“I like long titles because I want the audience to free associate,” says South African choreographer Robyn Orlin, on a glitchy Skype call from Germany. “Aaaand because I hate programme notes.”

Indeed, her piece for Festival Transamerique 2013, Beauty Remained for Just a Moment Then Returned Gently to her Starting Position…, is on a word count-par with previous offerings Have You Hugged, Kissed and Respected your Brown Venus Today? and Walking Next to our Shoes… Intoxicated by Strawberries and Cream We Enter Continents Without Knocking.

A mouthful? Yes. Evocative, poetic, loaded with meaning? Yes, again.

Arguably South Africa’s most provocative choreographer, Robyn Orlin is a white woman tackling the nitty gritty of politics, race, and disease in that country. She grew up in Johannesburg during apartheid, and in her early career worked in the poverty-stricken townships of the city. She was an early proponent of interracial performances at the time (consciously or unconsciously), a startling political act. Audience members regularly walked out of her performances, offended by her head-on confrontation of divisive issues in a politically fragmented environment. These days, she has what the New York Times terms “a serious reputation” in Europe, where she lives with her filmmaker husband. Her work remains often contentious, highly textured and in possession of a healthy dash of humour.

She laughs when I ask if she enjoys pissing people off, or whether that is simply a by-product of her art. “Well I do get upset when people walk out of the theatre,” she says, “I never angered people on purpose.”

Orlin is candid about her methodology and how people – both audience members and performers – react to it. Speaking about her creative approach, she states unequivocally “the first week of rehearsals are always just talking.” It seems that more traditional companies such as Paris Opera Ballet, whom she worked with several years ago, didn’t necessarily appreciate this collaborative style. “The Paris Opera Ballet dancers were incredibly talented but very used to being simply told what to do,” she explains.

For Beauty Remained, however, Orlin is working with the artists of Moving into Dance Mophatong, a company based in South Africa. The dancers have studied not just dance but anthropology, sociology and other social sciences, which informs their approach to their work. “They are bright, creative, know what they want to do in dance and are eager to learn from everyone who crosses their path. They are just the sort of people I’m attracted to,” Orlin says. The dancers also had a hand in creating the costumes for Beauty Remained, using 100% recycled materials. South African designer Marianne Fassler designed and made costumes for the cast as well, and both sets are used in the show.

Audiences will see dresses entirely crocheted of garbage bags, accessories out of Chux towelettes. They will watch excerpts from films about life in Africa and they will get a glimpse into Orlin’s Johannesburg; a joyful, mesmerising, colourful, complicated city. “I wanted to talk about beauty on many levels,” the choreographer says. Beauty Remained emphasises Orlin’s sense of humour and fierce love of her hometown; it promises to pull the audience into a place where laughter and creativity are the best allies against adversity.

Beauty Remained for Just a Moment Then Returned Gently to her Starting Position… is part of Festival TransAmériques, Thursday May 23 and Friday May 24 at 8 pm at Monument National, 1182 St-Laurent. Tickets are $43 to $48; $38 to $43 for students and seniors. Call 514-844-3822 or visit fta.qc.ca.

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Madonna aka Madge — where do I begin? I mean, she is royalty in the music world. She sang about her virginity, burned crosses, kissed Britney Spears on national television, made Jean Paul Gauthier’s cones erect,  wrote a children’s book…the list is endless and so is her playlist. You either love her or hate her, or even love to hate her. But since her debut in 1984, the woman has had an album or at least a song (I’m sure more than one) that you absolutely adored. 

What’s not to like about her? Ok fine, a lot. But regardless of how you feel, she attained her goal of becoming the most popular woman in the world. She once said, “I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.” Guess what? I know in my place of worship we always say: What would Madonna do? You should come. It’s me and a bunch of gay guys usually on a Friday or Saturday night.

I’ve loved many artists throughout my life but never as unconditionally as I do Madonna. You ask anyone who knows me, has Eman ever been in love? They’ll say 3 times: Madonna, NYC and of course her greatest love of all, herself.

What I feel for Madonna is not sexual (not that I would say no) but a deep admiration for how she got to where she is and how she remains there today.  Despite her numerous haters and obstacles along the way, the woman knows what she’s doing. And let’s not forget she did do Carlos Leon…BAM.

Her voice isn’t the best nor is she the best dancer and don’t even get into her acting because I get defensive. Yes! I am the only one who loved her in the movie Swept Away. I own a copy;if you want to give it a second chance or a first chance for that matter, let me know.

Now although my mother repeatedly refers to her as a sharmouta (slut in Arabic), here are 5 must-have songs on your playlist. Picking only 5 was an arduous task but here’s what is on my current MP3 player. Yes! All her albums but here are my current faves:

Vogue: Who doesn’t enjoy this song? I also really love the video and every live performance she’s ever given with this song. I really enjoy women in suits especially when they’re ultra feminine. I loved it in this video and  I loved it in Sex and the City. It’s hot, it’s chic, it’s the perfect combination of  masculinity and femininity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI

Music: The music video I would have loved to be featured in. It’s bling, it’s gold it’s ghetto fab. It’s ME! Love this song and video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJO-SGeb7yE

Nobody Knows Me: A lot of people will tell you American Life is Madonna’s worst album and a complete flop but I guarantee that this song will change your mind. It hasn’t been released. You’re welcome! Here’s when I witnessed it at one of her tours. LOVE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuX89vQd69o

Let it Will Be: The Confessions album means the world to me. My childhood friend, and the Will to me being Grace, surprised me with tickets for her tour in NYC and came out to me after that amazing concert, as a Madonna fan of course. Well he says confession I say confirmation. This is my favorite song of the album. Another unreleased hit, but I particularly love it because I’m the only who loved this song the most, and her performance was solo at the concert. So ya Madge and I are BFFs. Forget my gay friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G02U-aATQJU

Masterpiece: Last but definitely not least her latest album MDNA. The song that got  her a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. A movie about Wallace Simpson’s side of the story. Who else but Madonna can write and direct W.E. to shed light on a woman so misunderstood and abhorred but yet a crowned prince gives up the throne  for her love…it’s a Masterpiece!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIitlWECuHQ

See you at the next concert, ya? Did I forget to mention that both her and I are Leos.

#greatness, whether you like it or not

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I didn’t know quite what to expect. Aside from the fact that all the publicity material was in French (let’s not talk about my comprehension), it was also fairly cryptic. “Prenez un verre et faites vos choix de tête-à-tête,” the flyer proclaimed. One-on-one performances? Sure, I can get into that. Then, “Prix spéciaux pour les dentistes!” Wait, what? All in all, it promised an evening of dance, visual art, horticulture, theatre, and interior design. In no particular order.

It became clearer upon arrival, when I walked into a third floor space on St Laurent set up with a table holding place cards with eight names; Aurélie Pédron, Catherine Tardif, Michel F Côté, Marie-Claire Forté, Daniel Soulières, Martine Viale, Nicolas Rivard and Jacqueline Van de Geer (alias Steeve Dumais). I was invited to choose which performer I would like to see first, second and third etc, then seated at a table to wait.

First up was Aurélie Pédron, whose work La Maison Chair was performed in a small dark room. Additionally, I was blindfolded and headphoned for the first five minutes (mellifluous soundtrack of digeridoo and television static, if you’re wondering). The performance itself was Pédron in a small white nightie, squeezed inside a small mesh house, Alice-in-Wonderland style. She plays with a nightmarish doll, goes into seizure, rinse and repeat. Reader, have you seen different versions of this same basic premise about a million times over the years? Or is it just me? N’importe quoi, looking back on my notes on this piece, I had written just one line: “if Salad Fingers had gone to dance school.”

