David's battery opera blog

Dave’s State Funded Artist art symposium.

2009-10-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Why does the state fund the arts? Why does the artist accept the funding? What is the core value of this contract? I have forgotten, or never knew in the first place, but seeing as the democratic ideal of peer jury allocations is being phased out for more reliable corporate models, I think it’s a good time to ask. It’s my impression that art advocates are immersed in language celebrating the bi-products of art as justification for the maintenance of an unexamined system. Things like economic benefit, community animation, social work, the integration of cultural constituents and the parroting of nationalist propaganda obscure our evident ‘sector’ wide shame of the urge to be artists. Maybe this is a particularly English-Speaking-Canadian phenomenon. Maybe it’s fear of our society, our families, ourselves as artists- if we ever get around to making such a claim. To outing ourselves as such. The work we make is intimately tied up with the structures we utilise. As an English-Speaking-Canadian state funded artist I have helped create and continue to support these models, and I am wondering about the effects of shame, fear and gratitude on that relationship and how it affects art. My art.

One bi-product of the recent provincial funding cuts is that I am actually heartened by the discussions I am having about art, with artists, and with my society (that’s all the fucking people, baby!), but I find our institutions, funders, and advocates harder to engage. So, I am going to pursue my own symposium with whomever.

For this symposium to work to my benefit, all you have to do is buy me a drink to tell me how wrong I am.

Here’s a few random topics to start (if you are buying, you can propose your own)

Topic #1
Art is deviant in practice and transient in materialisation.

Topic #2
Art is self-indulgent. Self-indulgence is hard.

Topic #3
Transmission is via the body. From one body to another.

Topic #4
Institutional, administrative, funding, and presenting structures; the primary function of art structures is to normalise art for the comfortable consumption of the bourgeoisie.

Topic #5
Art is something safe for our artistic kids to do with their university degrees, provided by the state and their community with just enough structure and hope to maintain their ignorance in a perpetual state of infantalised careerism.

Topic#6
We are the bourgeoisie. That is the promise of democracy.

Topic #7
David McIntosh is a cynical asshole who should just fuck off and get out of the system.

Bring it on!

Symposium and regret

2009-10-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

My experience of Plato’s Symposium felt like a long night at a socially conservative gay male aesthete bankers’ dinner party. Love, power and passion within a guarded sense of privilege.

Structurally, I like the four or five layers of transference. The accumulated hearsay in relating the ideas others. The crude leaps afforded in such a form.

Here’s my favourite idea, via Diotima, according to Socrates, as related by Aristodemus to Appolodorous, who told an unnamed friend, according to Plato:

“...some one is said to be the same person from childhood till old age. Although he is called the same person, he never has the same constituents, but is always being renewed in some aspects and experiencing loss in others, for instance, his hair, skin, bone, blood and his whole body. This applies not only to the body but also to the mind: attributes, character-traits, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains, fears - none of these ever remain the same in each of us, but some are emerging while others are being lost. Still more remarkable is the fact that our knowledge changes too, some items emerging, while others are lost, so we are not the same person as regards our knowledge; indeed, each individual item of knowledge goes through the same process. What is called studying exists because knowledge goes from us. Forgetting is the departure of knowledge, while study puts back new information in our memory to replace what is lost, and so maintain knowledge so that it seems to be the same.”

I like this because it affords me an opportunity to make my own crude leap of logic: If we are continually renewing and losing our constituent parts, then regretting is a passive aggressive act against our responsibility for the present. When you regret something you did or did not do in the past, you are blaming someone else, your past constituent self, for a state of disaffection you may be experiencing now.

Pour me another one.

Letter from the minister

2009-09-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

(Dear all of you,

If I am whacked tonight by VANOC BLACKOPS, or arts "sector" oligarchs and their henchpeople, please, no violence in reprisals.

What I would like most is that you create or present some awkward unpopular un-entertaining art in my memory.

Love
and fuck you, really

David McIntosh)

Dear David McIntosh:

I write today to address a rumour that is circulating about the BC Arts Council (BCAC). You can be absolutely assured that our government has no plan to abolish or change the mandate of the BCAC in any way. Please consider this letter confirmation that no changes are being considered for the Council.

