Category: Between the Lines

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Between the Lines

TEATRAM (The Group)

Richard Trem­blay in res­i­dence (1972)

The com­pa­ny Le Groupe Téâ­tram (1974 – 81) emerged from the Théâtre Com­mu­nal Con­tem­po­rain (TCC, 1970 – 74), a col­lec­tive direct­ed by Richard Trem­blay. The Téâ­tram Group (the­ater com­pa­ny) was the cru­cible of the chore­o­g­ra­pher’s ear­ly stage works in the chore­o­graph­ic the­ater. Soon, the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er became involved in a the­atri­cal lab­o­ra­to­ry for the Kathakali dance-the­ater and the actor’s train­ing as well as in the inter­pre­ta­tion and cre­ation of new works evolv­ing over two decades towards his work at Danse Kalashas (1990- ), his dance com­pa­ny. Téâ­tram’s train­ing pro­gram in phys­i­cal the­ater enabled young per­form­ers to pre­pare for train­ing in Kathakali and gave them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take dance lessons in India, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the process of cre­at­ing stage works dur­ing which some of them shared the intense moments of the life and work expe­ri­ence of the Group. Richard Trem­blay’s main cre­ations at Téâ­tram are: Rhi­noc­er­os (TCC /Centre d’an­i­ma­tion théâ­trale, 1971) after Ionesco’s, and pre­sent­ed at the Gésu the­ater, Mon­tre­al; Angel and Clemen­tine (TCC, 1972), on texts from the ancient tragedy; Inter­mède (1974), chore­o­graph­ic the­ater, pre­sent­ed at the the­ater fes­ti­val of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Que­bec at Chicouti­mi; and Madam’s Being Car­ried Away (1975), after Genet’s The Maids and a mon­tage of texts by Racine and Euripi­des. The lat­ter pro­duc­tion was pre­sent­ed at the Nation­al The­ater School of New Del­hi and, in a reworked ver­sion, The Erinyes, at the New The­ater Fes­ti­val in Bal­ti­more, in 1977. The Temp­ta­tion of Saint Antho­ny (1980), adapt­ed from Gus­tave Flaubert was Téâ­tram’s last pro­duc­tion with a new team of actors. An off­shoot of the Ger­man expres­sion­ism, the chore­o­graph­ic the­ater under Johann Kres­nik (1929 – 2019) uses the text as a coun­ter­point to the dance. The Tanzthe­ater Wup­per­tal, which has evolved its own style, is anoth­er branch of the same artis­tic move­ment. The Kathakali Insti­tute and Danse Kathakali de Mon­tréal (1981 – 90) fol­lowed Le Groupe Téâ­tram.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1980).
Adaptation and Direction: Richard Tremblay.
From L to R: A. Bombardier, C. Poissonneau, J. Dubé and V. Pinette. Cinéma Parallèle, Montréal, on 13 -14 septembre 1980 and 17 through to 28.
(Photo: J. F. Boucher)
Madam's Being Caried Away / The Erinyes (1975). 
Choreographic theater: Richard Tremblay. Auditorium of the Cultural Center, Mont-Jacob, Jonquière (QC).
From L to R: G. Bouchard, R. Tremblay, M. Michaud and L. Tremblay. Delhi, Baltimore, 1975-77.
(Photo:  Téâtram / Archives R. Tremblay)
Madam's Being Caried Away / The Erinyes (1975). 
Choreographic theater: Richard Tremblay. National School of Drama, Delhi, 1975. The 9-member team after the performance. Standing in the background: Munnir Ahmed, one of the institution's three technical staff.
(Photo:  R. Tremblay)
INTERMÈDE (1974). 
Choreographic theater: Richard Tremblay. Theater Festival, Université du Québec, Chicoutimi, March, 1974. 
(Photo:  A. St-Onge. Archives R. Tremblay)
GITOPADESHAM 
Kathakali dance theater (Repertoire). On a tour of Canada (1981). From L to R: Vellinezhi K. Gopalakrishnan (Krishna), Richard Tremblay (Arjuna). Teatram / The Kathakali Institute (Montreal) 
(Photo: J. F. Boucher, 1981. Archives Danse Kalashas)

Oth­er images from The Kathakali Insti­tute and Danse Kathakali de Mon­tréal (1981 – 90)

DURYODHANA VADHAM 
Kathakali Dance Theater.
 K. Gopalakrishnan as Duryodhana. Duryodhana vadham (Kathakali repertoire)
(Photo :  J. F. Boucher, 1981. Archives Danse Kalashas)
GITOPADESHAM 
Kathakali dance theater (Repertoire, 1981). From L to R: Vellinezhi K. Gopalakrishnan (1951 - 2008) impersonating Krishan and Richard Tremblay as Arjuna.  The Kathakali Institute (Montreal) 
(Photo: J. F. Boucher. Montage: silentculture)
The Anger of Achilles (1988-91-93, 2000) 
Kathakali dance theatre: New repertoire.
Choreography: Richard Tremblay

