This was originally sent to The Record newspaper in response to Luisa D’Amato’s column attacking artists and public art entitled “The art of public relations“. Another great response was printed here concerning D’Amato’s lack of research. May it also be stated that in her original column, the mentioned work of art that is on King – the chair, the figure – she did such a poor job looking that she missed an entire third of the piece: a second full chair, on the side of the street, with a hand plane leaning against it. The entire piece is cast bronze.

It was with a shocking sadness that I read Luisa D’Amato’s column printed in The Record on March 29th. After so many years of hard work, and so many voices pulling together to raise awareness about the arts community and its endeavours, I was appalled to see that, of all people, a Communications Studies professor from Wilfrid Laurier University would demonstrate such feeble understanding of the visual language, and of the purpose of public art itself.

D’Amato opens her column ridiculing an artist for their comparison between a velvet patina and rust. As an expert in communication, D’Amato should recognize that there isn’t necessarily a cohesive way of seeing anything. An artist is perfectly within their rights to describe a patina as velvet-like, sand-like or anything that determines their connotation of the subject. For a communication scholar, the notion of the visual language should not be new. Much like a bumble bee is for some a whimsical object, it can be conversely for others the representation of a threat. The “rusty bell” by Royden Rabinowitch is now included in a body of work that has been granted the prestigious Governor General’s award, and Waterloo, a previously most intelligent city in the world, owns this piece. For some, it’s cherished, for others, it’s a threat.

Art isn’t meant to be universally liked. D’Amato claimed: Why not just put in planter boxes? This argument holds no weight. Public art, whether liked or not, communicates something to the viewer and acts as a catalyst for discussion. Yes D’Amato, these are words. They are not public relations words, but thoughts on a physical manifestation itself. If we maintained D’Amato’s argument, the only allowable music would have to be accessible and pleasing to the largest portion of the population. Would she dare say that Nickleback is the only appropriate music, because it doesn’t require learning? And in the same breath, that only art that is composed to simply match our sofa requires no explanation and is thus the only type that is valid? I am not claiming that enjoying Nickleback, or a well-designed room are problematic. Instead I am insisting that in order to enrich us as a culture, art must influence us in a deeper manner – pushing our boundaries – challenging our minds.

I would hardly call discourse around public art “public relations”. I would call it the interesting place where the inane ceases and the intrigue (good or bad) takes over – this is hardly the mundanity that her argument claims.

We live in a community of diverse people with diverse education and taste. D’Amato, professor of Communication Studies is not the “ordinary person” described in her column on March 29th. Evoking “Ordinary People” implies that the uninitiated cannot understand public art. This is an enormous insult to anyone who hasn’t received training and who enjoys any contemporary medium of expression. I really cannot accept that the Ordinary Person is automatically somehow hoodwinked by PR, especially when it comes to controversial things. For one, I am an Ordinary Person.

Instead of using such a charged and blatantly false term, perhaps D’Amato meant “Ordinary Thoughts”. Ordinary thoughts do not change the world. They don’t innovate. They are threatened by change and things they don’t understand. It isn’t through appealing to our ordinary thoughts that we challenge and discuss enough to build new amazing things. And interestingly this is exactly what Waterloo Region is known for. If we only validate the Nicklebacks, the planter boxes, the placid beige boringness, then when do we pause on the necessity for innovation? Answer is, “public relations” aside: we don’t. After attending several public art walks, learning the history of places, artists and their relationship to this community, I have developed a deep appreciation for the connection between these pieces and the spaces where they have been placed. If we don’t understand physics, do we claim it charlatanism? No, we attend lectures to broaden our perspective. This is exactly what I would recommend for D’Amato with regards to public art.

“It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags.” Oh yes… the Grinch said that. With this show, I can say: “It came without presskits. It came without tweets . It came without twitterati, social media, just geeks.”