After Pédron, I saw Michel F. Côté, a composer for dance. He led me to his car outside and invited me to get in. Now, it’s been many years since I sat in a parked car with a strange boy but I was happy to make an exception in the name of Art. He pulled out an electric sitar, turned on a valium-voiced recording and started to play. It was simultaneously hypnotic and just a little bit awkward. He played with authority and a quiet assurance.

The next was a tête-à-tête with Jacqueline van de Geer. She sat me down, put on a timer and said “You can ask me anything you like in the next ten minutes and I will tell you.” So I asked her to tell me about her first love. It was quite an entertaining story, involving Rotterdam, a fake fur coat, red satin shoes and a teenage boy called Paul. “I’d seen him around the clubs, he was a good dancer,” van de Geer confided in her lilting Dutch accent. Her performance was like a slumber party with a total stranger and I actually found myself enjoying it quite a lot. Conceptually, I’m sure it’s been done before. But the lady knows how to tell a story, that’s for sure. There was nothing to report on, dance-wise, except for the very end when she pulled me up for a slow dance to conclude the performance.

Finally, I spent my last ten minutes in a balloon-filled enclosure with Nicholas Rivard, who asked me to take his pulse and then visually depict it on a balloon with a sharpie. He taught me some new Quebecois slang and I told him a story about my brother who used to be an officer in the New Zealand Navy. Then I popped a balloon with a needle, bid him adieu and walked out into the night air. I can still smell the balloons and my hair took about an hour to shake the static.

I still don’t know what I think about the assortment of performances that I saw. I certainly have a lot of visual motifs to sift back through, and each work was quite memorable and distinct. But in their efforts to break down audience barriers and create a new dynamic between performer and audience, I wonder whether the artists relied too much on gimmicks. Balloons! Sensory deprivation! Car-as-theatre! Sleep-over confessional! Was it too much? Perhaps. Did I enjoy it overall? Actually I did.

Petits Canapés en Salle de Montre was part of the Soirée de nano performance at Danse Danse. It was a one-night only show on May 17 at La Elastica, 4602 blvd St Laurent.

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Foreign policy tends to get short shrift at key moments — like during election campaigns — in spite of having a profound effect on us in ways we are not even aware. I looked forward to this book by Montreal writer and political activist Yves Engler, who has earned a reputation as an intrepid researcher. The Ugly Canadian could not have come at a better time. Stephen Harper must be taken to task for tarnishing Canada’s international reputation.

Engler succeeds in marshalling a massive body of facts in specific policy areas, beginning with Harper’s radical anti-environmentalism and his acceptance of abuses by Canadian mining companies abroad. He continues with the PM’s malevolent opposition to the Arab spring, his unwavering obedience to some of the most reactionary figures ever to grace the Israeli political stage, and his undermining of Canada’s respected diplomatic tradition in favour of building a strong military.

Engler casts his net wide and comes up with some gems, including a quote from then-International Development Minister Bev Oda. In addressing a group of mining executives, Oda stated, “The mining industry is a huge contributor to a nation’s wealth and is one of the main building blocks of civilization.” There was also this pearl of wisdom from Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin: “We have also built some 44 schools where nearly eight million young Afghans are finally able to learn the basics.” If this were true, what would it say about the average class size?

In this book, however, one of several Engler has written on Canadian foreign policy, the author offers little in the way of original reporting, in spite of an impressive amount of information taken from a wide variety of sources. The result, therefore, fails to equal the sum of its parts.

For instance, many readers may have forgotten Canada’s once respected position in the world and the leading role (though Engler may disagree) the country once played in international affairs in the half-century preceding Harper’s election as Prime Minister in 2006. Canada’s presence in international affairs began with Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. In 1957, Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for building what would become the United Nations peacekeeping forces. It marked the beginning of a creative period in Canadian foreign policy, which continued through to the Mulroney years, with a solid Anti-Apartheid push in the Commonwealth, and extended into the sleepwalking era of Chrétien, who nonetheless provided key backing for the International Criminal Court and a landmines treaty.

Not a word of this appears in The Ugly Canadian, leaving readers without a context to judge Harper’s systematic alienation of one group of countries after another, culminating with Canada’s pathetic failure to win a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2010. In previous years, Canada would have been a shoo-in.

Some of Engler’s conclusions are accurate, while others are questionable, such as his smear of Daniel Bellemare, the Canadian Chief Prosecutor in a UN investigation into the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Bellemare had the courage to point a finger at Hezbollah, a powerful militia-cum-political party. Hezbollah has won admiration for standing up to Israeli’s bullying of Lebanon, but it is far from an innocent player. Engler also refers repeatedly to Haitian President Michel Martelly as a right-wing extremist. Yes, in his youth, Martelly had a brief association with the Duvalier regime, and true, he supported the 1991 coup against the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but there has been little in recent years to label him an extremist.

The Ugly Canadian, which lacks an index or notes on sources, at times uses quotes from interest groups and little-known publications that do little more than bolster the author’s position. Readers’ patience is further tried with a plodding, mechanical style of prose. Junior ministers, or ministers of state, are repeatedly misidentified as deputy ministers, a civil service rank. For instance, Harper’s ultra-partisan environment minister, Peter Kent, who earlier carried the title of Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas), is labelled several times in the book as deputy foreign minister. The author ought surely to be aware of the distinction.

Despite these shortcomings, Engler’s book fills an important gap. Although someone else could have done a better job, Engler has nevertheless produced something tangible.

Eric Hamovitch is a Montreal writer and translator who can remember a time when Canadian foreign policy was less embarrassing.

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Everybody who hates the new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby seems to love parts of it. Both the New Yorker and the New York Times offered fairly scathing analyses – and high praise. Out of allegiance to the author, I decided to re-read Fitzgerald’s novel before seeing the movie.

This was unnecessary. Director and co-writer of the screenplay Baz Luhrmann pays homage to the  text – literally – pasting great chunks of prose on screen and letting gorgeous words fly like so much confetti, bouncing them at us in full 3D splendour. The plot is intact. Many people will see this film. What more could a writer who wrote about his own failure hope for?

The first half is an explosive and largely unnecessary dazzle of special effects, worthy of Disneyland. The Jazz age meets disco, its rhythm and style make the hedonistic underbelly of Prohibition’s excess seem eerily modern. But by the second half, things settle down. The noisy, pricey striving for magic disappears; characterization and dram take over.

When it comes to famous people playing famous literary characters, there are no rights and wrongs. No mere actor can hope to meet every reader’s private vision. The point of novels is that they are made out of words and read in silence; the ultimate essence of character is an act of the reader’s imagination.

In this reader’s opinion, Leonardo DiCaprio is a very fine Gatsby, a rude farm boy who in the space of five years, rescued a drunken millionaire, sailed the world, earned medals fighting a world war, made an illicit fortune and settled in gentile splendour, all the while keeping meticulous scrapbooks of a girl he kissed briefly at the beginning of his rise. (Plausibility is not a virtue we can expect in this brief, mythic novel.)

In the first hour, DeCaprio is of necessity a mannequin, standing on the sidelines of a show he has created in hopes of luring the married southern belle Daisy back into his aura. When he gets her, he melts. Their scenes together are full of tenderness and authenticity.  Toby Maguire as Nick Carraway is excellent as Gatsby’s confident and the narrator of the story. He’s an innocent adrift in a wild world, but a thoughtful one, able to convey the emotional impact of Gatsby’s presence both in action and words.

The Aussie, Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan (Daisy’s husband) is a failure, an unbelievable lout. A Yale man, he’s supposed to represent Old Money; he makes George Bush look suave, sophisticated. He belongs in an outback movie and does his best to ruin this one.

Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan may not register great social or psychological complexity, but her intense vulnerability serves to ground Gatsby’s obsession. She projects the kind of woman any sympathetic person would want to rescue and protect. We don’t feel a gap between the woman she is and the one Gatsby loves, which makes the tragedy more powerful than it possibly should be.

