the human/machine hybrid. The Inhabited Body presents art and technology crossbreeds by locals Jane Tingley, Ingrid Bachmann and Natacha Roussel.
Tingley’s installation, “Peripheral Response,” turns the space into a large piece of epidermis. Abstracted versions of sensory receptors found in our skin twitch on the walls and across the floor in response to the viewer. Meanwhile, on the facing wall, Bachmann’s “Symphony for 54 Shoes” impatiently taps out a seemingly random composition. These shoes are not factory fresh; they look like they were collected at the Salvation Army. I can’t help imagining the people who once wore these shoes lined up with their backs against the wall.
The third installation, Roussel’s “Take Off Your Legs,” explores the body in movement. Three sets of legs come to life and start walking only when a viewer stands on a board in front of the work.
These three kinetic installations work well together, and make this exhibition worth moving your own body to see. Until Dec. 2, info: www.molior.ca.
by CHRISTINE REDFERN
Tap the groove
Roxane Butterfly grew up in a Moroccan neighbourhood in the south of France and moved to New York City in her 20s to work as an au pair. She already had a tap background, but it wasn’t until the early ’90s that Butterfly’s tap world  opened up at an underground jazz club. Here she attended tap jams with live musicians and met legendary American hoofer Jimmy Slyde.
“I discovered I was good at it!” says Butterfly. The choreographer-dancer says she loves tap because, “it’s not really a narrative art form. It’s from within. The story happens in the rhythm.”
Her company strives to “push the art form further,” and to address the theme of mixed identities. “In the soundscape you hear the jazz, flamenco, swing and it’s all intertwined. None of it is purely traditional. It’s all a fusion,” she says, describing her show that features three tap dancers and a flamenco artist. Djellaba Groove—Journey of the Migrating Sole runs Nov. 22–23 at Kola Note (5240 Parc) at 8:30 p.m., (514) 274-9339.
by MARITES CARINO
No refunds on absurdity
David Armstrong-Six’s rap music video was part of the Popstars exhibition at the Saidye Bronfman Centre a few years back. Since then, I mentally classified him  as a video artist, but I was wrong. It is more of a musical attitude than a particular medium that flows through his work. His new exhibition No Refunds opens tomorrow, Nov. 23, at Articule (262 Fairmount W.).
He describes the figurative sculptures at the heart of this show as closer to punk rock than art history. The pieces themselves sound both twisted and humorously absurd: a head of a seagull peers into a chip bag that has a strobe light hidden inside; a dead plant carved out of wood; a piece of Plexiglas that looks like urine lying on the floor; a neon sign advertising “Open 25hrs.” As well as an array of homemade, rough-hewn protest signs that declare, “No refunds, no returns, no smokes, no feeling, no money….”
No idea what the final result will be, but are you going to miss it? No way. Until Dec. 22, artist talk takes place Dec. 2, info: (514) 842-9686.
by CHRISTINE REDFERN
Is it art?
INTO the fold: People with time and American money on your hands rejoice! The ancient Japanese pastime of folding pretty paper into impressive shapes has long been popular but so has its American counterpart—money origami, the art of folding the dollar bill into an impressive shape. 
First becoming popular in the ’50s, one Web site suggests the hobby remained popular in the U.S., and not in countries such as Canada, because of the low value of their paper money (Canadians would be wasting a fiver, not a buck). But with the U.S. dollar dipping to new lows, what better way to use those errant, and now seemingly useless greenbacks than to fold them into an animal or two? www.zimbio.com/Money+Origami
Arts
hole
CURTAIN CALL: Only two weeks left to get your application in for 2008’s Fringe Festival (June 12–22). Applications, which can be downloaded at www.montrealfringe.ca, are due by 5 p.m. on Dec. 3. • AFFORDABLE ART: Students of Concordia’s MFA program will be hocking work of their own alongside that of faculty and alum’s this Friday, Nov. 23 at 6 p.m. at the MFA Gallery (1395 René-Levesque W.). Featuring a silent auction (tickets and items on the block go for $75) and a miniature art sale, (mini-works for a reasonable $20), the funds raised will help bankroll the annual spring exhibition, taking place next March. • MAZEL TOV: Hanukkah starts next week (sundown on Dec. 4) and Living Legacy is presenting Maccabees!, an interactive play for all ages, which recounts the story of the Maccabees’ mission to reclaim the Holy Temple and rekindle the Menorah. Until Dec. 13 at 4054 Jean-Talon W., tickets are $10 at the door, $8 in advance.
Artistat
The age an unmarried women had reached when she officially became a “Catherinette” and was protected by St. Catherine, the patron saint of single women, who is celebrated this Sunday, Nov. 25 at Maison St-Gabriel (2146 Place Dublin) with toffee, storytelling and live music: 25 |
