Review: (Dance / Montreal) The Nutcracker

(photo by John Hall)

They Should have Called This “The Nutcracker’s Friends”
by Aleksandra Koplik, Senior Contributor

Perhaps I am not the best person to critique this performance as The Nutcracker is my all-time favourite winter ballet and holiday activity, so I take it very close to heart when a classical piece is done differently.

First off, I have to mention the incredible design that was created on and for the stage by Peter Home. It was absolutely breathtaking. Everything from the owl clock to the growing Christmas tree, to Clara’s dream world was done beautifully. The locations and acts were carefully layered with thin themed veils and the lighting (by Nicholas Cernovitch) really did its work in making them transparent or opaque.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Winnin'

(photo by Frédéric Chais)

No end in Sight
by Caitlin Murphy, Senior Contributor

Winnin' is a compendium of gestures that, like its truncated title, are reluctantly reaching towards completion. Choreographed and performed by the brilliant Dany Desjardins, who has previously created All villains have a broken heart (2008), On Air (2009) and POW WOW (2011), it's an accomplished and powerful piece that explores our obsession with winning, and encourages us to lay down our tools of self-inflation.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Yellow Towel

(photo by Maxime G. Delisle)

All eyes on Dana Michel
by Aleksandra Koplik, Senior Contributor

Dana Michel, creator and choreographer of Yellow Towel, manages to baffle you from the very beginning of the show. She entered the room in a baggy pair of black sweatpants, New York Yankees hat, over-sized sweater and clunky white shoes with gold spikes. It's hard to believe, at first, that the man we initially see on stage is actually a woman. She uses very brief moments to get in the skin of different characters and maximizes their existence on stage, whether it's a man or a woman or a child. Breaking into all the different typical black stereotypes, Michel uses speech to narrate her performance. When she was a little girl, she wanted blonde hair, so she would wrap her head in a yellow towel. This is a re-occurring symbolism throughout the piece. I couldn't pinpoint her origins, because at different points she spoke with a fluent Jamaican, Georgian and New Yorker accent. When I realized she was actually from Ottawa, I couldn't believe it. 

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Prismes

In a land of dreams and nightmares
by Chad Dembski, Editor, Dance

Montréal Danse is an intriguing Montreal dance company in that they choose a different choreographer for each new creation. Led by Artistic Director Kathy Casey, they tend to allow an exploration of new ideas and experimentation. Prismes; a highly original, bizarre and ambitious piece was originally created in 2013 at Agora de la Danse explores perception. The perception of colour, of light in space, and of body in as many forms as could be imagined. With a varied and pulsating soundtrack by Laurent Maslé and Tomas Furey the six performers display incredible virtuosity throughout the 75 minute piece.  

Review: (Montreal / Dance) That's It

Any Shape, form or structure imaginable
by Chad Dembski,  Editor, Dance

The solo dance performance of That’s It at La Chapelle is a strong investigation of body transformation in all its possible forms. Brussels based creator and dancer Sabine Molenaar first premiered the piece in 2012 and has toured it extensively before making this its North American première. Her incredible virtuosity and control are displayed from the first image of sitting on the ground, back to the audience and arms wrapped in a mysterious way around her body. My first thought was that this was going to be a contortionist show of intense and unbelievable body moves. This became half true over the next 50 minutes where Sabine pulls, pushes, tears and transforms her body into every imaginable form.

The Abominable Showman; Baritone Étienne Dupuis

The triumphant homecoming of Etienne Dupuis

After receiving accolades across Europe, Montreal baritone Etienne Dupuis returns home to star in The Barber of Seville at L’Opéra de Montréal 

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

(Rehearsal photos by Yves Renaud)

Montrealers remember seeing rising baritone Etienne Dupuis when he was part of a flash mob of opera singers staged in the busy Marché Jean Talon market in his hometown of Montreal, to promote L’Opéra de Montréal in 2010. “I love people’s faces when I start singing opera in an up-close space,” Dupuis told the Vancouver Straight alt-weekly. “We were standing right in front of them and they just became statues. People don’t realize the nature of that sound and what it does to you. It can make you vibrate.”

