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Dreamcatcher Masimo Agostinelli hopes to hook one by WALTER KRAJEWSKI
Today, Agostinelli survives as a teacher at LADMMI (Les Ateliers de danse moderne de Montréal) and when the grants arrive, he choreographs. Once again, he's going to challenge his audience with some unusual material. Marguerite will be Montreal's introduction to "bouffon." As Agostinelli explains, bouffon is a grotesque theatre style aiming at parody. Its origins go back to village idiots who were allowed a one-day festival to "go crazy" and mock social institutions. Since bouffon is not well known in Montreal, this five-minute introduction will be an hors d'oeuvre to the evening's principal work, Oneiros. "Among my childhood dreams, I can vividly remember the nightmares," he says. "But I understand them now and I have discovered that they were filled with beautiful images." To create this oneiric or dream-like quality on stage, Agostinelli has incorporated his own video creation of live action plus 3-D animation. The choreographer uses lighting and music to ease the transition from the trio of live dancers to the video segments and back again. For Agostinelli, these were new tools he needed to master in order to "bleed" live action into screen motion. Ramadan according to Maguy Marin Maguy Marin's latest creation, Ram Dam, is titled as the interpretation by outsiders of the celebratory noise made by Muslims when Ramadan ends. Or at least it's Marin's word-play response to the idea of information being misinterpreted as noise. In the first half, Ram, the dancers vocalize the alphabet in a rhythmic, repetitive pattern. Marin acknowledges that none other than Samuel Beckett is her inspiring master saying, it is the "rhythm in his work" which contains the meaning. In the second half of the piece, she plays this idea in a new key. Whereas in Ram the dancers play with vocal sounds, in Dam they play instruments in simple rhythms. Marin's early work and her interviews were more political in nature. But now the mother of two children, aged five and 15, she seems more interested in laughter. Indeed, when I spoke to Marin on the phone, the sounds of her five-year-old were evident. Yes, she is influenced by the early speech of children. And yes, in all the noise of the world, the information overload, it is laughter, she says, which is the language of the universe. Masimo Agostinelli appears at Espace Tangente, May 22-25. $15, students $12. Maguy Marin is at Théâtre Maisonneuve, May 15-16. $40-22. See dance listings for more info |
As a CEGEP dance student, Masimo Agostinelli distributed flyers to the bars near his Vancouver loft, then at midnight offered a structured improvisation before 300 party-goers. Applause was his instant critique.