This government is very pleased and continuously impressed with the work of the BCAC and what the Council delivers for British Columbia’s arts community. We are grateful for their accomplishments, and how they represent you. Funding through the BCAC is being provided in 2009 at a level exceeding last year’s.

I hope this email will relieve any anxieties and eliminate rumours on this issue. Please do not hesitate to contact my office by email to TCA.Minister@gov.bc.ca if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Kevin Krueger
Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts

Dear Kevin Krueger,

I am honoured by your attention, but I simply do not believe you. If the BC Government were to publicly announce that they supported the BC Arts Council and fully endorsed the concept of an arms-length peer-juried arts award system, I would still be dubious. If the BC Government were to back up such words with the allocation of funds for the BC Arts Council to distribute as grants in a line item of taxpayers revenue in their budgets, I would be heartened, but I would wait and see, as obviously action speaks louder than political rhetoric.

I believe in transparency, democracy and honesty. I am not interested in benefiting from behind-the-scenes mechanisms that equate art and communities to capital and constituencies.

This may be inconvenient for me, but until the BCAC is able to write its own cheques to fulfill it's declared mandate I must assume it is not supported by this government.

I would be mad to think otherwise.

Sincerely,

David McIntosh

Yes, I think it is about the Olympics.

2009-09-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

These are hard times for bankers and politicians.

These are hard times, and the arts must take the blame.

In light of the prudent fucking of BC based artists by their just and honest leaders, I suggest it would show great fiscal responsibility if all arts organisations deferred their Vancouver presentation activities scheduled between January 22 and March 21st, 2010. Defer to a time when the global economy picks up and the children are allowed second helpings of gruel. Or until March 22nd.

Yes, I think it is about the Olympics.

The arts and culture "sector" was enlisted to help land this corporate cluster fuck. Now it's here the "sector" is expendable. Why be fearful of offending these people? You can't lose what you never had a chance of getting in the first place. Respect. What's to celebrate in this context? Don't stop making art, but make it on your own terms after Mach 21st.

I know, it's easy for me to say.

I've been planning my escape ever since I spent 3 days at an artist's consult meeting with Vanoc two years ago. Three days with risk averse corporate cluster-fuck operatives and a bunch of depressingly well behaved 'artists' from across Canada. For my troubles I got a severe MRSA staff infection on my face and a major boost to my misanthropic world view.

During the olympics I'll be doing a self-constructed developmental workshop in a totalitarian country in the tropics.

There is no escape.

Self Indulgent Artists

2009-08-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

If you are not indulging your self
you are not working hard
enough.

Your aim
is too low.

commmunity values

2009-08-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

I like this, this Austin William’s critique of the “New New Urbanism” in the TLS.

A critique of the patronising, paternalsitic assumption that “community values could be built into the very fabric of architecture”, so as to create citizens.

“practically all architecture now attempts to force social solidarity into existence and, by definition, condemns those who do not conform”.

This feels familiar.

Legacy

2009-08-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

So

It seems the Cultural Legacy of the Olympics will be a gutted public funding system.

pyre

2009-01-18T16:10:00.001-08:00

I thought I was in the midst of a Pyric victory, but found there is no such word. What I had meant was Pyrrhic. A victory from an ancient war lost. But no, I hadn’t meant that either, as I had no soldiers to burn but myself on a pyre of my own making.
I am smoldering in the night.

Pointless

2009-01-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

...
Verses written when I’m drunk,
Attract no admiration when sung.

What I want to know is did Lu Tsun-i’ s dream at the end of Water Margin indicate an awareness, an acknowledgment, of the spiraling vortex of murder rape and general injustice that the 108 heroes of Liang Shan Po created and gloried in in their pursuit of survival, righteousness and harmony under heaven?

Or is it pointless to even wonder?

Ever.

Shi Naian, you old fucker you.

PRESENTS

2008-12-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

Once again..

Herodotus says that Darius, after chasing the Scythians around the lands north of the Black Sea for weeks to no effect, sent a message to Idanthyrus, the Scythian king.

