Review: (Montreal / Dance) Infinity Doughnut

(Photo: Svetla Atanasova)

The Pleasure of Being Together
by Chad Dembski, Editor, Dance

Upon arriving just on time to Monument National I saw an extremely long line for the coat check. This was the first request of many to shed your outer world belongings and join the performance space area. I left my backpack and shoes at the side, stood against the back wall and held hands with two different strangers. Then as a long line of curious audience members we carefully navigated down a flight of stairs and walked in and around the space.  This instantly brought me back to elementary school and the few exhilarating days we would visit a non-school location. There was a giddy nervousness amongst most of the crowd that chose to go along for the ride; some audience members refused to take their shoes off and join in. Still this simple, opening action helped bring an instant intimacy to the piece and for me a personal awareness of each and every audience member.

Review (Montreal / Dance) 6,3 Évanouissements

How I Fell In Love With Contemporary Dance
by Aleksandra Koplik, Senior Contributor

There's something about this performance that is strangely captivating from the very beginning. As the audience gathered in the vestibule, waiting to be seated, one of the choreographers and performers (Benoit Lachambre), approached a few individuals and told them that something was going to happen in a few minutes, asking them to freeze at the appropriate moment. At this point I knew this was going to be interesting. As predicted, everyone froze at the right time and looked in the directions we were told. We found that five performers had been among us the whole time. They too were frozen, at first, but then started convulsing in a range of motions. We were then all slowly invited to be seated. Before we sat down, we find one of the dancers on stage alone. She is light and windy in her movements. There's always a fine line between an enticing-weird and uncomfortably-weird contemporary dance show. This performance by Danse-Cité and Agora de la Danse was most definitely fascinating, even to the untrained eye. Six incredibly talented artists come together for 6,3 Evanouissements: Fortner Anderson, Marc Boivin, Sophie Corriveau, Michel F Coté, Benoit Lachambre and Catherine Tardif. They create a space in time describing the act of fainting. Where one's consciousness or spirit goes, in a very relatable and humorous way.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Miss; Mange-Moi

Photo by Svetlana Atanasova

Women's Bodies
by Élaine Charlebois

This past Thursday night, Monument National hosted two short performance pieces by Tangente. First came MISS, a piece created by Jade Marquis and performed by Joannie Douville, which follows a dancer searching to establish her persona as a performer while maintaining a sense of female empowerment. Douville does well to fully use the intimate space of the venue, travelling slowly through the audience as she delivers an interesting take on the nature of the dance scene. While my choice to sit in the balcony section of the venue hindered my visual experience of the piece, causing me to lean over the railing in order to get a shot of Douville entering the room from under me, the piece nevertheless had its effect. MISS managed to raise questions regarding our notions of the female image in dance culture while at the same time displaying the various personas females can take on when performing. Although I did not grasp the meaning surrounding all of the projected images accompanying Douville’s performance, the piece as a whole was intriguing and at times thought-provoking.