This is exactly the domain of The Builder's Association. Founded in 1994 with the aim of using "the richness of new and old tools to extend the boundaries of theatre", The Builder's Association creates multimedia and interdisciplinary theatre performances that blend raw theatre with video, sound, text-based art and architecture to explore the unique position of the Western human in the 21st century. Their goal is to create a picture of the post-millenium world - both physical and virtual - on stage, using the technologies that define the age.

The multimedia world of Continuous City. Photo/Eamon Lochte Phelps

As part of Luminato 2009, The Builder's Association created Continuous City, a multimedia theatre performance at the Isabel Bader Theatre. As soon as I saw the words multimedia and theatre together in the Luminato events listing, I knew that this would be a show for me. Exploring the physical urbanity of the world through the digital plane of the virtual, ON STAGE? Yeah, I know. Even before I attended the actual performance, I visited the interactive website which augments the show, xubu.cc, only to find a bizarre mock social networking site on which I could record and contribute video, and interact with videos already recorded. To be honest, I was a tad perplexed - social networking and theatre? This confusion really whet my appetite for whatever The Builder's Association had dreamed up - leading me to slink over to the Isabel Bader Theatre to see what all this social networking jazz was all about.

As I entered the theatre, the stage was minimal and dark - two men sat at computers chatting with headsets and a young girl sat upstage playing games on her computer - familiar images for my generation. As the play began I quickly felt the sense of fragmention and disjunction that the mixing of theatre with video and new tech created - lending a brevity to the exploration of the postmodern human's techno-social augmentation. The story followed four different characters - J.V., an ambitious young entrepreneur who is starting up xubu.cc, a social networking site that claims to keep humans worldwide connected; Mike DeVries (only present in video shot around the world and interacted with on stage by the present actors) an anthropologist traveling the world on xubu's buck to explore how humans really stay connected; Sam, Mike's young daughter who, for long periods of time, can only interact with her father through video technology; and Deb, Sam's nanny who keeps a blog about her wanderings around Toronto. All four characters interact through technology, J.V. uses it as an extension of his romantic and professional life, Mike, to stay connected with his daughter, Sam, for all - or most - forms of communication and entertainment, and Deb, as an outlet for an over stressed woman. The production explores the various uses of technology - not criticizing its influence, but rather, covering the spectrum of technological social-augmentation through real and relevant everyday use. The story would jump back and forwards with the flashing, clapping, opening and closing of various screens mounted all over the stage, creating a movement that very closely resembled the jumping from page to page in the virtual world, where no one is more than a click away.

At times the play became painfully impersonal, which actually served to explore the downside of technological connectivity. J.V.'s romantic exploits were cold and loveless, lacking the personal warmth of real palpable presence and commnication, and though the altruism of the audience was piqued by the sweet and heartfelt father and daughter conversations, there was always the sadness of separation underlined through connecting through tech - though technology connects us, we are also more aware of the need to enjoy one another's proximity. Who could be satisfied by hugging a screen?

This piece of multimedia art was a thought-provoking and relevant pastiche of modern tech culture, exploring the edge of contemporary cultural theory, the avatar, social networking, and techno-social communities. Augmented, itself, by technology both inside the theatre and on the world wide web, this piece is part of the global movement of tech awareness, and tech discussion - what exactly constitutes proper use of the connective technologies available to us? Continuous City explores the virtual world as one that is more closely tied to the emotions and - dareIsay - Western conceptions of ethics than popular thought might admit, swirling in a succession of images of ourselves, mimicking life in the virtual world, and again, metatheatrically mimicking the virtual world onstage in real life. This was definitely a perceptive piece, adding more virtual glitter to the poignant post-postpostmodern miscellany of Luminato 2009.

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• June 17, 2009, fruitlet | home of karen correia da silva writes: [...] The Builder’s Association creates a Continuous City [...]