‘ Why on earth, strange man,’ the message ran, ‘do you keep on running away? You have, surely, a choice of two alternatives: if you think yourself strong enough to oppose me, stand up and fight, instead of wandering all over the world in your efforts to escape me; or if you admit that you are too weak, what is the good, even so, of running away? You should rather send earth and water to your master as a sign of submission, and come to a conference.’

‘Persian,’ Idanthyrus replied, ‘I have never yet run away from any man in fear; and I am not doing so now from you. There is, for me nothing unusual in what I have been doing: it is precisely the sort of life I always lead, even in times of peace... I will send you no gifts of earth and water, but others more suitable..’

The Scythians continued to harass the Persian army at a distance, enticing them ever onwards but never fully engaging them in decisive action. ... a stratagem to keep them longer in the country and reduce them in the end to distress from lack of supplies.
...until at last Darius did not know where to turn, and the Scythians, seeing his acute embarrassment, sent him his promised presents - a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows. The Persians asked the man who brought these things what they signified, but got no reply. The man’s orders - so he said - were merely to deliver them, and to return home as quickly as he could: the Persians themselves, if they were clever, could find out what the presents meant. Thereupon the Persians put their heads together, and Darius expressed the view that the Scythians were giving him earth and water and intended to surrender: mice, he reasoned, live on the ground and eat the same food as men; frogs live in water; birds are much like horses; and the arrows symbolised the Scythian power, which they were giving into his hands. Gobryas, however (one of the seven conspirators who put down the Magus), by no means agreed with him, but interpreted the gifts as saying: ‘Unless you Persians turn into birds and fly up in the air, or into mice and burrow under ground, or into frogs and jump into lakes, you will never get home again, but stay here in this country, only to be shot by the Scythian arrows.'

While the Persians were thus interpreting the gifts...-the Scythians were cutting off their escape and trying to persuade the Greek navy, Persia’s allies at the time, to leave the Danube, taking their bridge with them. Darius eventually figured out this much and was able to escape by the skin of his teeth. Thereafter, he left the Scythians well enough alone.

a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows.
the Persians themselves, if they were clever, could find out what the presents meant.

Art is a gift that fucks with your head.

Decision Making

2008-11-16T17:12:00.000-08:00

Hey fuckers,

I was reading some Herodotus and was struck by his report of decision making as practiced by the "Persians".

H says,

"If an important decision is to be made, they discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk."

Whether or not this was true, I think it' sounds like a fabulous process.

I propose that we should adapt all our juries and think tank exercises to include the above mechanisation! The results could not be any more compromised than they already are, all that sober silence, shrewd ass coverage and friendly empty banter.

Uncork the wine and let the libidinous conversation flow!

... then we can reconsider later...

2008-10-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Now I am an administrator

Over here at the office, there have been a few changes.  I have moved myself from one column to another
and Now I am an administrator.

I used to think there were not enough arts administrators
then I thought there were far too many,
“There is far too much management in the arts - seriously”, I said,
but now that I am an administrator,
my very own personal Sherrie Johnson clone,
I fear I may be too much for myself.

Will I be two times as desperate for validation from an uncaring world?
Will I hate myself for making difficult to explain, hard to sell art?
Things that my mother hates?

Will I start talking about legacies so that I can justify ‘what I do’ with tawdry half-assed structures instead of working under the loathed corpse of the artist who is supposed to be inhabiting my imagined future with Outstanding Extraordinary Excellence?
Let him fuck himself! He is obviously unworthy of my supportive efforts so let’s forget the art and turn our attentions to legacies and the community. Community. You know? The clique. Then I think, “fuck that shit, creativity is it’s own legacy!”.

If I fired the artist, I’d be out of a sector and a job. If the sector vanished, that little fucker artist would still keep making shit.

Now I am an administrator
It’s hard to sleep with myself.

On the street outside the office a group of architects were looking at the architectural panel screens that are being erected on the exterior of the new Woodwards high rise. They are rust red metal and have identical lacy, organic-ish, designs. Like scabs.
I said, “It looks like your building has a sexually transmitted disease.”

It must have picked it up at the olympic corporate cluster fuck.

