HR Giger

Here are some links to the HR Giger Websites:

http://www.hrgiger.com/frame.htm

This website contains a biography, images of some of his furniture and jewelery, images of Giger bars, exhibitions and past productions in film and theatre.

http://www.hrgigermuseum.com/index1.php?winH=380&winW=760

This is the website for the Giger museum. It has a virtual tour of the museum, links to short movies and films Giger has contributed to.

http://www.littlegiger.com/

Last but not least this is a website that contains a database of all Gigers art work. You can search the database by typing in key words such as 'alien' and scroll through all art that contains that word. The search engine will bring up a photo of the art along with its name.

The Many Faces of Michael

Here are some photos of Michael Jackson and his many facial modifications. He took plastic surgery to a new level.

Souvenirs from the Sun?

Here are some pictures of sun burns, tan lines and spray tans gone wrong. Talk about skin damage! And for those who use the alternate spray tan route..... the orange carrot glow from the skin speaks for itself!

Feydeau Approaches

Here are some design approaches to Feydeau's plays:

Above: Le mariage de Barillon
Set design: Godefroy Ségal
http://marne-et-gondoire.evous.fr/Le-mariage-de-Barillon,521.html?id_document=133#documents_portfolio

Above : From Le Dame de Chez Maxime
Set Design: Jean-François Sivadier
http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/scene/theatre/le-retour-en-grace-des-vaudevilles-de-feydeau_764898.html

Above: From Happy Yet? at the Gate Theatre London

Refered to as a Goldfish bowl

http://www.naomiwilkinson.com/happyyet.html

Above: From Les Fiances de Loches at the Arene Theatre

Set design by: Eric Sanjou

http://www.arenetheatre.fr/feydeau.html

Armfeldt and Her Face . . .

Kathryn Helmond in Brazil

Jocelyn Wildenstein

. . . . Holy crap! This is what happens when you get obsessed with plastic surgery. A wealthy socialite from Switzerland, Jocelyn is actually a celeb for being so ugly. Her extreme appearance has led to the press giving her the nickname "The Bride of Wildenstein," a reference to The Bride of Frankenstein. Wildenstein has allegedly spent almost US$4,000,000 on cosmetic surgery over the years, all payed by her husband, the billionaire international art dealer Alec Wildenstein. . . .

. . .which makes me think of Alfredo Arias and his creation of the Madame (of many pieces) for the production of Jean Genet's Les Bonnes at CDDB - THÉÂTRE DE LORIENT, Centre Dramatique National (France) in 2000 and seen at Espace Go in 2001 (Montreal)

thinking lobbies and smoke and mirrors . .

1967

1938

Chrysler Imperial

"Cremaster 3 directly references all five films in the cycle in a number of scenes: the demolition derby (each car represents a different film), the harness race (each team wears silks bearing the logo of a different installment), the Order (each level of the Guggenheim Museum presents a challenge related to a different Cremaster film), and the closing scene atop the Chrysler Building (the Architecht holds five bouquets, whose flowers symbolically refer to the five films)."

from:http://avaxhome.ws/video/genre/art_house/Crem_3.html

from Cremaster 3

Armfeldt and Her Legs

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onwards to . . .

. . . epilation gone wrong?

. . . from Strutt, 2008 NAC, St. Catharines

The Lady with the Glass Legs

The Cremaster Cycle is a five-part art installation by Matthew Barney. In the 3rd part there is a video with a women who dances around with glass legs. The video takes place in the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The video attached is of the portion of the film with the Lady with the Glass Legs:

notes from Gini

. . . I just wanted to remind you I want to hang onto that stillness/movement contrast(Marienbad). I am particularly struck by the sense that each character is very isolated much of the time in the first act. But then even in the big scenes, there is is this splendid isolation. For example, in the endless frenzy of Weekend in the Country, Henrik has this wonderful solo moment. Anyway, I do want to retain the ability to isolate people abruptly - or to take the audience attention to a non-central moment. I suspect I am talking spotlight... But also a bigger design/action idea.

Am also pursuing the endless coupling and decoupling and recoupling AND the intriguing 3-somes (see No. 8b: Mrs. S, Mr. E & Mrs. A). Those 2's and 3's recur.

Terrore Nello Spazio

The Wooster Group used the italian sci-fi movie Terrore Nello Spazio (1965) combined with Cavelli's opera Didone in their performance of La Didone.

The movie is about two space ships that are sent to investigate the planet of Aura. One of the ships crashes and the crew of the other ship end attacking eachother. The discover a bodiless alien race that are trying to escape their grasps of their dying planet.