These are but a small sampling of the vast array of possible questions that arise when considering the creation and distribution of children’s literature, and the Art of Children’s Books panel, a joint event produced by Luminato and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, addressed these issues with great insight and clarity, offering a look into the world of children’s publishing that is much more complex than one might initially believe. Consisting of a panel of two author/illustrators, Wallace Edwards and the fabulously quirky Barbara Reid, along with the director of publishing for Scholastic Books, Diane Kerner and Michael Solomon, the art director for Groundwood Books, this event proved indeed to be a very interesting discussion that illuminated wonderfully the key issues of an often-overlooked field.

So again, what makes for a quality children’s book? Well, a lot of it, as adults, has a lot to do with what stands out the most when we think of the picture-books that we read as children. From there we can ask: what made them so memorable and what, as a child, made us want to return to them?

Some of the titles that immediately sprung to my mind and which, with my cynical semi-grown-up goggles, I shall now bastardize here:

Matthew’s Midnight Adventures – Allen Morgan, Michael Martchenko

I adored this series as a kid, and now after reading a few synopses online to refresh my memory, I realize that these are the sort of books that would appeal spot-on to a young boy and that they’re a lot weirder than I remember. In the first title, Matthew and the Midnight Tow-Truck, Matthew, a little boy with a penchant for toy cars and an unnatural obsession with red licorice, without batting an eye hops into a strange man’s tow-truck in the middle of the night. The man then proceeds to pump Matthew full of as much red licorice as he can possibly handle while they ride around stealing cars and shrinking them down to Hot Wheels size in a magic car wash. If this were a novel it would be a totally twisted one and, of course, while it’s implied that the whole thing may or may not have been part of the boy’s imagination, it seems like kind of a dangerous precedent to be setting. But then again, this was the early nineties…

The Bungalow Boys

Another series that I recall reading extensively, The Bungalow Boys were a group of rather incompetent middle-aged men that, along with their typically intelligent dog, were always getting up to some kind of crazy adventure. The one that I remember most involved their outer-space expedition, a book that portrayed their strict training regiment and the planning of their voyage followed by their ultimate launch beyond the stratosphere wherein they see all kinds of fantastic, wonderful things. In the end, it turns out that they didn’t go into space at all but rather had been on a space-themed roller coaster at an amusement park. I still think that’s pretty funny. Oddly, though, I couldn’t find anything about it on the internet, which leads me to believe that either they are not in fact called the Bungalow Boys, or that even as a very small child, I was still a complete and utter elitist prig.

The Hockey Sweater – Roch Carrier

That Canadian classic! Quebec boy covets desperately after a Canadiens jersey and his mum buys him a Leafs one. Everyone is totally pissed that he, only after his mother refuses to let him out of the house in his ratty old Montreal sweater, sports the colors of the enemy, which leads him to high-tail it to the local church where he prays that his Leafs jersey will get eaten by moths. I know a lot of people right now that are wishing that their Leafs swag would get eaten by moths and this story is set in the 1940s! Hell, I know a lot of people that wish that the Leafs would get eaten by moths, for that matter. Me, I’m an Oilers fan - when those guys almost make the playoffs, it’s cause for celebration. Anyway, The Hockey Sweater is obviously a pretty big deal in Can-Lit - even as a children’s book - and has attracted quite a lot of literary criticism for its treatment of Anglo-Franco relations and the cultural barriers that still exist today.

The point of this trip down memory lane is quite simple: there isn’t, nor should be a strict formula for producing a memorable children’s book (or otherwise) and because, like the graphic novel which has become so prevalent recently, the picture-book is an amalgamation of literature and visual art, the possibilities of the medium are quite limitless. However, there is still very much to consider: as it was noted in the panel, the considerations of the adult are equally if not more important in children’s literature as it is more often than not their money which is used to buy the books and to some degree, they do choose what their children read.

