Day: August 1, 2020

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Between the Lines

A REMINDER

Graph­ic repro­duc­tion of the poster announc­ing an event to raise aware­ness among the Mon­tre­al audi­ences about the dance prac­tice at the Danse Kalashas com­pa­ny. (Dia­gram, 1991)

Danse Kalashas, Montreal

Danse Kalashas (con­tem­po­rary dance com­pa­ny) was the first dance organ­i­sa­tion to per­form at the Ago­ra de la danse when the venue opened in the fall of 1991 at the dance depart­ment of the Uni­ver­sité du Québec, on Cher­ri­er Street. The com­pa­ny per­formed an entire pro­gram of con­tem­po­rary dance, Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices (1990), Danse Kalashas’ found­ing work first per­formed at Tan­gente (Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 1990) and show­cased at l’Agora in a repeat per­for­mance at 8 p.m. A late show by a guest artist in Indi­an dance fol­lowed on the week­end. In the after­noon, there was a lec­ture-demon­stra­tion of the Kathakali dance and music. Super­vised by Dia­gramme, a Mon­tre­al-based cul­tur­al man­age­ment organ­i­sa­tion, these pre­sen­ta­tions focused on Richard Tremblay’s cul­tur­al and artis­tic con­nec­tions and hybrid work. The pre­sen­ta­tion of a series of relat­ed but inde­pen­dent activ­i­ties and the ini­tia­tive of bring­ing a dance audi­ence to a new venue was the main chal­lenge of the ven­ture. Danse Kalashas and Richard Trem­blay returned to Ago­ra in 1995 to fea­ture in Volet Choré­graphes, a Danse Cité series where the com­pa­ny pre­sent­ed La Courbe en Flo­con de Neige to music com­posed and per­formed live by Bruno Paquet — a week-long pro­gram shared in tan­dem with chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and artis­tic direc­tor Daniel Soulières, Volet Choré­graphes XII.

Danse Kalashas pré­pare une semaine d’activités spé­ciales pour l’automne à l’Agora de la danse, qui per­me­t­tra au spec­ta­teur de se famil­iaris­er avec le Kathakali et le Kathak, deux formes tra­di­tion­nelles, et d’assister à des spec­ta­cles de contemporain.

(Le Devoir, 1991)

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Pho­to: Col­lec­tion Geneviève Pepin

The per­form­ers at the 1992 revival at the Saidye Bronf­man Cen­ter (Cen­ter for the Arts and Per­for­mance), Mon­tre­al. Fore­ground: Bruno Paquet (per­cus­sion) with dancers Geneviève Pepin, Sophie Des­jardins and Kir­il Chour. Sec­ond row: Richard Trem­blay (chore­o­g­ra­ph­er) and Francine Gag­né (Dancer).

Categories
Between the Lines

Representation of the Belligerent Hero

Once upon a time: 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.