As for the novel, published in 1925, it is a masterpiece in the way New World classics are: we are all still so immersed in the themes and mythology at hand that definitive judgements are impossible. Meaning, our culture is still young and debatable, even if at times it feels close to expiration. The Australian-British extravaganza now in various cinemas is a wild tribute to a great book.

The Great Gatsby is in general release and at Cinéma du Parc

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It would hardly have taken the world’s greatest detective to deduce that Hollywood pulling-power, in the shape of local boy Jay Baruchel, combined with the brand name recognition of Conan Doyle’s immortal creation, would make Sherlock Holmes a surefire hit. Guttingly, the death of playwright-performer Greg Kramer just before rehearsals began have made this not just a major cultural event for the city but a celebration of the life and talent of one of its most mercurial theatre artists. Ticket sales have of course gone through the roof, and it would take the criminal genius of a Moriarty to get an available seat at this stage.

Kramer’s adaptation could hardly be in better hands. Sidemart Theatrical Grocery, under the stewardship of Andrew Shaver, has proven itself to be one of the most consistently inventive ensemble companies around, and Shaver’s dazzlingly physical direction keeps Baruchel on his toes – literally, in one hilarious moment where he dances daintily around a crime scene.

Baruchel, more used to the short bursts of acting before camera than the endurance test of stage performance, clearly finds it a challenge, and at times he seems to lack focus and comes over as more interested in goofing around than grounding his character. Strangely, this actually ends up working rather well, with his slouch-shouldered stoner of a Holmes constantly exasperating the more conventionally correct Watson (Karl Graboshas likeable and intelligently solid), not only with his twitchy eccentricities but by the fact that – devil take it – he always turns out to be right.

Although Kramer has kept things in the Victorian era, with an elaborate plot involving the drugs trade, murder, kidnapping and police corruption,  Baruchel plays the superhero sleuth very much in the modern key: dissipated and unshaven, red-eyed from hedonistic pleasures, dropping in the odd anachronistic insult, and knowingly arching his eyebrows at the absurdity of the stage conventions around him. “Mrs Hudson!?” he exclaims, when he notices it’s his homely housekeeper driving the Hanson cab that’s taking him on a madcap pursuit. “Why not?” he shrugs.

And ‘why not?’ seems to be the presiding philosophy of the production, where anything and everything goes, all beautifully designed, lit and video-projected into a world of steampunk industrial clutter. Stylistically, it dashes between blood-curdling Victorian melodrama, the lowbrow varieties of the music hall, and the high-energy wackiness of traditional British panto. Some of it gets a good-hearted groan, some elicits an uncomfortable cringe, much of it bursts into pure brilliance, as when the whole cast launch into a nightmarish, opium-fueled Cockney knees-up which comes over like Lionel Bart’s Oliver! on smack.

It also plunders the grammar of early cinema, with a flashback to a dastardly crime played out like a hand-cranked What-the-Butler-Saw show, and Gemma James-Smith’s Lady Irene hilariously signaling her damsel-in-distress alarm through panda-eyed make-up.

The twelve-strong cast keep things moving quickly along, despite the occasional peasouper of complicated exposition. There are stand-out performances from Graham Cuthbertson as a murderous, mutton-chop-whiskered henchman, and from Chip Chuipka and Trent Pardy between them populating London with a gallery of grotesques. But, appropriately, it’s Kyle Gatehouse who steals the show as criminal mastermind Moriarty, a louche, witty Lucifer in an infernal red suit.

Much to enjoy then, and if in a kinder world the script might have benefited from the sure theatrical instincts of Greg Kramer during rehearsals – a bit of plot-tightening here, a spot of gag-polishing there – this is a spectacular and joyous realization of his last act of magic.

Sherlock Holmes plays at the Segal Centre to May 28.

PHOTO: André Lanthier

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Susseptible is Geneviève Castrée’s first full-length English-language graphic novel. The multi-disciplinary artist and Quebec native has crafted a moving tale about Goglu, a bright, dreamy little girl who has a less than ideal start in life. As the title implies, she is sensitive, but Vulnerable would have also been a fitting title.

The reader meets Goglu still in the womb asking about whether sadness can be inherited from one generation to the next. The little girl is born to a 19-year-old Quebec mother and her English-speaking logger boyfriend in 1981. Her father played a very minor parenting role before moving to British Columbia, “a mythical kingdom where dads go to disappear.”

Her mother, like droves of other young people in the early eighties, had gone out west to make some quick money during the Alberta oil boom and experience their first adult adventure. Her mother, Amère, which aptly reflects her bitterness, returns to Quebec alone to give birth, but family support is not forthcoming. The youngest of 16 children, Amère didn’t receive much herself in the way of parenting.

Goglu is a latch-key kid from the time she starts school. Her mother sets an alarm clock so that the six-year-old knows when it is time to get ready and catch the bus to school.

Amère is a struggling single mother who still parties like most 20-year-olds, but strictly on the weekends. She eventually meets her significant other, Amer, and they move in together, but Amer in no way assumes any fathering responsibilities, and he, too, resents Goglu. The weekend parties continue, and too ashamed to invite friends over to her house, the girl finds herself alone, a lot. As a teen, Goglu is troubled by her mother’s increasing dependence on alcohol.

At her South Shore school, Goglu is an outcast, an odd duck among a bunch of suburban kids. But in high school, she makes friends through that great equalizer—drugs. She struggles to finish high school, but starts to use harder drugs, and then eerily finds herself in her mother’s previous predicament, the one that ruined “her bright future.”

Geneviève Castrée shows genuine talent as a graphic novelist and has created a compelling story. Particularly innovative is the circular panel she uses to illustrate an intense argument with her mother. We can all attest that arguments tend to be circular in nature, often returning to the original accusations.

Of all the books I’ve read in the last few years, I found Susceptible the most heart-wrenching. Goglu, like many unwanted children, internalizes her mother and stepfather’s resentment, which unsurprisingly results in her own anger, depression and self-imposed alienation.

Although it would be easy to point the finger at Amère for being a poor mother, she too was an unwanted child and did not receive the parenting that she needed either. As a single-parent with few resources, she chose to live with another wage-earner to make life and decision-making a little easier. In her desperation, she not only chose a man she didn’t love, but also one who had little patience for her daughter.

A lot of people will find this a difficult read, but for many this will be validation for their own experiences growing up in cash-strapped homes with ill-equipped parents. Susceptible should be on the bookshelf of every teacher, guidance counsellor, social worker and planned parenthood advocate.

I applaud the publisher for taking this risk on a story that could potentially help a lot of people, both young and old.

Heather Leighton is Rover Arts’ Literary Editor. You can find more of her writing at the Unexpected Twists and Turns.

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When the inevitable question is posed: “What time period would you have liked to live in besides this one?” I have an answer, 1968-1977, the glorious years when the Grateful Dead were at their best. When I listen to that music—at night, alone, tucked into bed, my ears pressed into the headphones—I am transported to a world that I know I have already been and will one day arrive at again. The Grateful Dead are like my spiritual womb to which I am always trying to return. And yet, the truth is, there is no period in time that I would rather live than right now and it is precisely because of the music. There is such an abundance of amazing music available at our fingertips in this era and the renaissance of psychedelic and garage-punk music that has bloomed in the past few years has become an intrinsic part of who I am as a person.

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, by Tame Impala: Chances are, if you are into indie music, you already know about Tame Impala. They have exploded onto the scene in a bright psychedelic-pop glow. And it is no wonder, these Australian psych rockers deliver amazing songs of warm, clean fuzz with enough pop magic to make anybody perk their ears up. However, as much as I love their music, I love this video even more. Stunningly directed by Joe Pelling and Betty Sloan, this primary coloured hallucinatory feast is made entirely from plasticine collage. It’s the kind of video that makes you pick up your coloured pencils and want to draw again.