Silicon W is a sparkling new gallery nestled in the crazy and confusing hallways of the third floor of the near-derelict Boehmer Box factory at the corner of  Duke and Breithaupt. Their focus? Art-tech fusion. The focus of this particular night? Talent Next Door 2 was the name of the show – celebrating the launch of a book containing the works of over 100 local artists. Walls were covered from near ceiling to below waist height with art ranging in quality and medium. There was even a dark room with black light art. There was so much, such a high concentration that writing about any piece is practically impossible. What also makes it impossible to cover was that the gallery was completely filled with people. I didn’t ask the gallery for their numbers, but I imagine that they will report hundreds.

Why am I writing about it then? Well… Most constant and dear reader, if I could sit you on my sofa for a cuppa tea and some cheese on toast, I could tell you a long sob story about how people have been trying to build a scene, a culture of art in this city for ages. Recently, some attempts have been made to build the scene from the top down. Anyone who knows anything about culture knows that this is a vain conquest of ego. No one entity can champion a scene.

*** Clarification: It must be said that the previous paragraph isn’t about any particular group or individual. All efforts to increase capacity around the arts raises awareness of the amazing talent we have in our community. What I meant in this editorial is that real honest culture isn’t created by single instants but instead cohesion in a community. Certainly not all artists were represented in this show and maybe that is the most magical thing. 136 apparently, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. And yet there was a critical mass. I will leave my text as it was written, but to be clear, the “dig” there wasn’t meant to be a thorn in anyone’s side and really wasn’t meant as a dig. It is likely more a reflection on the political climate surrounding the practice of making art in this region. However, if having said something inadvertently controversial brings discussion to the surface, then I will take it as perhaps not entirely a bad thing. Maybe it is time we all sit down and all have a big chat.

A scene just suddenly emerges and breathes and lives all by itself. Authenticity can’t be built or manufactured. This is what happened tonight. It was also obvious by the diversity of attendants. There was no “target audience” aimed at any particular demographic. It was literally EVERYONE. From young to old, with my precious 36 years of living, I found myself comfortably nestled somewhere in the middle of the pack. Tonight, dear reader, was the real deal. The only other time I have witnessed this is during Ian Newton’s Blue Dot parties (yet another “big city” epic art party – every 2 years – with minimal advertising. Primarily word of mouth, and printed square cards with a blue dot on the front, and a date on the back. Somehow, we all get there).

There was also no secret handshake. There were no big name sponsors or logos plastered all over. There was no viral marketing campaign. You didn’t have to know a particular person, or know a particular method, you just had to be awake enough to see the ads that really weren’t hidden around Twitter, Facebook, and postered a bit here and there. Word of mouth was also critical. There was no prohibitive price, or limited ticketing. There was not an ounce of exclusivity or pretense, and yet, the cool factor was higher than anything I have seen since being in London UK (Montreal would be this hot in the right place too. So would New York). Yeah… I am rarely speechless, but I will admit right off that my ability to be eloquent has been intensely reduced due to the WOW factor. I will leave you with a few photos I took before the evening packed out too much for me to lift my camera. I also imagine MakeBright by Darin White will have coverage. Check his site.

Barn Raising

Barn raising has been a long tradition in Waterloo Region. Wikipedia describes it as:

“… an event during which a community comes together to assemble a barn for one or more of its households, particularly in 18th- and 19th-century rural North America. In the past, a barn was often the first, largest, and most costly structure built by a family who settled in a new area. Barns were essential structures for storage of hay and keeping of horses and cattle, which in those days were an inseparable part of farming. ”

Wikipedia goes on to include that barn raising is still a common practice in rural communities of Old Order Mennonites and Amish traditions.

In this statement, the most important thing is that this is done by a community to assist a family settling. The community pulls together in an act of solidarity around a single family unit to provide the most difficult, costly and large item that is the single most important thing a rural family needs to provide for their subsistence.  The barn is a symbol of livelihood. It is where animals are housed, tools are kept safe from rusting rains, grains and hay moved away from rotting dampness. The community coming together to build this is an ultimate act of inclusion and the earliest part of a social contract. A community helps a family, the family is included in the community, and the family holds itself to the bargain of all that this implies.  There is some romantic notion in this gesture for those who view it with nostalgia, but in essence, the gesture isn’t at all romantic. The gesture is one of responsibility and survival.