Furthermore, it was asked of the panel, what the purpose of the picture-book indeed is and why should picture-books continue to be read. With the advent of Readers and new literary technologies that put the very existence of the book as a medium in jeopardy, these are interesting questions to consider. The moderator of the panel, a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto, stated his view, one that I found very relevant, that for the vast majority of children, picture-books are their first exposure not only to art at large but art that they can understand and appreciate. The future of the children’s book, as with any book is currently uncertain, particularly when it is considered that kids are reading less and less today and with the promise of new, exciting ways of reading such as moving picture-books, we may see reading degenerate with it. When we take away a child’s first exposure to art, what is to come of art?

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• June 17, 2009, fruitlet | home of karen correia da silva writes: [...] Curran and the mid-day discussion of the future of Children’s Literature [...]

Forgive me while I indulge in a Curran-esque personal anecdote to start my article this month…

When I was little I always wanted my favorite story books to be turned into movies. I could picture them perfectly in my head, devising untold details right down to the colour of dresses the mice at the ball should be wearing. That the logistics of dancing mice is virtually impossible never occurred to me, after all, movies made magic happen. Then, with the arrival of the digital age, these books actually did become major motion pictures and I always eagerly awaited their debut. And I always ended up disappointed.

Unique stories like Ella Enchanted got destroyed in theatres, changed from their original delightful tales into over-dramatic mass-consumerist junk. Even the classic fairy tales like Snow White never seemed quite right (of course, that’s probably because I was allowed to read the gruesome and all-too-honest Brothers Grimm version…). Still, every time a piece of literature is translated into a physical adaptation, I’ve never had something nice to say about it.

Until now.

Back Burner Productions recently remounted it’s adaptation of The Nightwood, the beloved fairy tale by Robin Muller. As part of the Children’s Books and Illustrations segment in Luminato 2009, this theatrical performance was held at the Lillian H Smith library, and brought the magic of books to life for children and adults alike. Co-directors Guy Doucette and Glyn Bowerman led the company in one of the most endearing shows I’ve seen this year.

The Cast of The Nightwood. Photos/Jacklyn Atlas

The venue was ideal; cascading stairs into the depths of a library opened into a circular stone lobby lined with torches. As the audience entered we were greeted by the Earl’s men (BJ Jeroy and Eric Hopkins) announcing the rules of the evening:

“Thou shall not enter the Nightwood!

Thou shall stay inside after the sun sets!

Thou shall not wear the colours of the night!

(Thou shall turn off all cellphones and pagers, thou shall unwrap all crinkly candy wrappers now, though shall keep the aisles clear for stilt-walkers…)”

Jeroy repeated this time and time again- never once faltering or losing character, as Hopkins strode behind him with… unique… musical accompaniment. The pair made quite the comedic duo, the perfect preface to a quaint story. And yes, the play did actually include two very talented stilt walkers.

But it was Glyn Bowerman who stole the show, encouraging laugh after laugh in his acrobatic role of the Fool. From every quirky gesture to each charming smile, he had the entire audience under his spell. The story of young Elaine (played by the stunning Katrina Carey), the Earl’s daughter who is lured into the Nightwood is made suddenly much more believable. You’d follow this man anywhere.

Glyn Bowerman plays the quirky yet charming Fool

Although it draws on classic fairy tale elements, The Nightwood is not a typical morality play. It maintains the textbook fundamentals of light versus dark, good almost succumbing to evil and then making a startling recovery, but Muller presents this struggle in a surprisingly sincere perspective. Instead of simply telling children to abide by their parents every word, she tells a story that truly addresses the difficulty of parenthood and dealing with children who are coming of age. The importance of shared knowledge and respect is revered over unquestioning obedience.

While this message went well over the heads of many youngsters in the crowd, many of whom were squirming as the hour dragged on, it was obvious the story appealed to young and old alike. The children were fascinated with the colorful costumes, the puppet shows, and the physical humour, while the adult were enraptured in the sheer beauty of the piece. Satisfying such a variety of audience speaks volumes of the quality of work this company is producing and Back Burner Productions is proving to be the little company that could!

While Back Burner’s last production was poorly attended, thanks to the Luminato hype this show was actually “sold” out- all 130 free tickets were spoken for well in advance. Despite Luminato’s great accessibility, people were actually turned away from this event. It’s a shame more people didn’t see this show, this time for an entirely different reason!