Go Out and Get It, by Black Lips: The Beatles of garage-punk, these dissident bodhisattvas are the quintessential embodiment of the benevolent rebelliousness which is punk music. Sometimes people can be thrown off by the spitting, pissing, puking anarchy of punk music; however, the truth is, that behind all that bluster is the indomitable desire for freedom and love. The Black Lips for me are a life line, they elevate my soul and strengthen my heart. There are musicians that I enjoy and then there are musicians that have embedded themselves deep inside. 

Lupine Dominus, by Thee Oh Sees:  “I am not a warlock.” These were the words John Dwyer, lead singer for the Thee Oh Sees, recently sent me in an email when I asked him if his songs were mystical hyper-sigils. So immense is their power over me that I was convinced Dwyer was a Chaos Magician. This assumption isn’t unjustified either, as Thee Oh Sees sound is so thick and gooey that you feel like you could dip your hand in it and pull out stars. Thee Oh Sees are the promise realized after decades of music from San Francisco and are one of the most prolific and talented bands playing today bar none.

Blow Dumb, by Nobunny: Ah…Nobunny. What can I say about Nobunny? It’s sexually deviant, bubble-gum pop with a healthy dose of Ramones bop to it. The enigmatic and bizarre lead singer, Justin Champlain, wears a bunny mask and not much else to his shows which already gives you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into. However, more than a kitsch gimmick, at the heart of Nobunny’s songs there is an ostracized, introverted and tender soul unable to communicate with the world except behind a mask.

Automatic Jail, by Jacuzzi Boys: So new these guys don’t even have a wikipedia page, the Jacuzzi Boys are a name to watch out for. Given a shout out by Iggy Pop in an interview and invited to Jack White’s Third Man Records to record a live album, these Miami based rockers are on a rising star to punk stardom. My musical affections are very much like my friendships, few but lasting, but somehow these guys have clawed their way into my brain, from the periphery straight to centre stage.

Yearning for some more flower power? Check out my 8tracks playlist for more garage-punk mayhem.

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Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion were in Montreal this past weekend for a blink-and-you’ll miss-it run of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, followed by Counting to One Hundred and One Flute Note. Packaged by Usine C as Quatre Créations in two nights, the individual works seemed shakily whole – a feeling reinforced at the close of each by Burrows and Fargion’s look of bemused surprise that they had, once more, pulled it off.

Casually dressed, balding, and slightly thick around the middle, these two middle-aged Britons are hardly strangers to the stage. Separately, they have worked with the crème de la crème of the contemporary dance world, including collaborations with Sylvie Guillem, Akram Kahn, Siobhan Davies, William Forsythe, and Russell Maliphant. While Fargion earned his reputation as a choreographers’ composer, in 2002 he joined Burrows (a former Royal Ballet soloist and founder of The Jonathan Burrows Group) as an active performer.

Although all Quatre Créations engaged with the structure of John Cage’s 1959 Lecture on Nothing, Cheap Lecture, in particular, set the scene, providing a method to the ensuing madness and acting as a tongue-in-cheek homage to the experimentalist composer. Individually, and in concert with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, Cage was one of the first to explore indeterminacy and chance operations in his music (Composer Earle Brown, husband of Cunningham dancer Carolyn Brown, was the first to use open-form in his 1952 Folio). In the style of their muse, Burrows and Fargion employed satire to propagate a complicated rhythmic structure – its intelligence downplayed by the slightly out-of-sync reading and by the more-than-a-few suppressed laughs (on their part). “Everything is stolen,” they proclaimed in almost-unison. Yet never have I seen a work as simple and clever (and simply ridiculous) as Fargion in The Cow Piece, manipulating as he did a set of plastic toy cows in the Italian imperative.

As someone who, long ago, renounced her faith in British humour, I feel much obliged to Burrows and Fargion. Unassuming in character and self-deprecating in their on-stage physicality, both men (and their works) were (and why use one adjective when five will do) brilliant, hilarious, fresh, playful, and provocative. The greatest pleasure of all was watching these two friends’ mutual enjoyment of performing together.

The post Method and Madness appeared first on The Rover.

For a Quebec Anglo de souche or by adoption, there can’t be a better tonic to the maudit winter of our discontent than a spell at the Festival Transamérique, opening in Montreal next Wednesday. An 18-day many-lingual feast of cutting-edge dance and theatre from the world out there, this is the Quebec we know and love. The rest is just politics.

Ibsen by Berlin’s celebrated Schaubühne, a Samoan dance spectacle, Toronto avant-garde, Marguerite Duras + Christian Lapointe, an outdoor event involving many dogs plus Quebec creations by Marie Brassard, Louise Lecavalier, Ginette Laurin and Marie Chouinard are among the choice events in this year’s festival. (Some performances are already sold out, so don’t delay.)

Meanwhile, a bit of background on why this festival is so much more than a fine good time for the culturally curious: FTA’s influence lasts for years.

The cosmopolitanism side of contemporary Quebec theatre more than the sum of individual artists searching out and digesting international currents. The art form has a fierce stage mother in FTA founder and chief Marie-Hélène Falcon. She may well be the most influential artistic director in Quebec, and yet is one of the least known.

Mme. Falcon is a pioneer on the festival front. She was working in young people’s theatre in the late 80s when she got the itch to do an important international theatre event. She and partner Jacques Vézina won a grant to do a market study. Instead, they used it to launch the bi-annual Festival de théâtre des Amériques in 1985. I covered the first few editions as critic for the Gazette, and was blown away by the wild and wondrous shows from Latin America and Mexico.

“America – because Europe was so obvious,” she explained, when I caught up with her again a few weeks ago at her St. Catherine St. office. “At the time, Quebec was quite insular, or else fixed on Paris. I wanted to shatter that habit, find surprises. Of course we always knew we would open to the world.” A success from the beginning, by the third edition, FTA was hosting theatre from Europe. And always, local artists were invited to present new work alongside the imports. Important connections were made, influences exchanged. FTA became a creative hotbed – in many languages.

“It was a time of little money, but great freedom,” Falcon recalls of those early years. Robert Lepage premiered the Dragon’s Trilogy there in 1987. It went on to tour the world for years. In the Nineties, FTA became the meeting place for international talents, with some of the most prestigious theatres in Europe playing Montreal’s biggest stages.

In 2003, the city’s international dance festival FIND collapsed. Four years later, FTA was reborn as a combination theatre and dance event, changing its name to Festival Transamérique, to capture the wider mandate. The new festival became an annual event.

With a budget of $3 million, some 23,000 tickets sold last year and double that attendance at free events in a little over a fortnight, FTA has an impressive balance sheet. But it’s the spirit and audacity of programming that makes it a focal point in Montreal’s theatre calendar.

The festival aesthetic percolated onto full-season stages. “I believe it changed the way we look at theatre, and story-telling,” Mme. Falcon says. A large number of shows played in a brief period of time mean artists have to keep in mind what the public is all about. There is a tendency to create shorter works – a hour or less – the length of a scholastic period, she laughs.

Current trends in theatre? New media has definitely influenced how we listen and absorb information. This year’s works are more socially aware than in earlier seasons. Violence, the ecology, the health of the planet are major themes. Summing up the evolution of Quebec theatre over 30 years, she says, “We’ve come out of the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room. Now we’re somewhere in the world.”

FTA won this year’s Grand Prix awarded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal for “its exceptional work in increasing the scope and visibility of theatre arts worldwide.”

Great choice, good timing. It’s 30 years since FTA incorporated. Great expectations, great stamina too. Like it’s founder, the demure Marie-Hélène, still a good few steps ahead of the crowd.

