Compagnie Marie Chouinard
Last night, we saw Compagnie Marie Chouinard for the second time. I've been a fan for close to five years now, I think. I was so excited three weeks ago when I opened their newsletter and saw on their tour schedule that they'd be in "Middletown" and I thought -- wait, Middletown, as in Middletown, Connecticut?!? Sure enough, they were performing at Wesleyan for two days AND even better, it would be over the weekend that Christian was visiting. They do not tour around that much, and to seemingly random places, so it's not often they come within 300 miles of us. So we bought tickets right away, getting the close to the center of row G (so close! Gasp!). The day of the performance, we convinced friends of Christian's from Haskins to join us, and they got row M and P tickets.
Now, I admit I was a little hesitant about the performance. I love, love their Body Remix: Goldberg Variations, but they rarely perform this piece now. We saw them for the first time in Burlington, Vermont in March 2013, where they performed Prelude to a Faun and The Rite of Spring. I expected something similar to Nijinsky's choreography, but it was quite different and for the most part, a little disappointing. The music was a bit jarring as well.
But these were two different pieces, so I was hoping for a more positive experience. And it was! The first piece was their newest, Gymnopedies, a piece that's both playful (clowns, people hiding under sheets) and serious (heartbreak, sexual attraction). The dancing here was great, as was the complete feel of throwing everything in, including the kitchen sink. The format allowed for wild structure amid the chaos. The piece "ended" multiple times, only to find some way to continue. They also had two unexpected moments of audience participation. In the first, two of the clowns wandered off stage and they stood at the end of our row, staring at the audience and pointing, as if they just noticed the other people watching them. They then decided, infant-like, to imitate all us people and walked into the rows to sit down and spectate. Now, our row, for some reason was entirely empty to the left of us. That was about 12-15 seats empty in a prime row, yet in other rows, some of those seats were taken. So in hindsight, I'm wondering if those seats were intentionally blocked off. Because, of course, which row do these clowns decided to walk down, but ours. They came right up next to us and then tried to sit down in the seats directly next to us. But that didn't feel right, so they indicated they wanted to move further down the row. I pulled my body back to make some space for them to pass by, and the female dancer started to walk by and then abruptly sat in my lap. And she just kept playing the clown, looking around wide-eyed, like "Am I doing this right? Is this what the audience is supposed to do?" I was laughing the whole time and then the male dancer walked over and sat down in Christian's lap! So, now I can say Carol Prieur sat in my lap and Mariusz Ostrowski sat in Christian's. The piece had a second bit of audience participation, where young lovers ran through the audience, pausing to make love loudly against the pillars and walls. At one point, they spilled into the row and gyrated on top of an old couple. It was just so crazy and fun. The whole piece was great -- interesting use of piano (the dancers had to learn how to play portions of the song) and wonderful choreography. I especially loved this beautiful duet, where one of the shorter men danced with Valeria Gallucio, who must be around 6'4". First, there was the contrast in size, but second, she would just lift up those incredibly long legs and thrust them out from between their bodies like this jabbing spear. It was stupendous watching these enormous limbs disappear and reappear.
The second piece, Henri Michaux: Mouvements, involves the dancers, dressed in black on a white stage and background, interpreting the ink squiggles of an art book designed by Henri Michaux. The concept seemed limited, because after a while, you're just assessing whether the interpretation comes close or not. But the piece picks up pace as the dancers cycle through solo interpretations and eventually we start getting all these group interpretations, where complicated squiggles or even whole pages of squiggles take life at the same time. This had a great sense of random atom movements suddenly locking in place in a stable structure. The finale of this piece involved this intense strobe-light dance that really packed a wallop. I was VERY pleased with the evening.
We stayed afterward for a Q and A with two dancers, James Viveiros and Megan Walbaum. Then there was a reception with pastries and coffee hosted by the Quebec Cultural Center branch in Boston. A couple dancers came out, but they talked with the woman from the Cultural Center and the local host, so we didn't get a chance to chitchat. But really, unexpected lapdance > chitchat.
Now, I admit I was a little hesitant about the performance. I love, love their Body Remix: Goldberg Variations, but they rarely perform this piece now. We saw them for the first time in Burlington, Vermont in March 2013, where they performed Prelude to a Faun and The Rite of Spring. I expected something similar to Nijinsky's choreography, but it was quite different and for the most part, a little disappointing. The music was a bit jarring as well.
But these were two different pieces, so I was hoping for a more positive experience. And it was! The first piece was their newest, Gymnopedies, a piece that's both playful (clowns, people hiding under sheets) and serious (heartbreak, sexual attraction). The dancing here was great, as was the complete feel of throwing everything in, including the kitchen sink. The format allowed for wild structure amid the chaos. The piece "ended" multiple times, only to find some way to continue. They also had two unexpected moments of audience participation. In the first, two of the clowns wandered off stage and they stood at the end of our row, staring at the audience and pointing, as if they just noticed the other people watching them. They then decided, infant-like, to imitate all us people and walked into the rows to sit down and spectate. Now, our row, for some reason was entirely empty to the left of us. That was about 12-15 seats empty in a prime row, yet in other rows, some of those seats were taken. So in hindsight, I'm wondering if those seats were intentionally blocked off. Because, of course, which row do these clowns decided to walk down, but ours. They came right up next to us and then tried to sit down in the seats directly next to us. But that didn't feel right, so they indicated they wanted to move further down the row. I pulled my body back to make some space for them to pass by, and the female dancer started to walk by and then abruptly sat in my lap. And she just kept playing the clown, looking around wide-eyed, like "Am I doing this right? Is this what the audience is supposed to do?" I was laughing the whole time and then the male dancer walked over and sat down in Christian's lap! So, now I can say Carol Prieur sat in my lap and Mariusz Ostrowski sat in Christian's. The piece had a second bit of audience participation, where young lovers ran through the audience, pausing to make love loudly against the pillars and walls. At one point, they spilled into the row and gyrated on top of an old couple. It was just so crazy and fun. The whole piece was great -- interesting use of piano (the dancers had to learn how to play portions of the song) and wonderful choreography. I especially loved this beautiful duet, where one of the shorter men danced with Valeria Gallucio, who must be around 6'4". First, there was the contrast in size, but second, she would just lift up those incredibly long legs and thrust them out from between their bodies like this jabbing spear. It was stupendous watching these enormous limbs disappear and reappear.
The second piece, Henri Michaux: Mouvements, involves the dancers, dressed in black on a white stage and background, interpreting the ink squiggles of an art book designed by Henri Michaux. The concept seemed limited, because after a while, you're just assessing whether the interpretation comes close or not. But the piece picks up pace as the dancers cycle through solo interpretations and eventually we start getting all these group interpretations, where complicated squiggles or even whole pages of squiggles take life at the same time. This had a great sense of random atom movements suddenly locking in place in a stable structure. The finale of this piece involved this intense strobe-light dance that really packed a wallop. I was VERY pleased with the evening.
We stayed afterward for a Q and A with two dancers, James Viveiros and Megan Walbaum. Then there was a reception with pastries and coffee hosted by the Quebec Cultural Center branch in Boston. A couple dancers came out, but they talked with the woman from the Cultural Center and the local host, so we didn't get a chance to chitchat. But really, unexpected lapdance > chitchat.