The Visual Language Speaks Loudly

Last year, artist Ernest Daetwyler raised a barn in the Eastman Gallery at the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery. Like so many barn raisings, he relied on an expert crew of Mennonite builders, creating a community of responsibility with regards to the work installed. The barn itself was certainly not a nostalgic memory or romantic in any sense. Contemplate the title: Reality in Reverse [barn-raising].

The barn was raised upside down, appeared sunken a bit into the floor, and tilted from the top, forward in a most imposing way. Accompanying this barn was a video of the original barn collapsing in its rural setting. The sounds are astounding: growning, heaving, and a crushing end. The video showed the end of the barn. In this setting, it showed the end of all that a raising symbolises. The community of Mennonites being pushed ever further by encroaching cities and exploited by aggressive tourism. The family farm being crushed by the agricultural industrial complex. The family being ousted and divided from its social contract. The ultimate end of a time where everything that sustains us is being toppled. The message is more universal than a single community. This message extends out in the most broad sense.

A Barn Raised 

The barn raised in the gallery, raised kilter, sunken, upside down, is still a stable and strong structure. The tilted nature of the barn imparts two feelings: one of fragility of being, but not of the structure itself, and the other of this being imposing, a larger issue beyond the local. The fragility of being is not something that is created in the imposing and well built barn but that the barn has a looming presence as it may have just before its collapse. There is no fear of such a thing, but the sense that things are hung in a very close balance is a reminder of even the things that seem most stable, like the most simple staples of starting out a life, are also hung in a very similar balance. The lean also imposes on the viewer, creating the locality in oneself instead of seeing this as a Waterloo Region specific installation in as much it is quite location based. Barns exist all over, as do their analogs for housing the necessary parts of existence. This leaning structure makes the barn personal for even the most distant person from rurality. It is an item from our history, and yet in this context is brought into a full modernity, revitalised and completely transformed.

Being near it: the smell of the wood, the solid frame and well fastened boards remind us that this practice still exists, no matter how far it is being pushed. The barn doesn’t only speak of Mennonites and farming, but also of all social relationships that have been thrown into strange and new places. There is a promise of solidity, but things aren’t quite set right. They look like, smell like, and resemble the life we once had, but are in an new orientation. Our practices around the most basic and sustaining things are entirely alienated from our current lives, and this barn which is still quite a barn, in its current sense is alienated enough from its purpose that it could never be functional as it lays in the gallery. This barn isn’t raised to solely indicate problems. There is a sensuality to experiencing the barn in this space displayed not as an artifact or relic. The stability and integrity of the structure, the knowledge needed to build it, and the community of experts remind us that community cohesion and the social contract still exists. If it didn’t such work would never be possible.

Daetwyler’s installation Reality in Reverse [barn-raising], won the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) Award for best exhibition in a public gallery in Ontario in 2010.  This is a great honour for this artist, for gallery curator, Crystal Mowry who submitted his work, and for Waterloo Region. Of many of the reasons why this honour would be bestowed is that this work is not an easy piece. There is no one single line. It isn’t an answer to a problem or a solution but instead raises the possibility of questions. Daetwyler’s work isn’t reliant on nostalgia, nor does it tell an audience a simple narrative and for this writer, this installation is meritorious as one of the most memorable installations of 2010.

(This is a repost of a blog I wrote in 2010 covering Ernest Daetwyler’s life is but a dream installations written in 3 parts. These were originally posted on another site: Spilt Milk Artcast. They will now live here)

Please note: today is the last day to get to Gallery Stratford to see Life is But a Dream by Ernest Daetwyler. What are you waiting for? GO! 

Gallery Stratford has just informed me that they have extended Life is But a Dream till December 19th! Still, GO!