It did, however, seem very a very promising venture that Luminato (in conjunction with NXNE) was screening a long lost silent German horror picture from 1919 at Yonge-Dundas square complete with live accompaniment from some hip musicians. Indeed, promising enough for me to drag some buddies with me to Toronto’s meager Times’ Square replica in the pouring rain just to see it. It was a dark and stormy night.

Now, I’m no stranger to getting completely soaked at concerts, though rarely has the sight of falling drops coupled with that squishy feeling of wet shoes and a mob of moist hipsters seemed so appropriate. The film, Tales of the Uncanny, which features Conrad Veidt (who would later go on to achieve some repute as Cesare the Somnambulist in the Expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and Bill Murray’s elder German doppelganger, Reinhold Schünzel, is a sometimes funny, sometimes cheesy and mostly unintelligible - though hardly frightening, even by the standards of the time - series of shorts based upon short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and others linked together by a nonsensical thread. The film revolves around a group of ghouls that ostensibly haunt a book shop are perusing the stores wares after terrorizing the proprietor; in between tales (which they think are hilarious) they can be seen, in a rather unsual move, keeling over with laughter and throwing books at each other. It’s pretty ridiculous.

Apparently this is an extremely obscure film, long thought to be totally lost - though Luminato is repeatedly referring to it as a bona fide classic - and this is something of a Canadian debut for director Richard Oswald’s little opus. The Austrian director would go on to remake it in 1932, which clearly shows how much he thought of this version. The show might have worked better with a more established film of the time like Caligari or Nosferatu, particularly as these exhibit a much more classically Expressionist aesthetic which would be more appropriate for the ominous music, but I suppose that having a mostly unknown flick on the bill makes it seem much more credible for Luminato.

The absolutely spot-on live score, however, was provided by local post-rockers Do Make Say Think, German electronic artist Robert Lippok and Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy. As the film is partitioned into five sections, thus the musicians took an opportunity to tackle one tale each before uniting to a much more potent effect for the final two stories. Evidently sort of a live-action take on the classic Dark Side of the Oz (and more recently, Kid A/Nosferatu) screenings at indie-cinemas, this was a fantastically well thought out show with a fairly ominous rainstorm to accompany the already ominous musical accompaniment. The live score was excellent and the film was amusing enough, though the Tales of the Uncanny experience had one crucial downfall: my being utterly torn between wanting to watch the film and wanting to see what the musicians were doing, thus rendering at least two of the five tales more or less incomprehensible to me. The first one, I don’t even remember what it was called, I only recall that there was a crazy man trying to strangle his wife and a scene in a hotel that seemed totally unrelated.

By the third section of the film, I became more adjusted to the format and was indeed treated to Robert Lippok, at the time unknown to me, providing a deliciously dark, pulsing electronic beat to the Poe’s “The Black Cat” which proved to be exceedingly creepy unto itself. The real highlight of the show, however, was the fourth tale, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Suicide Club”, which was not only the most coherent and entertaining of the stories, but also was home to the most powerful musical moments and was the only uncanny tale where Bill Murray’s doppelganger didn’t get absolutely hosed in the end – way to go Reinhold! By the time the final section rolled around, it was getting very wet and I could almost feel the black dye from my shoes turning my socks blue, however, the combination of Lippok’s deep, swelling beats, Pallett’s madcap violin acrobatics and Do Make Say Think’s riotous post-rock cacophony made Tales of the Uncanny end on a very high note, breathing fresh new life into what might otherwise have been a more or less unremarkable lost curiosity.

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• June 27, 2009, darude writes: first!

