Haunted by the sound of one foot tapping

October 30, 2011 2:44 PM

An excerpt from bODY_rEMIX/ gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS by Sadler's Wells - London Dance House (NSFW, very small nipple tassels & illusion of nudity)

More representative excerpts

Most of the full performance is available on youtube in four parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Finale

Reviewer's opinions have been mixed from

The Guardian
The Australian
and the academic community:

Abstract

This essay explores the affective intensity of movement in a recent choreography by noted French Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard. In bODY rEMIX/ gOLDBERG vARIATIONS, dancers perform with all manners of prosthetics and bodily extensions--crutches, ski poles, coat racks, pointe shoes worn by men and women, on one or two feet or on hands--to a score that remixes Glenn Gould's recordings of the Goldberg Variations with his recorded interviews. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze, José Gil, and André Lepecki, I argue that despite its engagement with forms of extension, the use of prosthetics in Chouinard's bODY rEMIX fundamentally explores the intensive movement of affect, particularly through its engagement with suspense (as the generation of an ambiguous image in the tension between extensive and intensive movement) and the sound image. This exploration of the in-tensions of extensions, when, rather than simply extending into the world, movement develops a centrifugal force, likewise argues that the movement of affective intensity is the way in which the body activates its inherent capacity for change. Extension is a fundamental attitude of the dancing body; dancing “projects lines into the invisible” in a movement of outward intentionality. Yet that movement is always doubled and deviated by a responsive (not simply reactive) intensity of movement, a dynamic activation of the body's potential charged by the encounter that pushes against and reworks the constitution of the very bodies that compose it, a movement of a different quality whose effects cannot simply be determined by a reverse calculation from extension.

posted by Blasdelb (23 comments total)

There's a clip of this circulating in "loln00dz" form, which is how it was first sent to me (the email was titled "I have the weirdest boner right now".)

I ended up looking for the entire piece because I was more intrigued than aroused amused.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:49 PM on October 30, 2011

Thank you! I saw a clip and had no idea what I was watching.
posted by Calzephyr at 3:07 PM on October 30, 2011

"There's a clip of this circulating in "loln00dz" form, which is how it was first sent to me (the email was titled "I have the weirdest boner right now".)"

Thats also how I first came across it, but this is a better class of internet.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:14 PM on October 30, 2011

I saw the same video you saw and made a note for myself to find out more - so thanks for taking care of that for me! I absolutely love this, though I can't articulate why. I can't stop thinking about the two women in harnesses and toe shoes in the original clip. They're like restrained wild birds, not sure what to do, startling themselves and each other. It's beautiful.
posted by cilantro at 3:17 PM on October 30, 2011

Amazing. Thanks for posting this.
posted by homunculus at 3:43 PM on October 30, 2011

Lisa Bufano: Dancer/Shapeshifter
posted by homunculus at 3:44 PM on October 30, 2011

The excerpts, at least, were neat. I wish they were higher quality video, though; at least on my monitor the pixelation and hurky-jerky movement was not ideal for watching dance.
posted by Forktine at 3:52 PM on October 30, 2011

I very much like this piece -- I lack any formal vocabulary through which I might discuss it, so the only thing I can say is, right on, Sadler's Wells, that's some crackerjack dancing -- it's sexy, and absurd, and grotesque, and it makes me feel all sorts of weird, refracted things.

I regret that the only really substantive thing I have to say is somewhat frivolous. And I feel a little lousy about saying it in this context, because these people are clearly accomplished artists who know what they're doing.

But.

Artists:

When you cAPiTaLIZE the NaMeS of YR PIeCes like THIs, I don't think it has the effect you're looking for. It doesn't throw light on the disjunctive and distracted nature of modernity. It doesn't set the stage for your incoherent dystopic vision.

What it does is make some people think you live in a group home in Berlin, with 11 other artists, exclusively living off of Nag Champa and Jerusalem artichokes. And the other people? They just think, "I don't understand the arts -- why do we have arts funding again?"

