Animals of Distinction: Heart As Arena

My pal Dana Gingras has been working on a new piece called Heart As Arena. I was lucky enough to live above the dance studio she and the dancers were working in. That was only a year and half ago, but it seems longer.

Sometimes the world lines up and sends me to places I should be. Last time this happened I wound up in Berlin and meeting the love of my life, this time I am headed to Vancouver at the beginning of October to see my oldest friend before he leaves town and catch the premier of this piece at the VECC on October 4th.

Most of my life in Montreal has dissolved. This piece feels like a time capsule for me, a small part that left the party before the cops showed up. Or maybe just it was a faultless time traveller that gave me a little glimpse of the life I would lead now.

I'm really proud of my friend and look forward to this, like everything I have ever seen by her, completely altering my own practice.

Video by Yannick Grandmont

Heart As Arena from Dana Gingras on Vimeo.

Non-Specific Terror and Dancin'

I went last night to see Animals of Distinctions' "Smash Up" with Justin Evans at the Monument National.
It was very strange to sit in a theater with other people to watch this. I realized that nearly all of my experience of dance, save a few grinning-10-year-olds-performing-ballet recitals of my sister's, was from video. Like the one above. Where camera angles and editing really dictate duration, and narrative. Much like seeing a painting in person instead of in photograph, or actually being stuck on a Survivor-type desert island, this performance was so heavy and sweaty and disorienting.
I was terrified all through the first piece. Not for the performers or because it was scary, but non specific terror. Not horror, mind you, but terror. I couldn't tell what was happening or what was going to happen. Hell. I wasn't even sure what I was seeing.
Painting so often feels like maintaining some very delicate balance between all kinds of things you want to balance like composition, colour, texture, form along with all kinds of things that you might not, like cliches, the medium's history, trends, and your own temporary desires to not be making what you are, or to not continue. It is such a delicate, razor's edge final balance that I want to squeeze my eyes tight and hold still while I find the extremes on either side. Watching the performance last night was like watching that balance be maintained in front of me. How harrowing.
I'm a little bashful about being so wide-eyed, but holy shit Dana Gingras is one of my favourite artists. She totally wrecked my cool, leaving me yammering on about how I felt. Yikes.
This is leaving out the computer-animation stuff by James Paterson and Amit Pitaru that knocked my head off, and music direction by Roger Tellier-Craig.