Behind the scenes at the Kerala premiere. SNA Regional Theatre, Thrissur (Kerala, India). Richard Tremblay and Kalamandalam Gopi (right) in the role of Achilles. 
(Photo: Rajagopal, 1993)
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Between the Lines

The Kiss

Bow­ing to the Unknown

Before leav­ing, we kissed; rit­u­al of a more or less agreed farewell. When Mathilde (name changed) approached Anil, he pre­sent­ed his cheek. She asked, sur­prised: “How do you do that in India”? He, for any answer to a ques­tion for­mu­lat­ed in a lan­guage he did not under­stand, clasped his hands on his chest and greet­ed her. The ges­ture sur­prised her; or per­haps he embar­rassed her, see­ing in it a mark of mod­esty and hes­i­ta­tion at an invi­ta­tion to the kiss. Anil had slipped behind a famil­iar ges­ture, inher­it­ed from his mil­len­ni­al India, to greet the unknown… They stayed on the thresh­old of a kiss, and it struck me as a real farewell kiss. The two remained unknown to each other.

Richard Trem­blay in a note fol­low­ing a work­shop he con­duct­ed in res­i­dence at the Cen­tre choré­graphique de Belfort (France, 1998) with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Anil Kumar and Guil­laume Lemas­son. Pho­to: Kalashas.

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Between the Lines

The Invisible Man

A dance soloist presents him­self: nei­ther dancer nor chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, anec­do­tal, sin­gu­lar, mas­cu­line, under a body that he has made exot­ic by sin­gling it out on the out­skirts of the Ger­man expres­sion­ism. So he con­se­crat­ed the exoti­cism of his body like, but not to be con­fused with, the oth­er dancer wrapped in rhythm, col­or, sto­ry and per­cus­sion. Nei­ther of them claim to be exot­ic, however.

 

OTHER
Pho­to col­lec­tion from Kérala, India (R. Trem­blay, 1976 ‑1981). Album de Kathakali.

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Between the Lines

Learning to dance by putting oneself in another’s shoes

Do you have to be one to know one? (Fay: 1996) 

Writ­ten in the ear­ly 1980s, Ini­ti­a­tion au tra­vail de la danse en Inde (“Ini­ti­a­tion to the mat­ter of dance in India”) intro­duces the appren­tice’s rela­tion­ship to his dance mas­ter through a learn­ing process per­formed under the gaze of a so-called “oth­er” sub­ject. The appren­tice, who assumes the sto­ry in the name of the nar­ra­tor, sets up the role of the mov­ing sub­ject when intrane­ity and extrane­ity can only be achieved through the arti­fice of a game. For the implic­it nar­ra­tor (the one who writes), the learn­ing in the case in point is only a pre­text for the deploy­ment of a meta­per­for­mance tak­ing place between the one who plays and the one who is played, going from the inter­change­abil­i­ty of roles to the pirat­ing of the oth­er.

Trem­blay, Richard (1982). “Ini­ti­a­tion au tra­vail de la danse en Inde”. Les Cahiers de la danse de l’Inde (Kalashas, éd. SILENTCULTURE), 10 – 30.

Pho­to: Kala­man­dalam Gopi dans le rôle de Bahukan. (Crédits: R. Trem­blay, 1978.)

See: Dance-the­atre kathakali.

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Between the Lines

The Kathakali Percussion Instruments and the Mridangam

Con­cert. With guest artist Trichy Sankaran and Ensem­ble Mahapooram under the direc­tion of Bruno Paquet. See Talavat­tam.