The second space of this fabulous group of installations that I wandered into beckoned me with a strange cloud shaped object. Upon entering the room, I was blown away with three forms made entirely out of stuffed animals. Yet, the medium is so transformed that it will suspend your disbelief. These giant forms hang from the ceiling with a lightness and a humour that can only be garnered by the medium of creation. There is a ridiculousness and playfulness but also a threatening aspect exists. These floating monsters impose enormously over the space with eyes of hundreds of stuffed creatures glaring out of the sun, which isn’t the focus of the piece, but their presence is undeniable. Sun and Clouds are all beautifully crafted and float with whimsy overhead. The soft pinks and whites with the bright sun are like a scene from a fairytale.

On the wall across from this is what children see as a masterpiece, but there again to an adult has both a whimsical beckoning and a threatening push. The Wall of Nightmares and Dreams yells in loud colour to come and touch. Toys are fixed to the wall but in a way that they are still operable. Standing almost to the ceiling, thousands of toys stare out with a seductive call to be played with. Two things make this threatening above all:

• most of the toys are way out of reach. A child stood at this wall could play only so much with most of the toys in a plane over their heads. There is an increased desire for the toys that can’t be reached. Even as an adult who may or may not want to interact tactilely with the piece, the eye plays on the same desire. Many of the toys are from several different decades and the nostalgia of seeing a toy from one’s youth is an experience to behold. Combing over this wall in its height and breadth makes one hungry for more play with it. The feeling of missing something is intense.
• the wall has the sense of imposition, and the thought that i could collapse it really present. The toys are definitely all fixed onto the wall, and rationally the mind knows that it won’t move but still the sense height and breadth, that it pops out into space, the bright and bold colours, the nostalgia, the playability, the transcendence between “touch” and “don’t touch” in an art gallery, make this piece feel like it could jump off the wall and pull an onlooker into it’s well ordered mess- a closet being open and the contents falling into the opener.
• the extreme kitsch transformed into art by size also creates a sense of fear. Gazing at the piece, anyone can remember cluttered rumpus and toy rooms, and the adult reaction. That sense of a closet being opened and the contents tumbling – the packed density of toys in space where they do not belong. Dense toys belong on the floor.

• there is a frustration in having toys nails onto a wall. They beckon to be interacted with, however, they are stationary.

The final piece is Monster Sofa and Monster TV. These two pieces are a sofa and a television covered in stuffed animals.  The sofa is meant to be sat on, and the television has a looping video of something seeming like snow, but perhaps more purposeful and sentient.

The “monster” of the sofa and television don’t only have to do with the fact that these have the appearance of being constructed out of stuffed animals, but also, that these are monstrous in appearance, and for their actual useful purpose. Sitting on the sofa (again, Daetwyler transcends the rules of art in galleries) is not an appealing thought. Much like the sun and clouds, hundreds of eyes, ears, bodies create the furniture. Being stared down by furniture makes the act of sitting an imposition. Also, the stuffed creatures wouldn’t present a particularly comfortable sit.

The television is so distracting by the brightly coloured creatures and again, the eyes staring back with the vapid grins stitched on that only stuffed animals can possess, that watching the video is difficult.  When not distracted by the creatures, their open gaze and the vacuous appearance trivialises and ridicules the scene. Yet the video, it should be noted that the video is based on the movement of fireflies drawn into light. Amongst all the eyes, the garish colours, the threats, is a single moment of peace that is almost intangible due to it’s enclosure and threatening and uncomfortable viewing space. Not only is it the only non-commodity, non-disneyfied piece, it is only viewable through a screen. This room is like being in a toy horror film, looking through the screen to an outside space of serenity – an inverse hyperreality, a reality that is thrown at us with eyes, colour, and the kitsch of what we consider nostalgia. It brings to question what realities that are sold to us, and what we accept. The beauty of fireflies in a screen, versus a toy and commodity horror.

All this sitting and watching also happens under a pink and white stuffed animal cloud. A living room of fantasy but with its purpose skewed.

Stay tuned for the final part in this series concluding this group of installations by Ernest Daetwyler at Gallery Stratford.

