This past weekend, while I was waiting for my take-out pizza to be heated up, I picked up a copy of the latest issue of NOW Magazine to read the cover story on dance legend Peggy Baker. It seems like every time I read NOW, I’m reminded again and again why I never read NOW. This week’s issue is no exception.
After his article on Baker, Glenn Sumi produces a list of some of the city’s top choreographers (all of whom happen to be women) and talks about why they are not the next Peggy Baker. While I’m all for critics asking hard questions and pushing artists to make the best work possible, lining up a group of female choreographers and then taking stabs at each of them for not being “the next Peggy Baker” shows questionable journalistic judgement.
Even worse perhaps, is the fact that Sumi’s criticisms of these women are woefully inaccurate. He states that Sasha Ivanochko “has yet to find her choreographic voice”. I’m sorry, what? Are you fucking kidding me? Sasha Ivanochko has yet to find her choreographic voice? Is this supposed to be a joke? That’s like saying the dancers of the National Ballet need to pay more attention to their technique.
Making a statement like this would incline me to believe that Sumi has never actually seen any of Ivanochko’s work, except for the fact that I’ve been in the audience with him at some of her performances.
Sumi then goes on to slag Susie Burpee because apparently “her dance is overshadowed by her theatricality”. Again, are you fucking kidding me? The theatricality of Burpee’s work is precisely what makes it distinctive and interesting and I fail to see how this could be considered a bad thing.
He goes a bit easier on Kate Alton. Instead of simply making a blanket statement about why she doesn’t measure up in his eyes, he poses the question of whether “her links to other disciplines [are] detracting from her dance or expanding her audience”. Though I appreciate his ability to at least posit this as a question, I still think it’s a pretty stupid question. Part of the reason why Alton has the success she has is precisely because she works across disciplines and has established connections with audiences outside the traditional dance core.
And while I’ll agree with Sumi that Sarah Chase is high demand around the world, and therefore not able to perform in Toronto as often as I’d like to see her, can a Toronto-based artist achieving international success really be considered a criticism?
It’s hard enough for dance artists to get coverage in mainstream publications, who’d rather dedicate ink to the latest Mirvish musical, than some obscure series of duets at the Winch. Why NOW would take an opportunity to spotlight six female choreographers, only to slag them for not measuring up to some undefined theoretical standard is beyond me. Our community deserves better than this steaming heap of shit passed off as arts journalism.
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Why Women Choreographers Suck (According to Glenn Sumi)
Oklahoma's Intrusive Abortion Law Heads to Court
Rogers and Hammerstein's beloved musical Oklahoma! has charmed audiences around the world for almost seventy years. The tale of handsome farmhand Curly MacLain and his courtship of innocent farm girl Laurey Williams, has garnered critical praise, numerous awards, broken records on Broadway, and grossed millions at the box-office. The show is so frequently performed, in professional, community, and high school productions, that there is an average of one performance every day somewhere in the world. While Curly and Laurey wait until after they've tied the knot to consummate their love, things could have turned out differently for them if they'd ended up getting it on before their wedding night. And if they were living in Oklahoma today and had to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, things could be pretty bad.
On Feb 19 a hearing will begin in Oklahoma State Court regarding a controversial new abortion law passed last fall but put on hold by a judge until this week. Known as the Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act, the law requires all women who have abortions to complete a form with more than 30 questions including their age, race, level of education, and marital status, as well as detailed questions on their reasons for choosing to terminate the pregnancy. The information is then posted on a website. Women who refuse to complete the form cannot be provided with abortion services and doctors who try to side-step the process would face criminal sanctions and lose their license.
Check out the rest at Xtra.ca
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Keith Cole Announces Toronto Mayoral Bid
On Friday February 12, local performance artist and provocateur Keith Cole announced his plan to run for mayor in the Toronto municipal election next October. Amidst cheers, as well as some shocked faces, he told the crowd that it was time for change.
"For the last six years I have felt that this city has been nothing but a long, dry hack of a cough," he said. "In 2010 we actually have the opportunity to change how the City of Toronto is going to be run and how it is going to be organized. It is up to you."
Since Cole is best known for his outrageous stage antics and unconventional approach to drag performance, many were surprised by his announcement. The most common question that comes up when his candidacy is mentioned is whether he is actually serious about his intentions.
"Yes, I am totally serious about running for mayor," Cole says, on the phone from his Jarvis and Wellesley apartment. "I went down to City Hall on Tuesday, paid my $200, and got the big binder of information and rules they give out to candidates."
Check out the rest at Xtra.ca
Watch the official announcement on YouTube.
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d'bi.young at the Rhubarb Festival
You’d be hard-pressed to find an artist more prolific and hard-working than d’bi young. The 32-year-old Jamaican-born, Toronto-based, queer dub poet, writer and performer has recorded four albums, published two books, contributed to numerous compilations, written half a dozen plays, won two Dora Awards and performed on stages across the Americas and Europe. She is the founder and artistic director of anitAFRIKA! Dub Theatre, a company that teaches dub poetry to youth, and has taught and lectured internationally.