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Between the Lines

Famous Encounter

A Gra­cious Narcissism

It is said that Ein­stein once wit­nessed the spec­tac­u­lar fall of a con­struc­tion work­er; fall­en from a mul­ti-storey build­ing, the work­er mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived. Ein­stein has­tened to vis­it him at the ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty, for he had a press­ing and spe­cif­ic ques­tion for him. The physi­cist’s ques­tion was: “What did you feel when you fell, dear sir”? The work­er smiled and was silent for a moment. He could have answered in sev­er­al ways. He could have said: “I was afraid, I thought of the mis­for­tune of my wife, my chil­dren, my father, my moth­er, my friends, my broth­ers and sis­ters”. Or: “I have felt the whole bur­den of my actions, of my sins that I repent”. Or again: “I regret noth­ing”. But the work­man’s response was just as remark­able as the physi­cist’s ques­tion: “I felt, sir, that I had no weight,” he replied. The anec­dote is report­ed by one of the mas­ter’s stu­dents. Regard­less of the fate of this work­er who mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived the acci­dent, the famous physi­cist had got the answer he was look­ing for and he had gone where he could get it. But, won­der­ing the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er envy­ing the work­er for the fame his fall drew upon him, could the short dia­logue even have tak­en place if, instead of a work­er, Ein­stein had met one of these dance mas­ters? who are still tempt­ed by ques­tions of grav­i­ty? The schol­ar hard­ly seems to have been con­cerned with the chore­o­g­ra­phers for ques­tions relat­ing to grav­i­ty, hav­ing sought to ques­tion an unprej­u­diced indi­vid­ual who has no weight when falling. Ein­stein would have seen Martha Gra­ham dance, oth­er sources report, but no mem­o­rable dia­logue to this effect is found; only a praise or two addressed to the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er whom, per­haps, he knew she was grap­pling with the gra­cious nar­cis­sism to which she owed her genius.

Text adapt­ed from The Great Dis­cov­ery of Free Float. In Wheel­er, John A. (1990, 11).
Pho­to: Hen­ry & Co. from Pexels

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Between the Lines

For a Tired Reader

A Bard’s Apoc­ryphal Advice

At dawn each day, gaze into the sun’s rays for five min­utes to improve eyesight.

From Jil & Yill (2010 – 11-12). Choreg­ra­phy by Richard Trem­blay to per­cus­sion music, by Bruno Paquet. Dance per­formed by Sophie Jannsens.

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Between the Lines

A REMINDER

Danse Kalashas (con­tem­po­rary dance com­pa­ny) was  the first com­pa­ny to put on a 1991 dance show at l’Ago­ra short­ly after the open­ing of this dance venue part of the Dance Depart­ment of the Uni­ver­sité du Québec (Mon­tre­al). The com­pa­ny fea­tured a whole week main pro­gram of its con­tem­po­rary dance, Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices (1990), at 8 PM, and a Kathakali at 10 PM. Guest artists were invit­ed to present part of the com­pa­ny’s week end spe­cial pro­gram. In the after­noon, an oppor­tu­ni­ty was giv­en to attend con­fer­ences and demon­stra­tions deal­ing main­ly with the Kathakali dance and music. Super­vised by Dia­gramme (artist man­age­ment orga­ni­za­tion in Mon­tre­al), all shows and relat­ed activ­i­ties layed empha­sis on the cul­tur­al and artis­tic influ­ences, inter­weav­ing in Richard Trem­blay’s dance work. In 1995, Danse Kalashas returned to L’Ago­ra, this time to present a fresh con­tem­po­rary dance, La Courbe en Flo­con de Neige, in a shared pro­gram with chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and artis­tic direc­tor Daniel Soulières at Danse Cité’s Volet Choré­graphes XII.

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Between the Lines

Representation of the Belligerent Hero

The Make up of Weapons

The Para­pu­rap­pa­da is the Kathakali grand open­ing of war, includ­ing the make up of weapons, and a for­mal call to his armies by the hero war­rior. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, it is wide­ly used by the Kat­ti (“Knife”) char­ac­ter. It was in The Ili­ad or The Sto­ry of Achilles, that Parap­pu­rap­pa­da was first made use of as a chore­o­graph­ic pat­tern for the pac­cha (“Green”, or of benev­o­lent) type. As designed by Richard Trem­blay, in the Kathakali Ili­ad, the Parap­pu­rap­pa­da empha­sizes Achilles’ wrath as he returns to war after his friend Patro­clus is slaugh­tered by the Tro­jans. There­after, the pat­tern was used in oth­er new Kathakali works for sim­i­lar purposes.

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Between the Lines

Topology of the Benevolent Hero

The pac­ca (green) char­ac­ter type

The pac­cha char­ac­ter (pac­ca, which stands for ‘green’ in Malay­alam) is the Kathakali green hero  whose make-up col­or sym­bol­izes an ide­al degree of achieve­ment in the human nature, accord­ing to the Indi­an ear­ly trea­tis­es on aes­thet­ics. It has its name (nāma in san­skrit) writ­ten on the fore­head. Lotus eyes and dew­drop lip cor­ners accen­tu­ate his soft nature. A three-lay­er paper frame mount­ed on rice paste runs on the jaw from the ears to the chin in order to accen­tu­ate the facial expres­sion, which is per­formed through the use of the facial mus­cles. Heroes from the Indi­an Epics, like the Pan­dawa broth­ers, includ­ing Arju­na, or kings like Nala, belong to this set of char­ac­ters. Because the Kathakali func­tion is to con­vey the nar­ra­tive of Epics, char­ac­ters like Achilles in The Ili­ad have recent­ly been includ­ed in the Kathakali pac­cha vesham.