There is an extensive synopsis on the Internet Movie Database:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059792/synopsis

There are also youtube videos of the actual movie the first one is a trailer:



The second is a clip of when two characters get trapped in a spaceship:

Grand Hotel

Here is a clip from the movie Grand Hotel (1932) directed by Edmund Goulding. The hotel lobby can be seen at 4 minutes and 29 seconds into the video. And there is also an interesting aerial view looking down onto the round lobby at 4 minutes and 35 seconds.

The entire movie is on youtube in 11 parts this is part 1 of 11

notes from Toronto

lobby of delta chelsea, Toronto
corridors everywhere

rules and regs about desks, counters, service points
see movie Grand Hotel

formal garden Marienbad (see pic in NY Times)

recreate alleys and routes of commission & exchange
tall glazed surfaces to corridor walls

'Don't let the mundane distract you from the artistic and creative'

Land of the Dead

George A. Romeros directed films about zombies taking over the world, the first movie produced was called Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead then Day of the Dead and lastly Land of the Dead.

Land of the Dead is his most recent film the plot is:

In a near future, the zombies are all around the world, and the human society is restructured and adapted for the new reality. In a protected city ruled by the powerful Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the upper class has the usual privileges living in a fancy well-supplied building, while the poor people lives on the streets. Riley (Simon Baker) and Cholo (John Leguizamo) belong to a team that bring supplies (food, medicine etc.) to the city using a heavy truck called Dead Reckoning and designed by Riley. When Cholo is betrayed by Kaufman, he steals the Dead Reckoning and threatens Kaufman, who requests Riley to retrieve the vehicle, with the support of his friend Charlie (Robert Joy) and Slack (Asia Argento). But the dead are smarter and organized under the leadership of Big Daddy (Eugene Clark).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418819/plotsummary

Here is a movie trailer from Land of the Dead, its jam packed with flesh eatting zombies:

Mulholland Drive

The movie Mulholland Drive directed by David Lynch takes the form of a sort of fever dream.

Here is the movie synopsis:

After a brutal car accident in Los Angeles, California, Rita is the sole survivor but suffers mass amnesia. Wandering into a strangers apartment downtown, her story strangely intertwines with Betty Elms, a perky young woman in search of stardom. However, Betty is intrigued by Rita's situation and is willing to put aside her dreams to pursue this mystery. The two women soon discover that nothing is as it seems in the city of dreams

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/plotsummary

The part where the fever dream comes in is when she wakes up while in the middle of pursuing this mystery and realizes that it was all a dream, and she is not the perky young women she was in the dream she is love sick and desperate to get the attention of a women she loves. Struck with jealousy after discovering the women she is in love with is engaged she hires a hit man to kill this women and all the pieces from the dream fall into their proper place.

Here is a trailer from the movie:

"La Didone" The Wooster Group

The Wooster group put on a production called La Didone at the St. Anne's Warehouse which turned out to be an interesting theatrical mix. Most critics boast about the production it was first performed in St. Anne's Warehouse in New York but can now be seen at RedCat in LA. On the Wooster groups website they describe it as:

"In The Wooster Group's production of LA DIDONE, Francesco Cavalli's opera, with libretto by Francesco Busenello, (1641) and Mario Bava's cult movie Terrore nello spazio (1965) collide in a war-like symbiosis, dropping Aeneas' ships onto a forbidding planetary landscape and forming a synergy between early baroque opera and pre-moonlanding sci-fi."

The website also shows a short video of the production and lists reviews they have received:
http://www.thewoostergroup.org/twg/projects/didone.html

This is one of the only critical reviews i have read this far, some of the quams people have is the off ballance instruments compared to the singing on the stage. Here is the review:

http://gothamist.com/2009/04/12/opinionist_la_didone.php

Re-membering the Waltz

In the article Remembering and re-membering: Sondheim, the waltz, and A Little Night Music, Steve Swayne notes some interesting points about how the waltz is presented in the performance and brings to surface some assumptions and misinterpretations that are made about A Little Night Music. Here are some excerpts from the article that might be of interest:

"George Benjamin wrote that Ravel's La Valse 'plots the birth, decay and destruction of a musical genre: the waltz' (Benjamin 1994:432). In a similar fashion, Sondheim deconstructed the waltz, as his mature musicals demonstrate. This is the second reason Sondheim stands at some remove from the Broadway waltz tradition expression of love. Sonfheim, like Ravel, rearranged the meaning of the waltz; he re-membered it."

