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...

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

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

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.

battery opera celebrates international dance day

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

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.