Hey Everybody! Invite me to your arts administrator/managers meetings!

I’m a barrel of laughs.

I’m changing the office motto to "Do What You Want To Do" .

It may seem less worldly than "BE PATIENT,THE WORLD IS STUPID" (motto#1), or "TAKE RISKS,THE WORLD IS CHANGING" (motto#2)- but it feels right for me, for now.

2008-10-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

2008-06-11T15:10:00.001-07:00

Max and I arrived at the Banff Arts Centre full of optimism and looking forward to delving into a week of creation for Bob's Lounge's new project "Motel" .

We were fortunate enough to meet some other exciting artists performing work at the centre (see below). We felt so proud to be Canadian!
Max immediately got down to work , composing.
We met some old friends at the Art Centre's Cafe, The Pink Taco. Good times!
Then we went down to the basement and shot off some automatic weapons in the Banff Art Centres underground shooting range.
Here's our friend Rosa with an Uzi. And thanks for the photos Rosa!

The centre is quite multicultural these days. You can select any number of race war scenarios to pump your automatic lead into. There were the Asian punks with spiky hair, a Black 'Brotha' in overalls, a White "Man" in a truckers cap, good ol'Osama, some palestinians, a couple Latinos, and some Russian looking guy with a knife to a woman's throat in a subway. That last one was hard to hit without riddling the lady too, but hey collateral damage and art making, they do go hand in hand. Don't they?

Mr MacGoo seems to have a thing for the Latinos.

I jammed out and went for the nonrepresentational target. Must be because of all my time in the 'abstract dance' world. That, and my white sense of privilege!

We spent a good deal of our time (when not working hard on the art making) driving Mr. MacGoo around in a convertible looking for a pair of shorts. His zipper was broken, and what with the largeness of his penis and the still somewhat conservative nature of the work presented in Banff, we all felt a little uneasy.
Fortunately , we were eventually able to find the right strip mall, and no problems arose from this situation.
We also went to the Liberace museum in nearby Jasper. Wow!
You know, the funny thing about being in Alberta is that even though you can drink and whore and gamble at a Provincially tax free rate, it's just not that sexy. I mean, if everyone is sinning or encouraged to sin through the democracies of capitalist strip malls, well, where is the transgression? I hate to be a snob, but it's just so cow like. mooooo... . But anyway, like all the other times I've been to Alberta, I may not have enjoyed it but I sure got a lot of work done. Thanks Banff Art Centre! Keep checking in on the batteryopera website for more updates on "Motel" as it develops!

batteryopera.com/works/bobs-lounge/
Love, David.

Max had bit of a problem with the security at the border, and had to stay an extra day.

2008-01-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes,

I hate going to festivals in which I feel I have stakes in the art form being canibalised. Festivites swarming over the poorly, skinny carcasses of art, like treasure-seeking maggots. “Where’s the Zeitgeist!” Desperately burrowing through the competing comestibles. Craving sustenance that might staunch the hollow feeling we’ve had since losing our belief in the validity of the form, or perhaps the lifestyle, we’ve found ourselves, at this late stage of our lives, entombed in. The sensation that if a savior doesn’t arise to elevate the whole vessel of the form, slowly sinking on the indifferent wash of the larger cultural miasma, it might be time to gnaw off a limb or two of our own and get the hell out, or at least to an upper deck, become a presenter, an agent, an officer. The panic. The shitty feeling of never being “the one”. The gluttony and disgust with myself and all my wee people. Wee the petit petit bourgeoisie of Arty town.

I just find the context of festivals to be not amenable to the experience of engaging with an art.

If it’s a party we want, that would be one thing, but to ask a form and a “community” to support a presenter’s party, seems a little screwy to me. If your cock is that big, just it lay out on the table and celebrate! Why the communal vortex? All those pricks muddying the water. And vaginas too, I just can’t find an image at the moment- I’ve been sick you see.

One show at a time. What’s wrong with that? You want it? Back it.

I go to festivals.
O.K.
I’ve seen good work at festivals.
I am dependent upon festivals, to a large degree, to get gigs.
I want gigs, but I don’t think festivals are good for art.