For a complete outline of FTA offerings in French and English, visit www.fta.qc.ca

Watch Rover for complete coverage by Cerys Wilson and Rebecca Galloway (dance), Marianne Ackerman and Shawn Katz (theatre). Until then, a few highlights:

Acclaimed German director Thomas Ostermeier directs Ibsen’s Enemy of the People (in English and German with subtitles) at Place des Arts, May 22-23-24.

An outdoor event, Bells 13 is a sound poem using bells, wherein 13 performers will form a procession from the Grande Bibliothèque through the Quartier des spectacles, ringing in a new way of seeing the city. May 30, 31 and June 1 beginning at 1:15, weather permitting.

From Melbourne, Australia, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, an audacious work about the elephant-headed god Ganesh, who journeys from India to reclaim the stolen swastika symbol from Hitler. Created by a company of mentally handicapped performers. May 30, 31, June 1, 2.

Equip yourself to drop names from fresh Quebec theatre – check out Frédérick Gravel and Étienne Lepage, teaming up for Ainsi Parlait, “an entanglement of forms, a fusion of energies” at Théâtre la Chapelle, the HQ of avant-garde theatre on the Plateau. June 5-8.

Festival TransAmérique, various locales, May 22 to June 8

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I first read Gina Roitman’s book Tell Me a Story, Tell Me the Truth (2008, Second Story Press), a series of nine linked stories about the struggles of growing up against a backdrop of the Holocaust, about five years ago. Her stories felt as though they had come out of my own life. We were born a few weeks apart in refugee camps in Germany soon after the Second World War.   

Roitman did not believe the disturbing stories her mother recounted about why she had refused to give birth in the Pocking-Waldstadt DP camp near Passau, Germany, “She said she didn’t trust the doctors in the camp, because there were just too many babies dying,”  Gina recalls. “But to me, these stories were just another expression of my mother’s endless paranoia about all things German.”

“Discovering how blind I was to the truth, changed me profoundly and set me on a path I have been avoiding all my life,” says Gina. Not believing our mother’s stories was another thing that we had in common. Gina’s mother saved her life by demanding that she be born in town and not in the refugee camp.

My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me is a compelling hour-long documentary that unearths the chilling story that time and disbelief almost buried. The fascinating film follows Gina to Passau and shows how she slowly uncovers the story of the Nazi midwife who had killed fifty two of the babies born in the camp. In a series of almost unbelievable scenes, she not only finds the evidence of the existence of this midwife but attends the re-dedication of a monument in honour of the babies who were killed.

In one completely surreal moment, the committee who have come to Passau for the re-dedication are regaled with a meal in the ancient Teutonic city hall adorned with antlers, stag heads and all things folk and Bavarian. Meanwhile, the footage of the actual camp and the tired and feeble looking survivors who lived there hits hard.

So many decades after the event why do we look back? There are the German students with whom Gina calmly discusses the Nazi past of their city. They are tired of being reminded about a war in which they did not participate. Then there are the recent events in Hungary. Finally there is Gina’s terrific presence throughout. I was determined not to cry. This was Gina’s story and it would be rude to get all emotional about it, but I admit that I deeply moved throughout the film.

It is the visually spectacular melding of ideas, emotions, facts and people makes this a remarkable and particularly fascinating film.

My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me premieres on CBC’s Documentary Channel, May 14 and May 18 at 8pm.

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Genevieve Bujold is elegantly poised in a posh Old Montreal hotel room as we sit down to chat about her latest role, in a new film called Still Mine. In it, Bujold plays a woman grappling with advancing Alzheimer’s disease. As she begins to fade, her husband (James Cromwell) decides to build a new house for them to live in, a residence that will be safer for her as her dementia gets worse.

The film, by Toronto-based director Mike McGowan (One Week), is at once a love story and also a film about a man’s anguished quest for justice as he fights the authorities who don’t want to let him build his new house (it’s based on a true story).

Still Mine debuted to strong reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Bujold, as always, delivers a nuanced, intelligent performance. And while I want to talk to her about the latest, it’s impossible not to pop a few questions about so many of her incredible roles, given her crossover status. Bujold worked in both English and French Canada (three arthouse films with her then-husband Paul Almond in the 60s and 70s), throughout Europe (with directors Alain Resnais and Louis Malle) and in Hollywood (in more commercial fare like Earthquake and Coma). She’s also worked with several of the most celebrated genre directors, in particular Brian De Palma (Obsession) and David Cronenberg (Dead Ringers). Simply put, she is one of Canada’s most famous exports. But she’s never too far from home, often returning to make films in Canada.

Bujold reached out to shake my hands, wearing soft black leather gloves. I could tell she would be a warm and generous interview instantly.

What were your first thoughts when you read this script?
A big oui. They didn’t offer me the role, just sent the script for me to read through my agent. I thought the script was beautiful. I spoke with Michael McGowan on the phone, and I liked him a lot. So we met in Toronto one night and we were basically good to go. The script is a real gift. It’s the first time I’ve done so much press for something, in fact. I think it’s a really strong film and I think it should be seen. There was a real connection between all of us, everyone who’s been involved with this project.

There’s a sadness in the film, but there was a lot of joy from me too. Watching you and James Cromwell together felt like an exercise in performance. I felt like you were constantly strengthening his performance, and he was constantly strengthening yours.
For sure. Cromwell and I were both conscious of the fact that we could do something really beautiful with this. He’s very intelligent and so talented, and generous. There’s someone to dance with for sure. It was pure joy all the time, working with him. A real gift. I felt happy every morning at dawn knowing we would get to work together.

Did you do any research into Alzheimer’s?
No. It was all there in the script. She is slipping, as the film goes on, but there wasn’t a huge amount of research to do. Above all, this is a love story. It was a gift, because it’s rare that a script this good comes along for older actors, and that’s too bad, because at this stage I think I have a lot more to share than I did when I was younger. I think older people will love this film, but I think younger people will too. My son is 32 and he said this is a really good film. He’s a film buff and he sees everything.

I always ask accomplished actors what advice they have for younger aspiring actors who are just starting out. It’s such a treacherous business.
You really have to have a passion for it, otherwise it’s not going to last. You use the word treacherous, and it can be. You have to have a centre. Even at a young age. You’re going to need to have that centre to get back to. Stay true to yourself. Focus on your core. It’s treacherous. It’s also dangerous. You trust people — you have to, or why show up? It’s not a party, it’s work. But you know, it can be so fulfilling. It can’t be about money, it has to be about a profound need to go there.

I saw an interview where you talked about highlights of your career, and you mentioned Obsession. What set De Palma aside from other directors?

I think he really loved me. You really know that. You can’t step into that zone with the director without love and trust. You’d have to be unconscious. And he genuinely liked me. I loved him and that film too.

And Dead Ringers. Considered one of the best Canadian films ever made.
David Cronenberg has a great temperament. And Jeremy [Irons] was wonderful to work with. I don’t know if I could do that film now, but I don’t have to. The good directors let the actors do their thing. You cast things properly and then trust them. The great ones have a big vision of what they want, and you follow the leader. David sets the tone, the feeling on the set. You know when you’re on the set of a film where the director knows what his vision is and has confidence.

Here’s something that’s really fascinating about you and your body of work. I’ve heard people compare Hollywood and Europe, or Canada and Hollywood. You’ve worked in all three spheres. You’ve worked in France, and in English Canada and Quebec, and in Hollywood films, and I’m wondering, what separates those places?
Nothing separates them. It’s cinema. A set is a set. It’s like coming home. There’s no frontiers or boundaries. It’s a sacred environment. If you’re shooting in Italy or Hollywood, the feeling is there. You’re making a film.