My first Luminato experience this year – or ever really as I was scarcely aware of the seminal arts fest until this year (my bad!) – was an installation from New York City-based artist Tony Oursler called Forty One – Five, a collection of three (though I only saw two because I couldn’t find the flippin’ Young Gallery) large multi-media pieces that were at once low-profile and difficult to ignore. Really, though, when I say "low-profile," I mean that two of them you wouldn’t see unless you actually went looking for them, which as per my understanding is not typical for displays of public art; but this is provocative, contemporary-interdisciplinary stuff we’re talking about here so you can go looking for it, son! On the other hand, the least discreet piece was placed in all of its frantic busyness right on Dundas Street in front of the AGO... I guess going off in all directions is what Luminato is all about.

When I say that they were difficult to ignore, this is because the pieces were gigantic, colorful and made a pretty ferocious racket. Essentially designed to look like transparent houses, these behemoths of glass, aluminum, electronics and household junk offer the viewer a look into the unseen fears, obsessions and compulsions of ordinary citizens and the simultaneous attraction and revulsion they display for their possessions and environments. Adorned with several televisions, Oursler, a man with an already formidable reputation for being extremely intense and shocking in his art, filmed a number of performers in continuous full-body shots alone in blank rooms, screaming paranoid epithets. Their actions within the barren soundstages are displayed on the screens in sharp juxtaposition to the cluttered spaces, suggesting a pointed alienation from their material surroundings, which in the case of the piece displayed in Grange Park, is filled with wall to wall junk. Furthermore, their fearful howling is cranked up to blissfully obnoxious levels through an elaborate sound system that utilizes each of its speakers to play the sound track in staggered time which makes for a chaotic cacophony of primal screaming and bouts of tragic self-loathing.

The result of this insanity is rather unsettling, but less so when you see the installation as much as when you think about it afterward. Oursler, who has completed installations in cities all over the globe and is noted for his unique blending of mediums and use of the human body in his work, here creates a collection that is viciously provocative, brutally sincere and psychologically and socially probing, the true power of which is not immediately clear. Forty One – Five is one of the more haunting features one would be likely to see at this year’s Luminato, a shockingly honest portrait of the secret life of everyone in their relation to their living spaces and it was just sitting there on the street naked for all to see.

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• June 17, 2009, fruitlet | home of karen correia da silva writes: [...] Spy on your neighbors with Tony Oursler [...]

R. Murray Schafer

Composed by R. Murray Shafer, world renowned acoustic ecology activist, educator, composer and writer, The Children's Crusade is a revolutionary revisioning of traditional Opera, blending site-specific theatre with the Toronto Consort, the Canadian Children's Opera Company, the expert direction of Tim Albery and textural music direction of David Fallis. As part of Luminato 2009, The Children's Crusade sought to transgress the boundaries of traditional Opera and bring the audience into the action of the story by staging it in an industrial warehouse on Dufferin Street, moving through and around minimal sets as the audience stood, watched and walked along with the journey of Stephen - played by Jacob Abrahamse - the main character.

Jacob Abrahamse plays Stephen. Photo/Steve Wilkie

The story is inspired by the children's crusade of 1212, a historical/mythical event that has been reworked and rewritten so many times that no single account stakes any claim to legitimacy. In this particular account, a young French boy is tricked into believing he is a chosen child of God, subsequently leading the orphans of Paris to their deaths by setting out on a well-intentioned but ill-fated crusade of love and friendship. It all sounds very lofty and irrelevant to the urban-art-types at Luminato, but the revolutionary staging really brought Opera skeptics like me into the action and humanity of the story, creating a stage on which the audience itself could stand within the throng of believers - the proximity really made the emotional impact stick.

I must admit, when the large industrial door rolled up, letting the 375 audience members walk with the guidance of a mute tuxedo-clad director, directing the flow of the crowd with crisp white gloves, I was both impressed and frightened by the stark contrast of the tuxedos and orchestra with the dusty raw space of the warehouse; the atmosphere was surreal and dream-like, using the odd juxtaposition to entrance the audience from the very first step into the performance space. When the Toronto Consort began the show with deep avant-garde textural sounds, I felt my heartbeat quicken - I knew I was in to be moved. My skepticism melted away within the first five minutes. It was impossible to avoid being captured. Within the first ten minutes I had my breath entirely taken away - representing the evil of deception, a haunting clamour of tenors dressed in black writhed out of the darkness, following the children and eventually, at the end of the play, forming a sea of bodies that enveloped their ardent innocence. The representations of evil were extremely frightening, ranging from the palpable darkness of the tenors, to a bright red brothel that sang of empty broken love and the lust for purity. Throughout the entire performance, the audience was at the mercy of the enrapturing voices and unconventional settings. It was impossible to detach from the surreal world within the warehouse.