(This is a repost of a blog I wrote in 2010 covering Ernest Daetwyler’s life is but a dream installations written in 3 parts. These were originally posted on another Spilt Milk Artcast. They will now live here)

Gallery Stratford is really a beautiful space. Tucked into a beautiful park, this gallery is currently featuring the work of Kitchener artist Ernest Daetwyler. Having read about Daetwyler’s works, and seeing his show in the KW|AG in Kitchener, Reality in Reverse [Barn Raising], I knew I was in for a treat.

The first space I entered contained the installation of a piece called Dream Spheres in a great show called Life is but a dream. The image above is of one of the spheres that draws you into the space. Once in, you are greeted with a whimsical scene of massive tree trunks and floating spheres in space. The escape into the space is complete as the space, with this site-specific installation, is completely transformed. I found it difficult to focus on a critical reading of the work as my desire for play and interaction with this new-found wonderful world beckoned me away from my usual pragmatic thought process.

The tree trunks are aligned against two walls. Carefully crafted to fit the space exactly. The craft is so perfect that the aspects of it disappear unless you force yourself to really examine them. The presence of these silent giants with the spheres, floating like enormous bubbles, pull you into what has the sense of a forest from a fairy tale. The balls, even though they are large structures constructed from steel, plywood, and plastic wrap, have a sense of the ethereal. Their presence looms with a shimmery softness, making the solidity of the silent tree trunks even more looming. We were invited to interact with the pieces, and even though my rational mind knew that the spheres were of sturdy construction (I could see the precision in the craft), I still hesitated with the apprehension of not wanting to burst this delightfully enormous soft bubble floating motionless before me.

There is also a contrast between the natural and the manufactured. The trees, even though are objects from the natural world, are unexpected in the gallery space and contrasted with the manufactured bubble-like spheres, they  seem to reverse the notion of the natural and the manufactured by their unbelonging. Trees have the sense of being sculptured and manufactured, and the spheres seem to float as though they grew up as the natural beings of the gallery space.

I will be covering the rest of Daetwyler’s Gallery Stratford work in two more parts, and finishing it off in a fourth about the barn raising in the KW|AG. This group of site-specific installations, called life is but a dream, will be at Gallery Stratford until the 12th of December. The $5 admission fee is more than worth the cost to be able to enter to see this.

Most wonderful news came to me yesterday about an artist who I have  respected for a long time. At first glance over a 27 year curriculum vitae, Ernest Daetwyler has pursued the creation of wonder in contemporary installations fervently for the better part of his life. From Switzerland, Daetwyler began a career that has wound its way into creating large interventions in public spaces and galleries that have had resounding impact.

Yesterday, Daetwyler returned from an event with a latest accolade. On that lengthy CV of accomplishments, Daetwyler was honoured with the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) Award for best exhibition in a public gallery in Ontario in 2010. The OAAG boasts over 100 public galleries in its membership and this award designated Daetwyler’s Reality in Reverse [barn-raising], installed at Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG) with its top prize for its 2011 jury at the Great Hall in Hart House, University of Toronto. Think of it this way: over 100 galleries in Ontario who create approximately five shows per year. Out of 500 possible shows per year, all of the curators can opt to submit for these OAAG prizes. This past year, Crystal Mowry, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections from KWAG submitted Daetwyler’s installation as their selection to the competition. The competition was narrowed down to three awards with finally Daetwyler winning the competition and taking the top prize.

This powerful installation that was installed in  Eastman Gallery at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery between September 12th, 2010 and January 2ond 2011 was accomplished with a trademark quality represented in much of Daetwyler’s work. The artist embraced working with the community that this installation, in part, represented. This particular barn-raising, built upside down, seemingly sunk into the floor, and tilted forward, was assisted by  the expertise of a construction crew of Mennonites.

