HAIR SALONS ARE A PLACE OF RITUAL, a space in which patrons pass the time inside a neat bubble of hairspray and hot rollers. When their hooded hair dryers lower and plastic face guards click into place, the ladies resemble astronauts with tin foil antennae, ready for lift off into another realm. There’s certainly something otherworldly about Salon Chanelle, the focal locale of dance production Çaturn playing at Usine C this week, because it exists only on film. Complimenting the techni-coloured helmet heads onscreen is a collection of equally impressive wigs worn onstage by dancers Naomi Stikeman (who is also artistic director, producer, and writer) and Peter Chu. Their movements take a more abstract approach to the film’s themes of life, death, and transformation, while their hairdos loosely intertwine with the narrative.
Chanelle (played by Frédérike Bédard), the namesake proprietor of the salon, twitters and jingles about the place, giving beauty advice when not musing about the prehistoric origins of the comb—which, according to her, might have predated fire. She receives a visit from Sophie (Stikeman), who is in search of a relic from her own past: the exact shade of nail polish her grandmother used to wear as a way to trigger the elderly woman’s fading memory. As Sophie grapples with her grandmother’s increasing disorientation, she turns to the wonders of the natural world for reassurance, discovering connections and cyclical patterns in unlikely places.
And herein lies the problem with Çaturn: it is full of unexpected correlations, most of them obscure. Over the course of seventy-five minutes, dinosaurs, polar bears, and a young Tom Jones traipse across the screen, while onstage, the dancers perform hip hop in high-top sneakers and bourré en pointe in a Swan Lake costume. Rather than complimenting and illuminating each other, the two art forms are often at odds. Chu’s character, a mute salon assistant named Julien, weakly bridges the divide by appearing in both mediums. Yet his presence becomes more mysterious than revelatory, much like the rest of the cast.
While Chanelle cuts blonde baby hairs from the ends of Sophie’s long auburn mane—which has remained untouched all her life—Julien picks the snippets of her personal history off the floor. The audience, however, must continue to search for meaning behind a heavy curtain of hair. Although impressive, the wigs are used largely for effect and take away from the piece for practical reasons by concealing the dancers’ faces and in extension, the characters’ emotions. This is a shame, as Stikeman and Chu are exquisite dancers, their long and lean limbs well suited for the elastic choreography of Vancouverite Crystal Pite. Removed from the imposition of narrative, the movement is at times arresting, such as when Stikemen is shown on film dancing in reverse, her electric pink hair hypnotically floating in space.
But like most of the elaborate hairdos, Çaturn feels overly stylized and aesthetic. There are some lovely images and magical moments—thanks in part to a renowned creative team, including Robert Lepage and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry—but they become caught in a knot of disparate references. Ultimately, Çaturn needs a good, clean cut.
Produced by Danse-Cite with One Yellow Fish Inc and le Festival Danse Canada, created in residence at Usine C.
Wednesday to Saturday, November 12th-15th at Usine C, 1345 Lalonde. For more information, call (514) 521-4493.