Really? So the feeling is the same on a Louis Malle film as it was on the set of Earthquake?
Well, yeah. Every film has a director, a lighting director, sound people. And actors are actors. It feels dangerous, but once you’re there, you’re in the eye of the hurricane. When you’re on set and making a film it feels safe.

How was making Earthquake? I know that was something you did to fulfill a contractual obligation to the studio.
It was fine with me. I was living in Quebec at the time, and they offered me this and set me up with a little house on the beach. My son arrived, and we sat on the deck and we couldn’t believe it. I stayed for three months and then stayed on, ended up in California quite permanently. Voila! Funny how things like that work. We’re scared of change.

I loved Earthquake as a kid.
It’s a cult movie for some people.

Me included. I love it. I have it on DVD. I have to ask: you had an onscreen romance with Charlton Heston. You must have a story about him.
Well, I was educated in a convent. Every now and then the nuns would show Ben Hur. They weren’t stupid. So I was going to make a film with Ben Hur! We liked each other. He was quite reserved, but so am I. But the togetherness worked onscreen.

I remember reading that he was supposed to survive and you were to be together in the end, but he insisted that it end with him being flushed away, down the LA sewers.
I did not know that. Yes, he dies, and she goes to her son. He died with the Ava Gardner character. I guess they had to go together.

I read that part of your contractual dispute with the studio in the 70s was that you didn’t want to do interviews.
No, that’s not true. I’ve never minded doing interviews. I don’t shop for them, but I do them. I’ve never done quite as many as I have for this film.

I saw an interview you did at TIFF that was posted online, and you were very gracious in it. At the end of the interview they presented you with a gift of some luggage! I guess it was one of their sponsors. It seemed a bit absurd, but you were a very good sport about it.
They give me all kinds of gifts. I use that bit of luggage. It’s very light and it’s sturdy and I travel light. I was happy to get the luggage.

Thanks for the interview. You’re lovely to talk to.
You’re beautiful.

Well goodness! Aren’t you too. Sorry I don’t have any luggage for you.
(laughs). That’s okay.

Still Mine is now playing in general release.

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NDG’s own Jay Baruchel is apparently the 79^th actor to portray Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker street, London. And 79 is not too many, because this premiere production of the late Greg Kramer’s play is stupendous.

The other 78 actors include some of the most famous celebrated thespians, from Orson Welles to John Barrymore to such Canadians as Christopher Plummer and Mack Sennett. Mr Baruchel can now be well accounted for in this assemblage.

Best known here for his roles as a boxing trainee in Million Dollar Baby and the lead in The Trotsky, he shows his great versatility in adopting an English accent and affecting the eccentricities of the character who has been  the subject of an estimated 25,000 stage, radio, film, TV, games and products.

As fine as he is, and as excellent as Karl Graboshas , as steady companion Dr Watson is, this production is really a tribute to the Sidemart Theatrical Grocery, who provided most of the other actors in this fast paced romantic melodrama.

Patrick Costello, who filled in at the last minute for the role that Mr Kramer had planned to play himself, that of the bumbling Inspector Lestrade, was perfect. As were Kyle Gatehouse as the evil Holmes nemesis Dr Moriarty, and the always inventive Graham Cuthbertson as Moriarty’s henchman, Moran. Deena Aziz as the menacing Orchid, Mary Harvey as landlady Mrs Hudson and Gemma James-Smith as Lady Irene were, as usual, top pros. In smaller roles, Chip Chuipka and Trent Pardy, both used to larger roles, proved their mettle.

The music and sound design kept the audience at a high level, as did some of the best fighting scenes we have seen in a long time. The Segal is famous, and rightly so, for its attention to production values.

The pre-publicity for this play, as well as sympathy for the untimely demise of Mr Kramer at 51, has led to sold out performances for the rest of the run.

Even though this show is sold out, try your luck at cancellations by calling 514-739-7944.

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It’s hard to watch a 62 year old man settle down to bed under tattered blankets in a dank basement. But it’s doubly tragic when you know the man is in possession of one of the most soulful voices of his generation. ”I don’t have a life,” Charles Bradley says as he describes how he spends most of his meagre resources taking care of his elderly mother. Nor does he have a career.

Bradley’s hard luck story began shortly after his birth, when his mother left her seven kids for a better life in New York. By the time she called for them, it was too late. At age 14, Bradley was sleeping in subway cars, “trying to get a full nights sleep” between station runs and police batons. He eventually landed in a job-work program that taught him how to cook. Meanwhile, he discovered a talent for impersonating James Brown, and spent his nights throwing back the cape and screeching.

Still hoping for a break on the hard side of 60, he sent a demo to Daptone Records in Brooklyn (the guys behind Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse). Recognizing something “genuine,” they invited him over for a few sessions. Poull Brien’s Charles Bradley: Soul of America captures if not the moment of revelation and celebration, then the almost immediate after effects. Introduced to Bradley when he was asked to direct his first video clip (see below), Brien “fell in love” with the singer and decided to film his journey from the bottom to the breakthrough.

Bradley gives it up to the camera as easily as he does in song. The man is vulnerable and surprisingly free of rancour and bitterness. The recording sessions with the Dap Kings and the guys behind the boards are especially wonderful. It’s a beautiful thing to watch a person finally come in to their own, especially an old guy who, when he sings of heartache and struggle, brings such intense intimacy and honesty to the table you almost want to look away.

Montreal will be graced with two Charles Bradley events in the coming days. One, the documentary screening at Cinéma du Parc on Sunday afternoon. This will be followed by a Skype conversation with director Poulle Brien. The next evening Bradley himself will be performing at the exquisite Corona Theatre on Notre Dame.

We live in a world where Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are household names, where Mark Zukerberg is a billionaire, and where the most watched songs on YouTube are Gangnam Style and Friday by Rebecca Black. Is that the kind of world you want? Didn’t think so. Well, Charles Bradley is coming to town. Show him some love.

Charles Bradley: Soul of America, plays at the Cinéma du Parc, 3575 ave du Parc, Sunday, May 12 at 2pm

Charles Bradley and his Extraodinaires plays at the Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre, 2490 Notre Dame West, Monday May 13, 8pm

About the Magnus Opus series at the Cinéma du Parc: This monthly series of outstanding documentaries is being presented by friends o the late, great filmmaker, Magnus Isacsson. Each screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers. Magnus Opus is presented in French and English and celebrates Quebec, Canadian and International documentaries.

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This is an art exhibit that should not be missed by anyone interested in the contrast between form and abstraction, memory and experience. Opening under the umbrella of the huge Acess Asie month, its vernissage on May 4 at the Maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont-Royal drew a packed house, far beyond that of galleries on Sherbrooke or in Westmount.

Ms Sorenson is the daughter of the late David Sorenson, who taught art at Bishop’s and sold his paintings around the world. After his death in 2011, she visited places where he had travelled to be inspired by the sounds and textures. This took her in India and the Philippines  in particular. A Concordia visual arts and theatre grad, she has studied in Italy and Mexico as well.

Mr Goh, also a Concordia grad, is originally from Singapore and also born into an artistic family. Having lived in Malaysia, Vancouver and Newfoundland, his canvases evoke a sense of constant change.

This interesting pairing continues unti June 2 at 465 Mont-Royal est, just opposite the
Metro Mont Royal.
For more information go here. 514-872-2266

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If you have not seen Terence Malick’s Tree of Life, do so before watching To the Wonder. Although the latter is not officially a sequel, it might as well be, feeling more like a branch from the same tree than an entirely new cinematic statement. Regardless, To the Wonder is a film that demands to be watched.

