Category: Between the Lines

Kathakali dance (of South Asian char­ac­ter) was intro­duced to Cana­da in 1976 by chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Richard Trem­blay in col­lab­o­ra­tion since the 1980s with com­pos­er and per­cus­sion­ist Bruno Paquet. The first Cana­di­an pro­duc­tion was con­duct­ed in Sague­nay in 1976, by Téâ­tram, fol­lowed a few years lat­er by pre­sen­ta­tions in Vic­to­ria, Van­cou­ver, Saska­toon, Win­nipeg, Toron­to, Ottawa, Mon­tre­al and Que­bec City with K. Karunakaran (1980) in Toron­to and K. Gopalakr­ish­nan (in nation­al dis­sem­i­na­tion, 1981). Richard Trem­blay also danced with the Indi­an nation­al Kathakali com­pa­ny, the Kala­man­dalam of Ker­ala in India and at the Mon­tre­al per­for­mance of the 1981 North Amer­i­can tour of this pres­ti­gious com­pa­ny. After train­ing in the per­cus­sion music of Ker­ala, Bruno Paquet joined the Kathakali Insti­tute (Mon­tre­al) where reper­toire and cre­ation pro­duc­tions were part of the reg­u­lar dance land­scape in Que­bec and Cana­da. Bruno Paquet and Richard Trem­blay have staged lit­tle-known pieces from the Kathakali reper­toire, such as Gitopade­sham, as well as cre­ations such as Orig­ines (Mon­tre­al, 1988 – 94 – 96), The Ili­ad or The Anger of Achilles (Ker­ala, 1988 – 91 – 93, pre­sent­ed in Sin­ga­pore in 2000), and Ulysses (Ker­ala, 1994). With the foun­da­tion of Danse Kalashas in 1990, the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and the composer/percussionist found inspi­ra­tion in their prac­tice of Kathakali dance and music and thus cre­at­ed a reper­toire of con­tem­po­rary cre­ations of their own.

Anan­da Shiv­ara­man, a descen­dant of a fam­i­ly of gurus (gurukku­la) from Ker­ala, had pre­vi­ous­ly ini­ti­at­ed the intro­duc­tion of Kathakali in Que­bec and Cana­da. In the ear­ly 1950s, the dancer lived for two years in a small apart­ment on Sher­brooke Street in Mon­tre­al and con­tributed to sev­er­al pre­sen­ta­tions that were high­ly appre­ci­at­ed by the dance com­mu­ni­ty of the time.

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 by Danse Kalashas, the chore­o­g­ra­pher’s dance company.

Bow­ing to the Unknown

Before leav­ing, we kissed each oth­er; the rit­u­al of a more or less con­sent­ed farewell. When Mathilde approached Anil, he pre­sent­ed his cheek. She asked, sur­prised: “How do they do that in India?” The dancer clasped his hands on his chest and greet­ed her in response to a ques­tion for­mu­lat­ed in a lan­guage he did not under­stand. The ges­ture sur­prised her; or per­haps it embar­rassed her, see­ing it as a sign of mod­esty and a hes­i­ta­tion in the face of an invi­ta­tion to kiss. Anil had slipped behind a famil­iar ges­ture, a ges­ture inher­it­ed from his thou­sand-year-old India, he per­formed to greet the stranger. Yet, both of them want­ed to be strangers, hang­ing on a ges­ture they could not finish..

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

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. None of them would claim to be ‘exot­ic’ for all that.

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

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.

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

A Gra­cious Narcissism

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.

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).

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.