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Lethal weapons Montréal Danse sets the stage for violence--Paula de Vasconcelos's Lettre d'Amour à Tarantino is a woman's reply to a gun-toting cowboy's world, while José Besprosvany's Ciudad de Hierro makes violence a possibility by WALTER KRAJEWSKI
Choreographer Paula de Vasconcelos pictures film directors and special effects experts as a group of boys gleeful about the guts and goo they can splash across the screen. For her, Hollywood is typified by Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a phallocentric world in which violence is the daily diet. But Tarantino is just one example in a long line of men who use the silver screen to seduce us into the belief that cold-blooded violence
So how can a woman deconstruct such a history of vicious eradication? The title of de Vasconcelos's response, Lettre d'Amour à Tarantino, suggests that her dance-theatre creation presented by the Montréal Danse company is neither a didactic diatribe nor a sentimental sermon. "I wanted to create an amusing reply to that cowboy vision of the world," she says. "I've added two comedians, one of whom has a dance background, to help with the theatrical aspect. I definitely want to laugh off Tarantino and not be condescending." So what exactly does she write in her love letter? What are the women like and how do the men act? "I told the men to be very macho at first and full of themselves. I said to them, 'You're gorgeous and you have to show me that you know it.' The men feel so powerful as they play with their guns, but they overlook little things and begin to look absurd. Slowly we see that the guns are ridiculous. The men become more vulnerable, more human." For de Vasconcelos, men are an integral part of the universe, but they shouldn't be the dominators.
Lettre d'Amour à Tarantino is just half of Montréal Danse's program. The other work, Ciudad de Hierro ("City of Iron") by José Besprosvany, is a response to de Vasconcelos. When the two choreographers were first brought together by Montréal Danse, de Vasconcelos, who already knew what she wanted to do
Soon different groups, armed with their new-found instruments, confront one another. The ever-changing groups sometimes threaten, sometimes retreat, but eventually speak to one another through the percussion: the musical harmony they create finally leads to a peaceful accord. As Besprosvany suggests, music becomes an assembling force for people on the street, a way for them to gather together and find some common ground.
The Montréal Danse performers discovered that becoming percussionists was a daunting challenge. While we all like to keep simple time with our feet, they had to master competing rhythms of four and five beats, simultaneously teasing a harmonious sound out of such unlikely objects as oven grills, brake drums and oil drums. And, oh yes, while dancing.
Next year, Montréal Danse will not have a season in Montreal, but Kathy Casey, the new artistic director, has plans to do performances in unusual public places during working hours. Without benefit of any of the technical assistance available on a stage, the dancers will perform out front and up close to the audience. Casey labels this as "smack in front of the public." So don't be surprised if this extraordinary company pops up where you least expect it. In fact, count on it. 6 Rituel Urbain is at Salle Pierre-Mercure from Mar 20-23. See listings for showtimes. 987-6919 |
"Cut! Cut! Cut!" the director shouts, not to the cameraman but to the actor wielding a knife. You can just imagine the special-effects boys: "Yeah, boss, we can have the head crack open and the brains ooze out. What colour do you want?"
is sexy and cool.
, outlined the idea for her theatrical creation. Besprosvany then decided that he would c
reate a technical piece set in an urban environment where violence is a possibility. The scenery for his set consists of debris: parts of stoves, refrige
rators and cars, cast-off shoes and oil drums. The dancers wander about, forming and reforming in different groups, gradually playing around with the found objects and discovering their musical capabilities.