It's like the Comic Sans of orthographic affectations. Do you have to title all of your shit in lowercase, to make it seem like you're being casual and off-the-cuff and post-Beat? Do you have to do upsidedown exclamation marks, to show that you're hip to globalization, or that you're part of a diaspora that communicates in a different alphabet? Fine! Fine! I can accept that shit. Just, whatever you do, dON't do tHis.
posted by liminalrampaste at 4:12 PM on October 30, 2011 [9 favorites]

It’s kind of hot, intriguing, beautiful, pretentious, and completely ridiculous in a laugh out loud way, all at the same time. I realize that I have very little of the Dance Appreciation Gene though.
posted by bongo_x at 4:12 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

>When you cAPiTaLIZE the NaMeS of YR PIeCes like THIs, I don't think it has the effect you're looking for.<

You know, I didn’t even notice, I thought someone was just a terrible typist.
posted by bongo_x at 4:14 PM on October 30, 2011

Am I a philistine? Because there isn't a moment of the lead-in video that's not hilarious, from the bird trilling, to the crab-walking unicorn girls, to the bondage wear, to that guy thrusting his way across the stage on his cart, to the two women attempting to establish territorial dominance over the other by twitching spasmodically from ceiling straps. Is the rest of it more of the same?
posted by JHarris at 4:20 PM on October 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fine! Fine! I can accept that shit. Just, whatever you do, dON't do tHis.

It's because they hired Torgo to design their title.
posted by JHarris at 4:24 PM on October 30, 2011

I have the weirdest boner right now.
posted by Trurl at 4:42 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Guardian piece linked above is very helpful in putting this in context.

It notes, of the choreographer:
Marie Chouinard is a 55-year-old Canadian choreographer whose work is known for its sexually voyeuristic content. Early performance events saw her urinating and masturbating on stage and auctioning herself off for the night to audience members.

It sounds like she's outright inviting loln00dz comments.

Later:

Chouinard is fluent in the windy concept-speak of contemporary dance – after making this piece, she pronounces: "I had the feeling I'd just written a philosophical treatise" [...]

groan
posted by JHarris at 4:56 PM on October 30, 2011

I liked the "foot slapping," which was first irritating, then intriguing. I also liked the sequence in the compilation with the dancer walking across the other dancers; hands. It had a slow-motion underwater effect, which was fun to watch.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:59 PM on October 30, 2011

Am I a philistine? Because there isn't a moment of the lead-in video that's not hilarious, from the bird trilling, to the crab-walking unicorn girls, to the bondage wear, to that guy thrusting his way across the stage on his cart, to the two women attempting to establish territorial dominance over the other by twitching spasmodically from ceiling straps. Is the rest of it more of the same?

I, too, must be a philistine, because this was fucking hilarious. I imagine most of their rehearsal time must have been spent controlling outbursts of laughter, rather than actual choreography.
posted by odinsdream at 5:18 PM on October 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

The dancing is okay, but it really needed the right music.

This video remedies that:

Three is a Magic Boner
posted by Lon Mem at 5:25 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Am I a philistine?

I'd rather be a Philistine, they were the more advanced society. Too bad they ended up as a slur.
posted by hanoixan at 5:32 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't imagine the humor was not intended.

The soundtrack was excellent, quite perfect. I wonder how they remixed Gould's piano to sound prepared. Ring modulation or convolution with the vocals maybe?
posted by idiopath at 6:43 PM on October 30, 2011

Thank god they named the performance so that I can open it in Windows 98.
posted by Brocktoon at 8:13 PM on October 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

The truth makes me laugh.

Brilliant.
posted by Mike Mongo at 8:47 PM on October 30, 2011

*squeaksqueaksqueak* pause *squeaksqueaksqueak*

"I am fellating this metal rod."

*squeaksqueaksqueak* EXIT STAGE LEFT
posted by LMGM at 4:30 AM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

Normally I really hate contemporary choreography to over-played classics - although I've mostly seen it in the form of graduate dance recitals. In this case, though, the extreme oddity of the prosthetics and overall concept seemed to be balanced out by the goldberg variations, especially as the music was not treated as being the basis of the choreography but rather as a sort of sound design.

Although "there is a magic boner" also worked surprisingly well, which I guess just shows how our brains strive to make sense of any audio/visual combination.

Also, this was funny, weird, exhibitionistic, and, well, very cool. Thanks!
posted by ianhattwick at 11:15 AM on October 31, 2011