The journey was only an hour and a half long, but as the bright young voices of the Canadian Children's Opera Company moved, the audience moved, creating a connection between the actors and the audience that I had never experienced before. Now, I'm a fit young woman in her early 20's - I was at least 40 years younger than almost everyone in the audience, ha - and by the time we reached the final performance space, my feet hurt, I was tired, and felt discouraged along with the characters. The tragic conclusion hit so much harder because of the physical fatigue of the audience - to watch the children fall beneath the waves of the human ocean, made up of the black-clad bodies of the tenors, was beyond heartbreaking. I wasn't the only member of the audience who broke into tears.

Walking up Dufferin street after leaving the surreal performance space, I tried to think of some way of writing about this experience. Even now, writing this, I feel as though I couldn't possibly fit the profound emotion that I - a young artist who had never been moved by Opera before - experienced. I guess the only thing I can definitively say about this experience is that this is definitely new territory for opera, territory that had to be covered to connect it with artists of today in a meaningful and relevant way. I don't think this has fully happened yet, I mean, the vast majority of the audience at this performance was nearing the end of the road, if you know what I mean, but the simple fact that opera is pushing to become relevant proves that it is possible, that change in old artforms can create new relevancies and new audiences, attracting people who wouldn't otherwise seek it out. The new fresh faces of the Canadian Children's Opera company, lead by Jacob Abrahamse gesture to a new era in opera, one with new promise for evolution, play, and innovation. Even the simple fact that it was staged in Parkdale really symbolizes the change in Opera, connecting what is stereotypically seen as lofty irrelevant high-art with the on-the-ground low-art to which Parkdale panders.

The Children's Crusade is a pivotal piece in the history of opera, theatre, and modern art - I feel privilaged to have been able to attend the world premiere along with three hundred extremely elderly women. Yeah.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. That Friday night I got there about an hour in, my whole attendance was an impulse move, spur of the moment. This won’t be the most formal capturing of events, but then again I won’t be exactly writing about what Cirque du Soleil did, more like what happened in their absence. When I arrived at Harbourfront the first two and most obvious visual cues were exactly what I expected. A big dramatic set made of garbage and waaaay too many people between me and it to see it. I stumbled about the crowd looking for an in, but with every heavenly seeming path was another swift disappointing “sorry we need to keep this aisle clear for performers”. Eventually, around the back end I managed to find a cluster of short-enough people for me to peer over and see what all the sure to be flamboyant fuss was. About half way through the scheduled performance I had hoped that I would be catching the peak of spectacle.

There was a woman in yellow walking grace-y through the water and a gaggle of men dressed like swamp reeds splashing water in unison. “Don’t worry King” I thought, “this is totally going somewhere.” Behind me I saw more performers, clowns and creatures that circled the audience for the poor members on the fringes. What was unusual about it however was that the performers on the fringes of the circle seemed infinitely more interesting than what was going on in the center. More and more people ducked out, carving my path closer and closer to the summit. “What a bunch of chumps,” I thought, “see that bar, over there. The one held up by two other bars above. Some kind of unusually dressed person is totally going to flip out on that bar. It’s going to make this thing so great!” Slowly the outer crust of clowns vanished into the crowd, the yellow woman and splish splash warriors as well following suit and with the music carrying on I had starting my pulsing preparation for Cirque to haul out the big guns. And I waited. And they waited. And everyone there most certainly waited.