Daetwyler is known for being an artist who creates important interventions based on the people, the time and the space. Some of his recent local work include a familiar piece located inVictoria Park, downtown Kitchener: The Luggage Project (2008) (link to a PDF) is at the Gaukel St. gates. Here are eight different pieces of luggage representing different periods in the history of the city. The sculptural works, three of them working as fountain,s are placed in a in the epicenter of migration in one of the most diverse cities in Canada. Messages from immigrants from diverse backgrounds, engraved in bronze plaques state the reasons why they came to Kitchener. These pieces placed around the Clock Tower (a monument of the past) in and around water carry a strong symbol of hope for the future embodied in the symbols that have carried experiences, hopes and dreams from other lands.

Crystal Mowry, Curator of exhibitions and collections at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the former Director General Alf Bogusky and the staff at KWAG. Hans Hofer, Darryl Kuepfer and several Mennonite boys helped taking down the barn in the countryside: Ervin Wagler, Stephen Wagler, Ezra Wagler and Arden Zehr. Eldon Kuepfer from JK Construction and the carpenters Ronald Gilkinson and Arnold Albrecht: the expert crew who assisted in the installation at KWAG. Ian Newton and Jeff Christie from KWAG helped strike the installation and transport it back to the studio. The “Steckly barn” video accompanying the exhibition was edited by Susan Detwiler and the catalogue was desiged by Gabriela Aceves. The artist also thanked the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for awards to create the project.

Coming up on this site will be three articles that also covered Daetwyler’s installation Life is but a dream (2010/11) presented at Gallery Stratford. The fourth piece here will be a new piece about Reality in reverse [barn-raising] (2010) in honour of this significant artist winning this prestigious award. Congratulations Ernest!

Tools of abuse; tools of self abuse.

A character of much debate in La Razon de las Ofelias, presented by L’Explose | Danza Contemporánea during IMPACT11, was the only male character to hit the stage. In this almost all-female cast, the male assumed a powerful and confusing role: a violin player. To understand this, please read this blog first.

In this performance, we are taken through a troubling sequence of the internal struggles of dealing with schizophrenia. The violin player comes on stage part way through the show. When he plays, the female characters react to the music using their bodies to illustrate a range of emotion and behaviour supported by the violin. Or is it created by the violin?

In entering discussions with several people, there is no consensus. Some viewed the violin player as a controlling violent reactions. The violin player as the patriarchal notion that she reacts to in a world without understanding for difference. Some saw it as the masculine control over a woman’s life and how this can eventually trigger a break.

In my view, I found all these too tangential and not grounded in the entire character that the violinist portrayed on stage. The violinist is in synchronisation with the frenzied and writhing dance, but is never dominant. The dancers activated without the violin. The dancers also continue to activate even when the violin is passive. In a particularly tender moment, when the frenzied action subsides, the violin player approaches the performer at the front of the stage, the very still figure who entered first, and after all the abuses suffered by the other performers and wraps himself around her. The image is powerfully sad. A bow on one side, a violin on the other, the face reaching into her neck and the arms in a hug that never quite holds close. The musician who seemed the root of the madness, now dispenses compassion and comfort. The music played reflects the tenderness of the moment and the emotion seems real, unlike the frantic disconnect between the fractured characters who reacted so strongly to his playing.

Could it be that his playing is trying to draw these disconnected entities closer to one another, and into the figure at the front of the stage? could that be the source of his passion: a desire to connect things that are too far apart? There is a resilience, of course, because the parts of what is likely the greater persona conceive in this production can never be whole. So who is he?

The secret is in the liner notes and so obviously hidden in plain sight. There it is written that the director’s mother had schizophrenia. This show is based on a deeply personal exploration. The women are wearing negligees and night clothing: the kind of thing only a family member would see. They are in the full throes of the illustration of their illness: something only the closest experience. They are also dressed in shades of white: a symbol of cleanliness, and pureness, despite the erotic presentation. Only a son could see a woman as beautiful and pure perfection within the depth of a most difficult illness.