When Tree of Life first came out I had high, though not astronomical, expectations. Although I had enjoyed Malick’s early films, Badlands and Days of Heaven, I was not a fanatic fan by any means. But Tree of Life was a revelation. I left the theatre with the strange knowledge that I had just experienced the only film that could rival Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In hindsight, both The Thin Red Line and, to a greater extent, The New World seem like dry runs for Tree of Life. After several decades, Malick had finally produced his quintessential masterpiece. How then does To the Wonder fare after such an accomplisment?

To the Wonder is peculiar. It is so similar to Tree of Life as to virtually be an extension of it, though a somewhat diminished one. Perhaps this is because it relies so much on its predecessor’s philosophical foundations that it doesn’t bother to re-state them. Because of this, To the Wonder feels more like an excercise in aesthetics than a philosophical statement. It kind of feels like Malick had created a world he enjoyed so much in Tree of Life that he just wanted to spend more time there. Even the overall narrative of the film is unimportant in comparison to the aesthetic delivery of the film. The audience is kept at a distance from the characters, we are only ever given disconnected glimpses into their lives and are forced to focus on singular moments of beauty and wonder over and above the overarching narrative.

In stark contrast to PT Anderson’s complex and multi-layered masterpiece The Master, To the Wonder is more interested in capturing moments in time than in revealing a story. Malick is an impressionist painter, using bold strokes of emotion and beauty. As much as To the Wonder is a testament to Malick’s artistic genius, it is also a work of surprising simplicity which might leave you wondering what the film was even about. Don’t be dissuaded. This film is a masterpiece by possibly the greatest filmmaker alive today. It haunts you long after it is over and transforms you in ways that are mysterious and perhaps even disconcerting. It is a film which juxtaposes the melancholy of corporeal existence with the aesthetic beauty imposed on it. I’m left feeling unsure of Malick’s ultimate meaning. On the one hand, Malick reveals the intense and spiritual beauty that is inherent in every moment, and yet, on the other hand, it is a film which is so dark, existential, and melancholy in tone as if to reveal a world which can never quite live up to the aesthetic and spiritual beauty imposed upon it by art.

In an astounding contrast to Malick’s usual extended pauses between films, he is bucking his own trend and releasing four films in quick succession. Along with To the Wonder, there are currently three other films all already in post-production, set for release in the coming two years. I, for one, am incredibly curious to see what these films will reveal themselves as. One thing is certain; the next few years are guaranteed to be landmark years for the development of cinema precisely because of Malick’s iconclastic contributions.

In general release

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Along with Willis O’Brien (who made the original King Kong in 1933), Ray Harryhausen is regarded as the granddaddy of contemporary cinematic special effects. He died this past week in his London home. Though much of the stop-motion animation he did for films like The Valley of Gwangi (1969), Mighty Joe Young (1949) or the Sinbad movies may now seem quaint and dated, those special effects laid the groundwork for what we now take for granted on the big screen. 

Harryhausen’s CV includes a massive list of sci-fi and fantasy films, including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), in which a prehistoric creature is awakened by an atomic blast and proceeds to destroy much of Coney Island, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), in which UFOs attack Washington, D.C., and, most notably, Jason and the Argonauts (1963), a retelling of Greek mythology that features one of Harryhausen’s most famous and recognizable sequences: a swordfight by seven skeletons. In 1992, Harryhausen received a special Academy Award for his contribution to the art of cinematic special effects. Directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson all cite him as a major influence.

In 2005, Harryhausen oversaw the production of Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection, a DVD compilation of the animated work he created as a young man. The compilation includes a series of Mother Goose stories that Harryhausen brought to life in the late ’40s and early ’50s. Though he had not worked on animation since Clash of the Titans (1981), he returned to the art to complete one of the short films for the compilation, The Tortoise and the Hare.

It was in that context that I had the honour of talking to Harryhausen about his work, prior to his appearance at the 2005 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. He was generous, kind and gracious, a really delightful man. What follows is our conversation from that day.

While putting together this DVD compilation, what struck you most about your early work?
I’m a little embarrassed about some of it. When you’re in the business for so long, you look back and say, “What a kooky kid!” I was experimenting. Luckily, I had a bunch of that stuff in the basement. I had a flood, but I was able to save it. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid to have much of it restored, so now it’s in the archives.

You hadn’t animated for 25 years, not since Clash of the Titans. But you did some animation to complete one of the shorts, The Tortoise and the Hare.
I don’t have the patience anymore. As you get older, you lose that patience. It requires a lot of patience and concentration. But frankly, a lot of the stuff the front office wants to push on the public doesn’t really appeal to me. You know, some of the subjects that make big money, they’ll say, “Can’t we do something like that?” A long time ago, they approached me about doing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but I wasn’t so interested. I think Peter Jackson did a wonderful job of it.

Do you have a favourite among your films?
Well, we were in the situation of working within very tight budgets. These films are not what you’d call a director’s picture in the European sense. The films had to be done in the most inexpensive way. The special effects were my job, and money was always tight. Jason and the Argonauts is the most complete — you have to compromise so much while making a film. You either have weather problems, or you can’t get the people you want.

You speak of compromises, but you always seemed to find ingenious ways to create effects.
I think that stimulates someone, when you’re limited. If I had all the money in the world, I probably would have taken the long way around and spent it. We were really the only ones who were using stop motion [animation] and making the effects a character in itself. We always tried to give the creatures a real character. Many of them were very mysterious, but we tried to give them real characteristics. Sometimes, the characters came out of necessity. I had to animate an elephant for Valley of Gwangi because the elephant we’d hired didn’t show up. When it did show up, it was only six feet high and I needed something much bigger than that.

I love that film.
A lot of people do. Unfortunately, we got caught in a studio shift. The studio was sold while we were making the film, and when we were done, the new people really didn’t appreciate what it was that the previous owners had sanctioned. They opened the film with no publicity. A lot of people thought it might be another Godzilla. Gwangi is an Indian word for big lizard, but they were worried that people wouldn’t understand it. How many times has anybody seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex getting roped? That was an original. People were turning to the future at the time, with sci-fi. But we were looking back.

You’ve said that you always tried to make positive films. Do you feel that movies have become too negative?
Yes, absolutely. We don’t even go to the movies anymore. I don’t want to sit in the cinema for an hour and a half and watch someone in the process of dying. That may be considered a great thing today, but some of the subjects are just too violent. They all seem to be trying to outdo each other with the gore. We were limited in our day because of censorship. Fantasy violence is quite different, of course. Some of the fairy tales on the new DVD are actually really quite violent. Red Riding Hood has a lot of lascivious overtones, of course. I had to change a lot of the stories when we were making them, because they were being used in schools.

It seems computer-generated effects have taken over.
Yes, they have. But the fact that they are used so much, I think they tend to defeat themselves. I get a lot of fan mail saying that people prefer our old effects, even though some may see them as dated. Stop-motion animation has that strange quality of a dream, a dream world that you know is not real and yet it looks real. Digital effects make fantasy too real, and that brings it down to the mundane. I like to think what we did helped to stretch the imagination. The Sinbad movies, I thought, stretched the imagination.

Did you see the last Star Wars film?
No, we don’t really go to movies anymore. I liked the first Star Wars movie. But you know, I prefer the past to the future, which is why I animated so many dinosaurs. The future always looks so cold, so mechanical. Everyone always seems to end up blowing everyone else out of the universe. But a picture like The Day the Earth Stood Still was fascinating. It had a message.

Is there a contemporary fantasy filmmaker whom you admire?
Well, there are a lot of them, and they certainly have a lot of money, so their films often look very glossy. I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark, though that was a while ago now. I am looking forward to seeing what Peter Jackson does with King Kong. I know he loves the story and original film as much as I do.

The original film, directed by Willis O’Brien, is what got you started in filmmaking, isn’t it?
Yes, I love it.

What did you think of the 1976 remake?
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.