Heritage tells me they are good for building communities. Don’t we inevitably live in community? Who the fuck do we think we are? Building a community. What a lot of gall to digest.

What are we trying to build with an arts festival?

A context for the work?

Which work?

I’ve heard we need festivals to present edgier “work”, to create an environment where the interface with this sort of edgy art thing is made little less…. edgy. Safe and enjoyable for the masses and masses of rich and supportive people who will come to a festival and then be converted into enlightened art patrons. Attending all my shows from then on! Oh, poppycock! Edgy festivals present entertainingly audience friendly edginess… all fun and avant-, in it’s packaging, but not difficult, cause that might ruin the new golden age of community for us all.

That’s so depressing- pardon the art everybody- we don’t believe in it either…..but isn’t this, this festival thing, cool.

It sure seems to make all the shareholders happy. The sponsors, the governments, the presenters, the big agents, the mini movers and shakers, (we get out our martini shakers – you bet!), the administrators, and the fabulous audiences, all commended over and over again for making it all happen. It’s fabulous, but what’s missing?

Oh, the art.

Crap.

I’m too sick to pretend I know a better way. But something feels hollow.

Yours truly

DMc

p.s. of course I don't mean you, or your festival.

What it's really like at the office...

2007-10-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

We've recently engaged Amy Pelletier to be our new Communications and Administrative Assistant, Joyce Rosario having left us to become empress of her own office at "Made in BC". During the process of moving on I thought it best to issue a disclosure of sorts to prospective colleagues. I share with all, in the hopes that through honesty, we can make the world better. For me, anyway.

DMc

We would like to interview you for the position of Communications and Production Assistant that you applied for. In the interests of full disclosure, please read the info below. Having done so, you may find that you are no longer interested in applying for this position. If that is the case I thank you for your efforts in applying and wish you luck.

Allright then, I will begin:
The Office is small. Just Su-Feh and I, and you. Su-Feh and I both use a lot of profanity in our daily inter-personal communications. “Fuck” is ubiquitous, and “cunt” is not uncommon. When discussing mid and long term planning, shouting can occur between us. Argumentative and offensive shorthand are sometimes employed to speed resolutions. Although our belief in love and the spiritual wonder of existence is strong, we often find ourselves audibly despising the human sphere and the stupid, stupid people in it. Su-Feh comes from Hokkien pirate whores and fishermen and I from dissolute colonial enforcers and misanthropes who ran out of road. Our World-view is so affected. I often exaggerate.

As a Communications and Production assistant you may have to navigate conflicting agendas. Such as:

I despise the idea of a cultural Olympics. What art associated with Olympics past can you remember? For me only two come to mind. The one where Philippe Decouflé did some cute shit with people in eggs on a ski run, and I was nonplussed as to what Su-Feh actually saw in him – his cute ass I suspect. The other would be the one with Hitler and Leni Refeinstal. So, I conclude that all Olympic connected art events and “show cases” will be ART ABATTOIRS whose only goal is to destroy individuality and discourse to salve the insecurities of the majority of idiots who call this vain little hidy-hole of a city home (Vancouver, I mean). Now couple my beliefs with the fact that the funding we need for our projects has been entangled into the Olympic machine, and that we believe it is our job as artist to initiate coherent dialogue about issues, and you have a complex task at hand. How and where can the dialogue be best initiated, in ways that people will actually engage in it, and how can we secure funding in ways that doesn’t make us hate ourselves?

Lastly,
I am a terrible boss. Therefore I do not want an employee. I want someone who can use the company structure to further their own goals in a way that is also of benefit to the company. We offer a fee for an artist- not a salary for an employee. Part of being an artist is making sure that certain structural tasks are done to maintain the non profit company infrastructure. How you use that structure as an artist is up to you.

At our interview, I will ask you what you want to achieve over the next three years, and how working with battery opera is connected to this.

Thanks,
I look forward to meeting you
David McIntosh

Su-Feh's Seattle Review

2007-08-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Last week, Su-Feh taught her class, Unifying Body, Breath & Imagination, at the Seattle Festival of Alternative Dance & Improvisation (SFADI).