Watch the clip here.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Gustavia

                                                                   (photo: Marc Coudrais)
The Itch
by Caitlin Murphy, Senior Contributor

As a new mother, when my son was crying in public, I often felt compelled by the eyes of strangers to perform the role of concerned mother. And the problem wasn't the concern of course, but the performance. I'd quickly vacillate between stinging resentment and a strange compulsion to keep up appearances. This odd dance – between begrudging what's expected of us, while simultaneously delivering it – may not be a uniquely female experience, but it often feels so. It's a feeling that's being hotly-debated in the media at the moment, and one that is rendered exquisitely palpable in Gustavia.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Le Délire Domestique

The everyday spectacular
by Chad Dembski, Editor, Dance

Le Délire Domestique is the latest creation by choreographer Deborah Dunn featuring seven solo dances focusing on daily domestic life. Based on rituals of cleaning, making food, and taking care of animals the seven dancers each take their own stab at the proposition. With a strong sense of how women are still forced into these roles of housekeeper even when also attempting to pursue careers. We all may say it’s a new world where men or women can take care of the home but there is still an automatic assumption that home duties fall to women.  

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Nobody Likes a Pixelated Squid & Chorus II

Chorus II

A Beautiful Contradiction
by Chad Dembski, Editor, Dance

After one of the most bizarre mixes of two diverse companies I left the Cinquième Salle last night curious how programming decisions are made. Artists often have control over their own work to a certain extent but not always where and how their work is presented. Sometimes two very different shows are put together as a way to show two sides of similar research or at other times a common theme in a body of work. 

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Hors Je

(photo by Ben Philippi)

Never Alone
by Chad Dembski, Editor-Dance

Hors Je is a duet.  A duet with the audience, a duet with video projection and a duet with a vast collection of dancers, both professional and non-professional. These duets take many forms over the evening, all inspired from a choreographic phrase that Dominique Porte gave them. Since there are almost 30 diverse collaborators the results vary quite a bit from each other and yield a lot of interesting results. A highly experienced dancer, Dominique Porte carefully considers each interpretation and finds a way to connect back to each one. She does this while also staying connected to the audience and speaking to us directly about her process, both past and present. 

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Soif

                                                                     
The Art of Wanting
by Aleksandra Koplik, Senior Contributor

In honour of O Vertigo's thirtieth anniversary, one of Quebec's leading contemporary dance pioneers, Ginette Laurin, creates Soif. She brings to the stage eight phenomenal dancers: Audrey Bergeron, Sophie Breton, Charles Cardin-Bourbeau, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Louis-Élyan Martin, Robert Meilleur, James Phillips and Stéphanie Tremblay Abubo. Wearing nothing or black, they deliver the message of what wanting may look like. "Soif", meaning thirst in French, is what is performed on stage. The thirst for sex, affection, touch, dreams, liberty - the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. Most of the scenes are coupled and performed in two's, which gives the body interaction more meaning and sort of mixes things up on stage, as the movements are not unanimous.

Review: (Montreal) elsewhere (Dance)

(photo by Jeremy Mimnagh)

Going Elsewhere together
by Sarah Deshaies, Senior Contributor

The first performer takes staccato steps in chunky heels, puncturing her jagged movements with electric spasms. The dancer who joins her is silkier, smoother… and in time, he begins to influence the first dancer, scooping her up and depositing her all over the stage.

The motif in elsewhere are dancers hiding behind semi-opaque sheets; each one steps out onto centre stage to dance and set their own pace. Followed by another performer who resets the pace, changes the game - so that the show is a layer cake of experience and influence.

Review: (Montreal) Nabucco (Opera)

The opera within an opera at the opera house
by Aleksandra Koplik

Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, is about a Babylonian King seeking revenge on the Jews for stealing his daughter, a vicious love triangle driven by power and the Hebrew people seeking freedom from the Assyrians. As the curtains open - on this collaboration between the Washington National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera - we are also submerged in 1842 La Scala, when Italy was under Austrian rule. We see three theatre balconies on stage and a group of upper-class Austrians taking their seats. An opera within an opera is taking place.

Review: (Montreal) Densité d'un moment/In Mixed Company (Dance)

In Mixed Company (photo by Frédéric Chais)

The Density of Moments
by Chad Dembski, Editor - Dance

Densité d'un moment
The first piece presented in a double bill of works that opens Tangente's season, Densité d'un moment, is a 30 minute six-person performance from recent Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM)  dance graduates.  The piece explores the density of a moment, how it is experienced differently by each person in that moment, both the active participant and the observer. 

Having been to the Studio space at Monument National a few times I am constantly surprised how a small, seemingly limited space can be transformed with limited resources.

Review: (Montreal) My Big Fat German Puppet Show

The Big and the Fat of It
by Janis Kirshner
@Janovations

Frank Meschkuleit as Franz Poopenshpiel is certainly commanding, and not just because of his enormous belly. Meschkuleit owns the stage and is present to the slightest nuance. And hey- when do you get a chance to see someone play the saw…?