A haze of confusion sank heavy as the crowd, you could practically feel it squeezing you in. An old lady in a pink track suit in front of me began to yell at the tech tower. “WHAT IS GOING OOOON!?” the pugsly man in black with black shades seem unphazed by the woman. “WHAT IS GOING OOOOOOON?!” she yelled again, the tech man talking into his hear as if everything was going according to plan. Another head popped up from the tech tower, another pugsly dude with a big fancy camera, started to take shots of the audience and I began to worry if this was all some kind of awful joke on us.

Twenty minutes to go and some very anxious feet below me beginning to wear thin I finally heard an uproar of applause from an end of the stage I could not see. “Time to kick ass and take names” I thought, outreaching my digital camera above my head as my second pair of eyes. But it wasn’t any clown or trash monster in the water, no, it was three dudes from the audience. Getting soaked, twirling around, lifting their hands up to warrant a cry. A couple more bodily rotations and they packed it back in to dryer land, but I knew their influence would catch on. But moments later a family man and his kids took it a step further, jumping into the water, twirling and dancing all the way to the stage structure, making a rotation around it and then heading back to the edge. And so of course this carried on. Family packs of three, four, jumping into the water, spinning around, getting cheered on and as I looked back to the tech tower they seemed to act business-as-usual. The music was still carrying on. “Something is going to happen,” I thought, “the question now is will it be done by the circus or a riot of old people.”

Then it started, it clicked, with less than ten minutes on the clock and an old shivering Indian woman only just making it to front of the crowd, things broke down. Boos and hiss stung from the mass, louder and louder eventually overpowering the music that lay down on us. I heard another splash from the water but this time a different variety. A more hollow splash, flat and broader. It eventually drifted into my sight. An old couple had stolen Cirque’s boat, which floated by the side the whole time assumedly for the show. They sat back and relaxed while a smoothie of cheers and boos rumbled from the side of the water. They bobbed in their dingy for a fair time before a man in a suit trudged in the water to pull them back to the side. He plotted them back on dry land, turning his head up only to stare down a wall of aggravated free-event-goers. Through the crowd noise I could hear him say, “There will be an announcement soon.” And my lips made the sort of expression as if they were tugged to the side by a fish hook. The music carried on even longer, now a few minutes after the time the show was scheduled to end. “Maybe they were just waiting for it to get dark?” I heard in front of me. Suddenly the music clapped out, replaced by a dull and tired voice that spoke “Thank you every body for coming out, see you tomorrow.” And of course, an uproar of boos erupted ground up. I don’t know what I missed when I got there late, but I felt if it was the kind of spectacle to satisfy then the audience would have clued up when the best had come and gone. No, this was not a satisfied posse. The same security guard who pulled the old hijackers to shore, now stuck, wedged into the angry audience in the most fuck-all tone said, “Well, that’s what you get for a free show.” To which another old woman rose up and smacked him, “It isn’t free! We pay taxes for this!”

Jumping through hoops at the Harbourfront Centre. Photo/Matthew Filipowich

I scurried back to the streetcar, surrounding commentary of disappointment carried me the way there. My evening hit a wall, a little anticlimactic, too much to sleep soundly that night. I went to finally see Star Trek I guess. Wasn’t that Orion chick hot? Damn.

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• June 17, 2009, fruitlet | home of karen correia da silva writes: [...] Cirque de L’émeute de Personnes Âgées [...]

It starts with the reinvention of the body, a lone dancer becoming both horse and rider. Barefoot and strong bodied, she is the epitome of beauty and grace as the herd welcomes her. The sun rises on the prairie plane revealing this story of birth and re-birth, a celebration of culture, and the cycles of the seasons. Quietly, the Mongolian throat singing begins, echoing across this seemingly vast landscape. You don’t know where you are, but it’s fucking beautiful.

Sure, it sounds all too picturesque and maybe even strangely cheesy, but from the moment the lights went down in the Fleck Dance Theatre, TONO’s epic, cinematic story captured the hearts of every lucky Luminato attendee.