She also performed an excerpt of her new solo, The Whole Beast, and here's what Sandra Kurtz at the Seattle Weekly had to say:

"Lee Su-Feh, in an exquisite excerpt from her solo, The Whole Beast, tackled multiple issues of meaning and translation, cultural displacement, the relationship between practice and skill, and the economic uncertainty of a dance career, all the time linking these ideas to dancing. As she slid through a long sequence of poses that seemed to combine martial arts and ballet, she murmured simple greetings in French and English. As her tempo increased, the words fractured into syllables and the shapes became erratic until the increased tension and density exploded with a "Fuck!" This led to a discussion of translation (she needed to know the French equivalent of "fuck" for an upcoming performance in France); she batted the options back and forth, like a solo game of Ping-Pong, which in turn morphed into a lament over the high cost of physical therapy and the ironic disconnect between the freedom of dancing and its physical toll ("Joy is the source of all my pain"). Su-Feh is small and fierce, and though it wasn't clear on a single viewing how much of her work was set and how much improvised, she was clearly in charge of the entirety, and of us, as we were swept up in her stories."

Su-Feh and Leaky Heaven Circus

2007-05-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken with a mobile phone camera at the Vancouver Art Gallery's April FUSE event. Su-Feh performed with James Long, Billy Marchensi and Tanya Podlozniuk in a 3 hour durational piece directed by Stephen Hill.

Bob's Lounge will be performing at the next all-nighter FUSE coming up in June.

2007-04-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

battery opera celebrates international dance day

2007-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

International Dance Day is April 29th, and in celebration, The Dance Centre, is organising a weekend packed with events.

Many dance artists, groups and organisations will be participating. Here's what we'll be up to.

What The Hell...?
April 27-29, various times & locations around the downtown core
FREE
battery opera will be instigating dance encounters small and large – puzzles, amusements and celebrations that sneak up and sprout up on street corners around downtown.

Bob's Lounge
April 28, Café Montmartre (Main St @ 28th Ave)
No cover, no regrets.
This edition features: David McIntosh (vocals) and Max Murphy (saxophone), Finn Maniche (cello) & Ben Brown (percussion).
With special guest artists: Adrienne Wong, Sasa Brown & Amber Funk Barton.

masters thesis

2007-03-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

battery opera is one of the subjects of MA candidate Anna Griffith at York University. She has set up an online forum about [storm] here.

...more reviews!

2007-03-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Bad reviews are often good reads. This one, from Victoria's Times Colonist is almost better than a rave, it entices you to check it out for yourself, despite the reviewer's dislike.

We also meant to post this one from The Toronto Star, an interesting take on opera as a form and battery opera's contribution to its evolution.

David's appeal*

2007-03-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Dear fuckers,

I write in humble supplication. Gone is the cockiness of the past that persuaded me that sending pictures of Jay Hirabiyashi’s penis as support material to provincial funding juries was a good idea, as is my habit of referring to my cherished peers and benefactors as fuckers, with all the endearment that that implies. I write now, to let you know of our subsequent and crucial need for box office returns at our upcoming Vancouver shows of [storm]!

Save my ass. Buy a ticket. See a fantasic show -“manly”, “compelling and disturbing dance theatre indeed” as the Globe says, or how about “a worthy fresh-thinking attempt to reach the ideal of opera that has eluded us for hundreds of years” as the Toronto Star would have it.

Buy a ticket, save my ass, See a great show, and the first beer is on us.

To see More of Jay Hirabiyashi’s penis, go here.

Love,

David McIntosh
artistic producer

*This is the original unedited version of David's appeal. An edited version (that wouldn't be flagged as spam) was sent to our mailing list.

...[storm] in Peterborough...

2007-03-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

...and what a storm it was! -30 degree conditions had the company cooped up in their hotel rooms all day, but by night? These photos say it all...

Photos taken by battery opera during a Bob's Lounge gig at the Montreal Tavern in Peterborough, ON.

[storm] in Victoria

2007-03-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last night [storm] opened at the beautiful Belfry Theatre.