Oohs and aahs are well-deserved when Meschkuleit reveals the lush puppet proscenium amid his girth. His puppets and voices are unique and spot on with a heavy dose of peculiar and eccentric. Especially noteworthy (and pretty darned smart) is Steven Hawking as a stand-up comic; a lederhosen clad rapper; and a zombie sing along. There’s even a tender moment on making the right choices in life to make someone’s life better.

Meschkuleit is an alumnus of Fraggle Rock and creator of the hit show The Left Hand of Frank. I certainly appreciated his talent, but I would have liked to see more variety in the presentation.

June 14 - 22

Review: Kitt and Jane: An Interactive Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future (Fringe)

Beyond the Fringe Title
by Janis Kirshner
@Janovations

It’s International Wildlife Diversity Appreciation Day and two awkward but intelligent, socially aware grade-eights, Kitt and Jane (the boy’s unwelcome nick-name) are at the front of the assembly. Minutes in they’ve hijacked their own presentation to let us know the apocalypse is coming in five years. They don’t have a lot of time to convince us that this is 'science, not fiction' and survival techniques must be learned.

Review: (Montreal) Untitled Sam Mullins Project (Fringe: MONTREAL, WINNIPEG, EDMONTON, VANCOUVER)

The Approachable Storyteller
by Élaine Charlebois

Sam Mullins is a good storyteller, no doubt about it. In his most recent piece, he tells his audience four stories that revolve around four truths about himself. One particularly well-crafted and amusing story is about his struggle to manage the perpetual state of panic, later diagnosed as a panic disorder, which used to loom over his life. In this story, Mullins takes us through his early acting days when he was cast in a major role in a play, only to be overcome by panic as his turn came to step onto the stage. Telling this story with great self-awareness and humour, Mullins highlights the ways in which seemingly uncontrollable difficulties can take over our lives unless we decide to play an active part in our own self-improvement.

Review: (Montreal) 4 Girls 4 Ever (Fringe)

Fast-Food with Quirks
by Caitlin Murphy
@juliusmarx1977

Fans of The Breakfast Club may be dismayed to realize that next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the brat-pack cult-flick. Yes, you have officially crossed over from the benign process of getting older, to the complex reality of aging. 4 Girls 4 Ever, written by Ned Cox and Alexandria Haber, and heavily inspired by the film, though not without its quirky charms, still falls a little flat.

Directed by Jen Quinn, the play features an all-female cast of Breakfast Club counterparts – Debbie, 'the brain', Irish, 'the baddie', Missy, 'the princess', and Claire, 'the basket-case' – a rag-tag bunch who also came to be friends through sharing Saturday detention. In a sort of textbook case of 'situation comedy' the play sees the four women get accidentally locked in a classroom together at their 25th highschool reunion. And what ensues is largely what you'd expect – the women bond, bitch, break down, then bond anew. They reflect on what has been, and try to reconcile what's come to be. Oh, and they can't get cellphone reception, of course, and there's a blackout at one point.

Review: (Montreal) Gingervitis (Fringe)

Reds
by Janis Kirshner
@Janovations

And this is what we love about the Fringe… For whatever reason, this particular one out of 110 shows, Project Gingervitis, has been picked. You’re pretty sure it’ll be just okay, if that. You’re fairly certain it will consist of ‘woe-is-me’-ness jokes about carrot-top, sunscreen and watery blue eyes. You’d be wrong.

I always heard that King Solomon, known for his wisdom, was a redhead. Perhaps channelling Solomon’s soul, playwright/performer Jordan Lloyd Watkins under the direction of David Bloom has crafted an intelligent, funny and thought-provoking piece about the ‘other’. Using both real and skilfully done fake video news clips as well as faux Save the Children ads to highlight and offer depth to the narrative, we follow the story of Red 1- the red headed science subject from the age of four. It’s 2084 and redheads have long been eradicated. Except for this one, the last of his kind… (cue early video of an achingly cute Watkins)

Review: (Montreal) Tempest in a Teacup (Fringe)

Danse Sans Prétention
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Quicksilver Dance has ventured out of their Cambridge, Mass. base for their first international appearance right here at the Montreal Fringe. 

Tempest in a Teacup is an octet of dancers of varying shapes and sizes; they present five earnest and thoughtful pieces that meditate on philosophy, history, biology and other sciences. Quicksilver owes its intellectual ambition to founders (and couple) Mariah Steele and Hans Rinderknecht; they met each other in a dance class while studying law and physics, respectively, at Princeton.