TONO explores the surprisingly common parallels between native Canadian, Chinese and Mongolian cultures. Photos/ Julia Tribe

This latest creation from Red Sky Performances, celebrates the indigenous cultures of three separate nations. Through dance, music, and costume TONO explores the surprisingly common parallels between native Canadian, Chinese (Inner Mongolia), and Mongolian cultures. The title of the piece is derived from a universal trait in these indigenous cultures- a tono is the circular opening at the top of a gee, a tent-like structure integral to the nomadic lifestyle. This opening was said to be a link between the physical and spiritual realm, a way of connecting with the past and the potential future, much like the dance piece itself, which combines thousands of years of tradition and history with contemporary dance and a modern perspective.

Co-choreographed by artistic director Sandra Laronde and Roger Sinha, Red Sky Performances developed a piece with a six dancers; Caihong, Morigen and Wei Jie (all of whom are Mongolian), Julie Choquette, Carlos Rivera and Raul Talamante (who are all Canadians), and four international musicians. The musicians performed live on stage, with a variety of instruments (from all countries involved) and a unique style of lyrical work, expertly composed by Rick Sack. This, combined with a pre-recorded soundscape transported us across the world, from Alberta into the heart of Mongolia. Although rather repetitive, this cycle of sounds perfectly illustrated the circular intertwining of cultures.

The ending was abrupt, a jolt of silence and sudden darkness. Perhaps it was purposeful, but it was rather unsatisfying for a typical Canadian audience. Still, the performers and devisers came out to a ruckus of well-deserved applause.

I had the chance to chat with Julia Tribe, the artistically gifted set and costume designer for this piece. She let me in on some of the details behind the creative process, talking the show through from conception to world tour.

Concept sketches for Tono's costume design

“The importance is in the journey,” she says, referring to both the piece as a whole and her experience as an artist. “You have to remember it all started with a blank slate.” She begins reminiscing on the summer she spent in Banff. The artists got together, and started with nothing but a vague idea and a pile of research. She explains it as a marriage of cultural and design elements, as she and the rest of the artistic team delved into a history that wasn’t necessarily their own, but opened many interesting doors and design opportunities.

As the international artists came together for the first time in Banff, it was obvious they were creating something revolutionary. The first day the musicians joined the company stands out in Julia’s mind. There is something about seeing your work come together and mesh with other artists that is wholly satisfying.

Visual elements from the amalgamated cultures show themselves in different aspects of Julia’s work. The fringe adorning the costumes are obviously taken from the traditional garb of Canadian plainsmen, but their position on the clothing and their movement hint at Mongolian style outfits. This design comes together to highlight the intricate movement of the dancers.

I ask Julia what her favorite element of the design was, and she surprises me by saying simple, “the floor”. The grey dance floor, a concept developed with the help of the original choreographer, seems bland at first, almost too simple. After seeing the show, it was easy to understand why this simple element is so appealing. Not only does grey go with every colour palette, but with the help of some lighting (expertly designed by Kimberly Purtell) it allows for the sky and land to meld into each other, like the plains that stretch on for days. A sea of grass that flows on and somehow becomes the horizon, then the sky, which disappears into itself. This graceful scenic movement helps emphasize and move the nonlinear story. Julia’s design constantly hinted at this idea of movement and cycles.

The circle motif constantly reappeared throughout the performance, from the physical image of the tono hanging above the dancers and the patterns it cast on the floor, to the cyclical interpretation of the seasons. Ironically, this cyclical idea is even seen in the geography of the show’s international tour.

Having been featured in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, TONO is coming full circle and is headed to the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. This lucky circumstance is reflective of just how important shows like this have become to the global community. Encompassing cultures from our homeland as well as Asian countries, this piece is the epitome of “multicultural”, and in times of continuing global conflict, finding the ties that bind us together is an increasingly important task. As director/choreographer Laronde says, “Despite our many differences, at the root of each society lies the shared experiences of its First Peoples.” In the true spirit of Luminato, this performance is about bringing people together.

Comments

• June 21, 2009, rp writes: Great read :)