"...There is no togetherness when the waltz sounds in Night Music. Instead, with every waltz there is another partner waiting, with couples being shuffled like a deck of cards the musical's creators originally imagined. Throughout Night Music, the sound of the waltz signals the decoupling of the 'proper' couples, which is the overarching dramaturgical trajectory for Night Music. When the waltz occurs, someone is either contemplating - or in the process of - leaving someone for someone else. By the evenings end, all of the original couples have engaged in re-membering, an act always accompanied by the waltz."

"Sondheim spoke about how he wanted the score to be perceived rather than how it is actually constructed. Of greater interest to him was the idea of organization by triple time rather than of the waltz or of three-quarter time as the principle musical features. The score 'vaguely' resembles a long waltz, but with his admission of 'scherzi' as a part of the mix, Sondheim also acknowledges that Night Music, for all of its triple-time pretentions, is in actuality not a long waltz."

"A second stream of criticism recognizes that not all of the music in Night Music can be construed as a waltz. Whole on the surface this stance appears closer to accepting Sondheim's clinical description of 'multiples of three', it errs in not hearing these various non-waltzes as independent dances with their own distinct histories. Instead it makes the historical and musical mistake of reducing all of these various non-waltzes as independent dances to the lowest common denominator..."

"...In moving away from traditional understandings of the waltz and in redefining its meaning, Sondheim has broken triple time open for new uses. And while he may have a few precedents for his unique way of slewing the waltz, others before him rethought the dance...."

Remembering and re-membering: Sondheim, the waltz, and "A Little Night Music"
Author(s): Steve Swayne Dartmouth College
Source: Studies in Musical Theatre. Volume 1 Number 3, 2007. (p. 259-273).
Published by: Intellect Ltd.
IncStable URL: https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals.php?issn=17503159

bODY_rEMIX: A Ballet with Prosthetics, Harnesses and Much Much More

This work by Marie Chouinard is a ballet in two acts, it is present on her website (http://www.mariechouinard.com/flash.html). This website also gives a list of other works and some videos of the performances. In this particular performance: bODY_rEMIX/ gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS, they use various objects as an extension of the body which allow:

“This use of accessories gives rise to unusual bodily shapes and gestural dynamics and opens onto a universe of meticulous and playful explorations in which solos, duos, trios and group work, in their labour, pleasure and invention, echo the human condition.”

This video is being posted as a response to the challenges being put forth regards to the music and dance components in our production of LNM.



For more information on Chouinard's work visit her website at: http://www.mariechouinard.com

The "indecent' Waltz

On the centralhome.com website they have some valuable information about the waltz detailing what it is, a short history and some of the scandal behind it.

"Waltz: from the old German word walzen to roll, turn, or to glide.

Waltz: a ballroom dance in 3/4 time with strong accent on the first beat and a basic pattern of

step-step-close.

Waltz: to move or glide in a lively or conspicuous manner (to advance easily and successfully).

Waltz: a dance born in the suburbs of Vienna and in the alpine region of Austria. As early as the seventeenth century, waltzes were played in the ballrooms of the Hapsburg court. The weller, or turning dances, were danced by peasants in Austria and Bavaria even before that time. Many of the familiar waltz tunes can be traced back to simple peasant yodeling melodies.
During the middle of the eighteenth century, the allemande form of the waltz was very popular in France. Originally danced as one of the figures in the contredanse, with arms intertwining at shoulder level, it soon became an independent dance and the close-hold was introduced. By the end of the eighteenth century, this old Austrian peasant dance had been accepted by high society, and three-quarter rhythm was here to stay.

However popular the waltz, opposition was not lacking. Dancing masters saw the waltz as a threat to the profession. The basic steps of the waltz could be learned in relatively short time, whereas, the minuet and other court dances required considerable practice, not only to learn the many complex figures, but also to develop suitable postures and deportment..."

The waltz was seen as "indecent" and the New York Times remarked in July 1816:

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion." (Source: The Times of London, 16th July 1816)

For more information see: http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/waltz.htm

two recent shows: an argument for simplicity

from the The Festival TransAmériques, Montréal, v. 2009

STUDIES IN MOTION [THE HAUNTINGS OF EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE]
ELECTRIC COMPANY THEATRE, VANCOUVER
http://www.fta.qc.ca/en/studies-motion-hauntings-eadweard-muybridge



BODY-SCAN
PAR B.L.EUX, MONTRÉAL
http://www.fta.qc.ca/en/body-scan