Currently on a year-long performance tour that is taking her across Canada and to Ecuador, Belize and England, young is doing her best to balance her many projects with life as the single mother of two young children.
So how exactly does she manage to do it all?
“I don’t know!” she laughs, on the phone from Montreal, where she’s currently performing. “Some days I’ll have three or four hours before rehearsal that I plan to use working on lines or something. But you know, I’ll spend the whole time making food and changing diapers.”
Her newest piece, She, which explores a young woman’s obsession with a pop icon, is being presented as part of the second week of Rhubarb at Toronto's Buddies in Bad Times. The piece is the first part of a new trilogy entitled She Raw Now, which examines “the state of affairs of the world today.”
Check out the rest on Xtra.ca
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REVIEW: Talking Masks, Review by Aurora Stewart de Peña
Talking Masks
Written and Directed by Adam Seelig
Presented by One Little Goat
Featuring: Richard Harte, Jane Miller, Andrew Moodie, and Cathy Murphy
November 13th-28th, 8pm
Tickets 416-915-0201
Last February Norman and I saw Adam Selig’s production of Someone’s Going to Come by the mysterious Norwegian Jon Fosse. It was the best thing that either of us had seen in the city in a long, long time, and the reception afterward was really, really fun (cheese platter). We still talk about it, but as we’ve exhausted all of our superlative adjectives all that’s left is:
Norman: Someone’s Going to Come.
Aurora: I know, I know.
Norman: They really nailed that.
Aurora: They really did.
So we’ve been looking and looking forward to Adam Seelig’s next show with One Little Goat, and finally it came.
Talking Masks is about history’s monumentally troubled sons; Oedipus, Isaac and Ishmael. There are certainly more, and certainly other contemporaries, so I gently wonder why this combination of people was chosen by Seelig. Mostly, I don’t care. Make it about whoever you want, this piece was really interesting.
This production was built by a dream team of collaborators. Seelig himself is unfailingly innovative with text (“…Towards a Poetic Theatre…” is One Little Goat’s motto), so the dialogue, at times not dialogue at all but a rapid fire series of words and sounds with tenuous connections, is front and centre. This abandoning the I-Talk-She-Talks model serves the subject: it’s Oedipus, so we all know what’s going on. The narrative experimentation is welcome, and it allows the mind to walk down fascinating, previously unexplored paths.
Jackie Chau is the set designer, and the most unique, specific, beautiful and intelligent things fall from her brain on to the stage. It is always a pleasure to see what she’ll come up with. Her sets could sit onstage by themselves, there is so much to look at, and the negative space is just as interesting as the positive space.
Christopher Stanton’s sound design is an organized mess of crackles, static and echo. It is fortunate because Selig’s complicated picnic of words and sounds may have risked atonality without the layers laid by the loop pedals and amplifiers.
This work is based on stories so universally known they’ve become part of our language, just the very lightest hints of plot are all that is required. Just a touch of Aeschylus in Francis Bacon. Talking Masks, with all of its unconventional components, might seem incomprehensible to some. I think that’s fine. We don’t need to understand everything we see, and we don’t need to hear from the artist about how we should be interpreting what they’ve given us. It’s not interesting. It defeats the purpose of having a brain. In Seelig’s play, some participation is required on the part of the audience. Innovators like this are exactly what we need in Toronto.
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Response to Heritage Minister James Moore's Advice to Arts Organizations by Chris Dupuis
At a recent meeting in Montreal, Conservative Heritage Minister James Moore told arts groups that they need to diversify their sources of funding in order to continue to exist. “It can't be just private sector, it can't be just government. We have to have a multi-pillared approach [so] that we have more economic shock absorbers to help organizations as they plan for the future,” he said.
Although I don’t know that much about the internal financial workings of different arts organizations, I know a lot about the lives of individual artists and every artist I know already diversifies their sources of income. They get some money from government grants, some from exhibition and performance fees, and if they are lucky maybe they win the occasional award that comes with a cash prize. There is also an excellent means of diversifying your income that most artists already use that I think the Honourable Minister may be unaware of. It’s called “having a job”.
Every single artist I know works either full-time, part-time, or on a contract basis in order to support their artistic practice. We do this normally, not because we love slinging drinks or answering phones, but because without this extra income it would be impossible to do what we do. In many cases this extra money isn’t just about making ends meet. It is directly invested back into the artist’s work in the form of space and equipment rentals, supplies, self-promotion, fees for other artists and technical people, and artist development. All of it goes back into the economy and when you factor all of that in it’s responsible for a pretty sizable chunk of our GDP.