All images on this post are credited to Point and Shoot Imagery

Enter a packed theatre alight with vibrant conversation is waiting for one of the international shows brought to our local stage at The Registry Theatre by IMPACT11 to open. Facing the Blank Page by Maqamat Dance Theatre is about to open. In front, there is an array of lights, 7 x 4. On the stage is a theatre chair on a wheeled platform. There is also the unusual inclusion of a huge number of speakers mounted around the theatre. One of the IMPACT hosts announces at the front of stage that due to the special effects used in the performance, if audience members had to leave, they would not be readmitted. We are told that there is a television monitor for live casting the performance in the lobby to witness the end if we need to exit and that the show was only 45 minutes long. The audience was tangibly intrigued.

The lights darken and from the audience a man (dancer Omar Rajeh) stands and enters the stage, bringing the theatre chair from one side of the stage to the other. He sits, and engages the audience in a most natural-seeming conversation style of monologue. The subject-object paradigm of the stage is destroyed in that the audience is turned into a source of attention by a most vibrant conversationalist.  The man before us becomes someone who perhaps we are interviewing, or maybe someone who we just met in our very own seats and wandered into some personal dialog. The dialog: how when he was a boy, he was compared to his father. How now his son is compared to him. The most important difference being that his son, instead of forging an early manhood by defining himself different from his father through rebellious action (like our character), started from a young age saying that he is not like his father, but only like himself. This moves into talk on choreography which brings us through a series of movements, till he stops, stands, moves across the stage and becomes motionless.

Over the course of five minutes, with increasingly intensifying sound (composed by Pablo Palacio), the body of Rajeh slowly transforms. The face moves from neutral, melts to what could be sadness, desperation, anger and finally menace. The transformation, so slow, so controlled and careful, is punctuated by a choreography of the lights behind Rajeh. The music and the actor then explode into a hard hitting, 35 minute study in movement ranging in character – sometimes violent, sometimes ominous but never can eyes be averted. The lights maintain a choreography that imparts additional choreographic elements to the performance. They shine as bright as the sun reflecting off of snow, all 28 assaulting the eyes. They glow dim and dark, creating the ambiance of fire reflected off the floor, flitting and shimmering, and barely capturing our moving dancer in what would otherwise be pure darkness.

The music ranges, sometimes familiar sounds seem to be present: sirens, voices, even vehicles. It is programmed in surround, moving around the audience and drawing them deep into the action on the stage, continuing the drawing into the dancer’s movements. The sounds pull, push, welcome and alienate just as Rajeh’s movements seem to do the same. They are intense. Sometimes, they are as hard to listen to as much as the lights are to look at. Rajeh’s movements are no different in this.

If you are looking for a narrative, here you must assume your own. The performance starts with a conversation. A story. This story can be laid over the performance. It starts simple and becomes rebellious and violent. There is a few minute relapse where the music becomes a soothing female voice singing in Arabic. The lights become regulated and Rajeh’s movements soften into something no longer troubling. This could be a boy, resolving his relationship with his father through coming of age into his own manhood. The final assault, seemingly more intense, more dark, could be the character as a father, trying to resolve his impact on his own son. There is an element of blankness when entering new  phases of life. Between childhood and adulthood  there is a lot of resolution of the unknown. From boy to man, the difference is stunning. Each chapter of life turning over and leaving one staring at a blank page.

With this kind of theatre, and the name of the piece, there is not meant to be any easy story or solution. This is not theatre created to soothe the audience with a resolved plot. It isn’t romance so typical of the stage in the classic style of Romeo and Juliette. It is a performance where the confrontation is between the audience, and their own perception. Rajeh and Palacio place the audience in the centre of the stage and relies on them to make their own decisions. This is theatre meant to make you think.

Imagine your worst fear. Imagine only associating with that moment, dissecting it, and spitting it out for an audience. Even that morsel is fear inducing itself: being laid bare where the most cautiously guarded inner sanctum of self is revealed to a large number. The Fear Project by The Studio Players teases apart the most difficult of what we face and throws it at the audience for their examination.