We inserted audience feedback sheets into the program, and here's a selection of what people had to say:

-"Amazing, my favourite so far this year at the Belfry. Definitely coming to a second show...."

-"The dancers were nothing short of brilliant!"

-"...I felt like jumping up and cheering!...

-"I could watch this for hours...Best performance I've seen in years!"

-"Wonderful flow of form in the dance...I loved the experience of watching! The lighting was great and created the space for the work. FAR FUCKING OUT! Congrats to ALL."

What a great beginning to our Victoria run! And there's still 4 nights to come...

Thanks to everyone who came out last night, to Stephen White and Dance Victoria for (once again!) being great hosts, and to Mary Desprez and the Belfry crew for such a warm welcome to the theatre!

Peterborough trailer

2007-03-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

Peterborough is stop #2 for battery opera's tour of [storm]. Performances are at the Market Hall Theatre tonight and tomorrow night, presented by Peterborough New Dance.

Click here to view a trailer of [storm] that they created to promote the show.

Thanks Paula!

2007-03-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

Toronto was battery opera's first stop on the Canadian tour of [storm]. Performances were last Friday and Saturday at The Great Hall (Downstairs) presented in association with The Theatre Centre.

We were reviewed by Paula Citron, originally printed yesterday in The Globe and Mail. We would've linked to the article, but you'd need to subscribe to their site to get it. So here it is in its entirety:

Virile, manly men, bringing on storms

Vancouver-based battery opera is one of the most innovative dance theatre companies in Canada. The brainchild of the husband-and-wife team of composer/theatre artist David McIntosh and choreographer Lee Su-Feh, it generally follows a pattern of locking onto a simple theme, and then allowing their immense imagination to riff off into tangents that explore that theme from many different angles. En route, the audience is treated to a fascinating episodic journey that fuses dance, text and music in cunning ways.

The group’s new piece, [storm] certainly lives up to expectations. Its epicentre is the idea of how boys become men, with side trips into relationships between fathers and sons, and how shared history impacts on generations.

The philosophical implications are played out in pivotal ideas like machismo, bravado and competitiveness, not to mention cruelty and violence.

At the heart of [storm] is the metaphor of sailors and the sea, because what could be more manly than those hard-drinking, hard-living, hard-loving men who battle the waves? A corollary symbol is given over to the archetype of Ulysses and his men, particularly their encounter with the one-eyed Cyclops, which [storm] portrays as a father figure.

The all-male cast has shaved heads, reducing the body to its basic element of the flesh.

In simple costumes of shirts and pants, dancers Ron Stewart and Yannick Matthon, singer/speaker McIntosh and musician Max Murphy enact scenes of movement and dialogue that continually point to the vulnerability that lies beneath a sailor’s swagger.

Lee’s choreography is inspired by martial arts, with the men displaying stunning physicality that fills the stage.

Big, sweeping movement show the expanse of manly strength and male virility that suddenly crumbles into fetal positions or crushed bodies.

Each time the mood threatens to become maudlin or tender, McIntosh breaks into a lively sea shanty, accompanied by Murphy’s saxophone, that reintroduces the veneer of carousing sailors bent on mayhem.

Perhaps the most chilling moment is each of the four men recounting stories of supposed fathers and grandfathers who were the epitome of abuse and neglect. In each tale, women and children are the victims.

The unspoken thought is: What do these damaged men grow up to be?

Lee’s chorography would seem to indicate that they want to sever all the ties with their past but are caught in the death throes of an umbilical cord of quintessential masculinity that cannot be broken. In one brilliant sequence of intense physicality, Stewart and Matthon are tied together by arms and legs, rolling and tossing until it is almost impossible to tell which limb belongs to which man. The final moment of this episode is Stewart swaying back and forth like a Jack-in-the-box with Matthon wrapped around his feet.

Over all, the picture of man and manhood that battery opera paints is a bleak one, almost a cautionary tale that symbolizes man’s continued stumble into war and disaster. At the end, Matthon, the one man standing, adopts the jaunty air of the survivor, putting on the good face and not admitting defeat. One can only wish that he also represents hope.

Like all battery opera productions, one comes away with more questions than answers. This is compelling but disturbing dance theatre indeed.