I would be curious to know if the Honourable Minister would be inclined to suggest that other industries that receive government subsidies should “diversify”. Should the manufacturing sector “diversify” its sources of revenue in order to stay afloat? What fisheries? How about farmers? Better yet, all of these industries could simply cut the wages of their workers and they could keep doing the same amount of work for less money and pick up part-time jobs so that they could afford to live. They government could cut the subsidies that they give to those industries and give the money saved back to taxpayers. Would that be a good idea Honourable Minister?
Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the Minister’s words are about giving the cultural sector guidance on how to survive challenging economic times. I find it impossible to believe that a government that is so focused on saving every penny possible has no idea of the amount of money that the cultural sector is responsible for contributing to the economy or its massive potential for growth. This is about the fact that Conservatives (that’s members of the Conservative Party as well as citizens who subscribe to a Conservative ideology) do not generally like the arts because they are often critical of Conservative values and ideas. Cutting money to arts groups is not about saving cash. It’s about restricting freedom of speech, or more specifically restricting freedom of speech that goes against Conservative values.
Nobody has ever told me that it’s be easy to be an artist or that it’s a good way to make money. I took on this career with full knowledge of all of its challenges and complications and despite having periodic fantasies of giving it up and getting a “real job” as my grandfather is inclined to advise me to do, I believe in the importance of what I do and I want to keep doing it as long as I can. To have a Cabinet Minister imply that those working in my profession are somehow not working hard enough to ensure our financial futures as a guise for telling us that he doesn’t share our politics and therefore doesn’t want to give us money to support those politics is beyond insulting. It goes against everything that Canadians, both Liberals and Conservatives stand for.
Chris Dupuis is a Toronto-based artist and writer. Learn more at www.chrisdupuis.com
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REVIEW: The Silicone Diaries, Review by Aurora Stewart de Peña
The Silicone Diaries
Written by Nina Arsenault
Directed by Brendan Healy
Presented by Buddies in Bad Times at Talullah's Cabaret
November 14-22, 8pm
Tickets: 416-975-8555
www.artsexy.ca
www.ninaarsenault.com
Photo by David Hawe
Nina Arsenault, I think, is 6 foot 2. She has tumbling red hair that tangles above her shoulders, a perfect waspy ski-jump nose and too-green green eyes. The roundest hips, the longest legs, the smallest waist, the thinnest wrists, the fullest breasts. She has had over 60 cosmetic surgeries.
She looks like Jessica Rabbit and I am a little bit afraid of her.
She discusses, in The Silicone Diaries, how she came to be this way; the passion that drove her to create this perfect, surreal, intimidating woman.
This is not necessarily a piece about making the transition from man to woman. Arsenault did make that transition, but this is nothing so elementary. She instead reveals through her impeccably performed monologues that as long as she has known what she thought was beautiful she has sped toward achieving it with athletic focus. It is her obsession.
Of course I'm obsessed with beauty, too. I'm a woman and I live in North America, and in the darkest parts of my heart where I keep the fear that I may be a bad person and all of the vicious things I've ever thought is the belief that my value is equal to my looks, be they good or bad. My brain and my politics would argue, but I have so many nightmares about disfigurement that it's ridiculous to pretend these things don't matter to me.
A sexist society created the idea that though beauty was a requirement for a woman's success, it was a shallow and frivolous thing to pursue. This is a particularly Western shame, and throughout the course of the show Arsenault compares herself to a Geisha, a type of woman she believes is respected for her dedication to beauty at all costs. Here, the men in charge feel a deep guilt for being aroused by beauty in all of its arresting power and not by puritan-valued wifely qualities like compassion, sweetness or warmth.
If this idea is changing, and I believe it is, Arsenault is at the front line. It was wonderful to discover, throughout the course of this remarkable show, that the woman so initially intimidating to me is open, honest, funny and brilliant.
The Silicone Diaries, based on a series of columns Arsenault wrote in Fab Magazine, contains stories that may seem grotesque or frightening to those uninitiated to the pursuit of beauty through plastic. Though I am an enthusiastic visitor to web sites like awfulplasticsurgery.com, I was shocked to learn that silicone would try to seep out through the injection holes by which it found its way in, or that it remained malleable under the flesh for days. There are clinics in Mexico and San Francisco, there is a lover in the shape of Mr. Burns, there is a living anime doll, and there is Nina at the centre of it all in a see-through dress with nothing to hide. The storytelling is vivid and unique. It makes a community of surgery devotees accessible, and though the feeling of the show is intimate (Talullah's Cabaret is small, packed, and there are drinks being served) it is the opposite of confidential. Arsenault is proud of her surgeries, proud of who she is and how she got there.
I had seen a shorter version of the show some years ago at a revue called Avant Vardeville at the Theatre Centre. It was then a frank discussion of the mechanics of her surgeries. I thought it was fascinating, but Arsenault herself is the real attraction. This new version, with its extreme emotional connect, gives the viewer the gift of the performer's humanity. This gift is why we go to the theatre.
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