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I am proud to tell you my taste in music and film is unanimously disrespected by everyone I know. I am not a music connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. I just found out the Rolling Stones are British and not American. Ya, no respect.

Top 40 is the music for my ears. Which means I like a bit of everything. My only requirement is that it must be addictive. I can listen to it tirelessly and daydream into my fantasy world where I’m skinny and tanned.

The beauty of music is how there is a song for every mood and circumstance in our lives. Hearing a song for the first time is like a first date. Like a date a song can be amazing from the first beat and the love affair begins. You spend all your time in the bedroom listening to it over and over and…oh wait a minute. The same applies to a bad date, you hear a song and never want to hear it again and finally you have the songs that grow on you. Always a pleasant melodic surprise.

Slave 4 You, by Britney Spears: I love when a song becomes associated to a time in our life. I thank this video and song for making me the thinnest I’ve ever been. I’m glad I’m remembering this because summer’s around the corner and I can no longer hide behind layers.

Who Am I (What’s My Name?), by Snoop Dog: When I was 12 years old I bought the Doggystyle album. Please do not judge my parents, the English language isn’t their forte so rap music wasn’t in the least bit comprehensible. Thank Allah for that. I got to enjoy listening to that album an entire summer, wondering why Snoop Dog was a self hater because of his incessant use of the N* word.

What About Your Friends, by TLC:  Best group in history!! I looooved them so much and tried to dress like them, baggy clothes, Doc Martins, even stuck Band-Aids all over my clothes because my parents wouldn’t let me buy condoms.

Faith, by George Michael: My name, Eman, means faith. Naturally the hunk of a man I saw on TV while still living in Kuwait, singing my name by a jukebox, made me an instant fan of both him and the USA for some reason (#RollingStones). I think I’ve loved each and every single song he’s ever come up with and it breaks my heart I never got to see him in concert, especially that I had the opportunity and blew it. I won’t get into it, it’s TOO FUNKY.

Habibi Ya Nour El Ein, by Amr Diab: As an Arab, one of our favourite pastimes is to discover Arab celebreties, something that might show us in a positive light in the media. As rare as that is, it happened in 1996 when famed Egyptian singer Amr Diab released his mega-hit Habibi Ya Nour El Ein. From that moment on, we had something besides hummus to break the tension during heated political discussions.

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Another week in Montréal, another festival to break new ground. The Elektra International Digital Arts Festival (May 1-5) wrapped up its 14th year on Sunday, and its central place in the creative fabric of this city grows more certain with every year.

The highlights of this year’s edition were the nightly audiovisual performances held at the magnificent Usine C, which simultaneously served as the festival’s general quarters. Artists from Québec, France, Germany, Sweden and Japan delivered cutting-edge and (mostly) live performances axed on mind-bending visual and sound effects, with the latter serving most often as accompaniment to the digital ephemera melting off the screen. The ambience here was more art-house than all-out live show, with the decontracted crowds standing or sitting in silent awe as the 2-hour lineup moved from piece to shiny piece.

In this sense, one might consider Elektra the flipside to Montreal’s MUTEK festival, where the visuals generally play a supporting role to the music. At Elektra the focus is reversed, with the soundscapes only rarely aspiring towards something we might term ‘musical’ – though the final performance of the festival was a screaming exception, with Japan’s Keiichiro Shibuya and Evala sparking a dance party with their highly original and industrial brand of percussive electronica.

Numerous video projections and installations were also exhibited both at Usine C and at art galleries across town, most notably Occurrence, SKOL (in the Belgo building), and Old Montreal’s state-of-the-art Centre PHI, where an especially alluring multisensorial installation was presented by Québécoise artist Philomène Longpré. Her work, Céréus: Reine de la Nuit (on until May 18), is a highly absorbing and impactful piece inspired by the myths of the Papagos Native Americans. You can still catch most of these exhibits for another week or few beyond the festival’s official closing date, and Longpré’s in particular is highly recommended – especially if you haven’t been down yet to check out the glittering new Centre PHI.

Having just returned to Montreal after a year and a half, the Elektra festival seemed the perfect welcome back to my beloved hometown, and inspired the sort of reflections which often come as a result of the refreshed perspective gained from travels abroad. With its cutting-edge and cross-media showcases exploring the wideranging eclecticism of contemporary digital creators, Elektra is the kind of festival that seems to sprout directly from the cultural soil of its geographic milieu. Quite simply, you couldn’t do this just anywhere.

The local and international performances which headline Elektra are wildly conceptual, heavily unconventional, and at times can even seem downright inaesthetic : the snowstorm hiss of a digital distortion; the high-pitched squeal of amplified feedback, and so on. Yet here the inevitable winces from the audience are a central and accepted part of the performances, while the works are always, always intriguing, and always one of a kind – and far be it from this festival to apologize for not playing it safe.

There are many places where a festival like this couldn’t fill a large venue like Usine C on a $20 ticket price, but that seemed the furthest thing from the organizers’ minds. Indeed, in a city where the avant-garde can sometimes seem astonishingly mainstream, Elektra offers a distilled glimpse into the creative soul of an ever-emerging Montréal.

Don’t take my word for it though. Just ask Tourisme Montréal. Québec’s metropolis, says the official tourist body, is the North American capital for digital arts, with between 1,200 and 1,500 digital artists living and working in the city. Along with graphic and industrial design, circus arts, contemporary dance, and indie and electronic music, the digital arts are one of this city’s core artistic domains.

This is what explains why Elektra is far from Montréal’s lone bearer of the digital torch. Along with local institutions like the Société des arts technologiques (SAT), the city plays host to a growing number of international rendez-vous of digital creativity, including the new Biennale international d’art numérique (or BIAN, second edition coming in 2014), and of course, the iconic MUTEK festival of electronic music and digital arts (May 29-June 2 this year).

As with Elektra, so with Montreal, since I’ve always felt this was a city where boxes are made to be broken. But then I guess that’s all simply to say: it’s good to be home.

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Dan Brault knows how to have a good time, at least as far as painting is concerned. In his current exhibition of new work at Galerie Laroche/Joncas, aptly titled “The Good Times,” the Quebec-based artist presents a vibrant, candy-coated universe in which cartoonish doodles, geometric patterns, and painterly gestures all bump and bounce against one another.

Brault’s canvases, each a pastiche of colours, contrasts, and curves, create an appealing dynamic between flatness and three-dimensional space. Their surfaces seem to jump with energy: monochromatic shapes and planes compete with shapely squiggles, shadows, streaks, and wispy lines. Some of Brault’s forms seem recognizable, like calligraphic stencils that recall Arabic script. Other marks such as drips and dashes escape literal interpretation, but instead suggest a visual record of the mind in action. A repetition of forms adds to the sense of rhythm, and with a longer look, familiar characters begin to appear across multiple paintings.

A key component of the energy in these works is Brault’s juxtaposition of mechanical or digital elements in the form of stencils and traditional painting techniques. Brault describes his intention behind the use of digital stencils as “a form of aesthetic dialogue between human and machine gestures… A form of collage results in visual fireworks, intensely charged and dense.” However, the digital element here still seems to evoke human imperfection and asymmetry in some way. In “Je t’aime à la folie (pour Zack)”, the twinned black and white forms look as if they were the result of a giant playing with Microsoft Paint, rather than the product of a precise design.

The heavy layering and building of imagery also evoke a sense of time in Brault’s work. When standing before these paintings, one can’t help but try to pick apart when each element was added, and how each image evolved. Many of the paintings initially appear as though they developed by chance, with each form appearing in response to the one created before it. However, this apparent spontaneity belies Brault’s sophisticated choices in his compositions. Like a great showman, he makes this look easy.

“The Good Times” continues at Galerie Laroche/Joncas until May 12, 2013
372 St Catherine West, #410
www.larochejoncas.com

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