The performance begins with the six characters placed in the audience. They are sat in character and fully animated. The biggest difference: they are nude all except one. The four nudes are fairly casual and placid, and off to the side is one, clothed, obvious agitated. The performance moves forward when yet another woman emerges from a pile of wedding dresses at centre stage, also nude. She assumes a statuesque pose and the four other women enter the stage and assume their positions in the piece, all now stood as store manikins. Their nude bodies are obvious, but their poise, the separation allows the audience to normalise the physical nature of the women as the play progresses.

The performance moves through a series of vignettes where each woman takes a turn describing a fear in a physical performance. The other women, when it isn’t their fear, act as support to create the moments shown. Included are the impossible standards of beauty imposed on young women, the early days of motherhood that are plagued by fear of death of the infant and isolation, the fear of incurable disease as an emblem of early death, the fear of mental illness, the fear of unjust detainment at a border crossing also resulting in separation from friend and loved ones, and finally the fear created in the process of immigration exacerbated by the personal nature of the questions on immigration forms. These stories are highly personal and accessible because the crux of all of them are unifying especially for a young audience. We all share the experience of fear.

This young production is clearly an important exploration for this new company and they hit a stride in their performance with Jessalyn Broadfoot and Jewels Krauss carrying the show with their stunning performances. This mention isn’t at the expense of the rest of the company who delivered three sold out shows during the IMPACT11 theatre festival.Outrageously good are the the vocalisations, the minimalism of the show itself, and the performance of the cast who created the piece with artistic direct Nicholas Walsh. However, the stories are definitely more geared at a young adult audience. The vignettes are specific, non-general, targeted, and mostly represent a young middle class Canadian voice .

Watching this show develop over time has been a wonderful experience. As a critic, I am greatly looking forward to seeing this young company grow and hone its skill as professional artists.

All images kindly credited to Point and Shoot Imagery

The most exciting thing about IMPACT is seeing the theatre beyond reading the descriptions in the brochure. It is the witnessing  of things that are difficult to describe in a short blurb. The first show in the IMPACT series was brought to us from Bogota, Columbia. L’Explose Danza Contemporanea presented La Razon De Las Ofelias. If you read the description, you will learn that the play speaks of the difficulty of living with schizophrenia.

The stage opened to a slowly walking woman in white. Her poise, deliberate movements, facial expression and even costume gave her the stone-like monumental appearance. A curtain lifts and draped over a fridge, crashed out on furniture, all in a most disorderly space are a troupe of women in negligees, lingerie, bedwear, and in mostly monochrome white.  The scene is depressing, but the audience is removed from the rubble by the pale colours, nothing taking a garish tone. Even the furniture is of the most bland 1970s styles and colours. It is the kind of furniture everyone has owned. In this space, nothing stands out. Placid, beige and pastel, whites and dullness.

One by one, the women emerge from the spaces. Their bodies stand firm and obvious in their near sheer clothing, placing barely a barrier between the audience and their characters. The exposure invites the audience in to the very political body of the person who is going through different parts of mental illness. The dancing starts. A violinist emerges and h is dramatic, sometimes frantic, often cacophonic playing yanks and pulls the different characters through sad, troubling, occasionally merry and laughing even to the point of laughing too hard, too much, and for too long.

Not to be forgotten is the lone character, the woman who slowly walked to the front of the stage. She is sat there calmly as the frantic action and dance goes on around her. The dancing characters each take turn in approaching her with assaults. One character butchers her hair with kitchen scissors. Another breaks eggs onto her. Yet another of the dances carefully stacks plates on her stomach over layers of sheeting protecting the actor and then breaks them with a hammer. She maintains her statue-like calmness despite all… separate from the other women. Her calm, docile, overly controlled facade is external to the centre of the stage. The exterior reflecting as staged calm. The insides being ripped apart, frantic and out of control, terrified, and finally, stopped. The show ends powerfully. The self never joins and liberation comes at the price of loss.

This show plays again September 22ond at the Conrad Centre.

Artistic director, Majdi Bou Matar started this festival off with such a poignant piece. It is hard to imagine where this festival will go after this, other than to continue to bring us greatness.