"Golem", A street perfomance by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (2012)

Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Every two years Toronto celebrates the Ashkenaz Festival, and one of its main events is the performance and parade, in the end of the festival, by Shadowland Theatre, on one subject referent to the Ashkenaz culture.

"Golem", by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This year the theme was "the golem", that mythical monster of the Renaissance Praga, which once he is alive gets mad and kills everyone who's not a believer, and the only thing could stop his fury is being in love.

"Golem", by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Shadowland Theatre works using giant puppets, Klezmer musicians and non professional actors who are volunteers from the Jewish community of Toronto.

Slideshow of photographs from the "Golem" performance in Toronto

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Ashkenaz Festival 2010 in Toronto (2): Ashkenaz Parade and 4 Other Performances of Music and Dance

This is the second part of 2 of the Ashkenaz Festival 2010 in Toronto, but I repeat the introduction of the first part:


¿In which part of the World you can experiment Jewish culture without feeling you are not part of it? Aside of New York and (maybe) Israel itself, almost everywhere in the world Jewish communities are closed to other eyes, and that's it, yes, well not in Toronto. 

Jews are a very strong community here and also a very active one. Just months ago there was an impressive Jewish film festival with a huge quantity of Jewish-subject and Jewish-made films, and every September the whole city celebrates Jewish Culture with a festival called Ashkenaz Festival or Festival of New Yiddish Culture (as it was called in Yiddish). During more or less an entire week there are theatre performances, music concerts, dance performances and lessons, parades, a market fair, painting exhibitions, lectures, and religious ceremonies with a relevant openness to non-Jews that most of us have never experimented before.

Jewish artists and celebrities from all over the world come here for the festival and party and talk with everyone who wants to listen to or dance with or learn from, and that is simply amazing. 

So I tried a little bit of everything and I had many surprises. I'm sharing some photographs of every spectacle and there is a video or audio when I could record something.


Now, the other five events I listened to and watched, including the parade with giant puppets, musicians and actors.

Sephardic and Mizrachi Cabaret

A concert with 10 of the best of the best in Sephardi and Mizrachi Music (from Israel and Morocco to Washington, from Sarajevo and Seattle to New York). It was the first time I experienced as spectator Ladino Songs.

Slideshow: Sephardic and Mizrachi Cabaret. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Morrocan sephardic chant by Aaron Bensoussan

 

You can find and buy music by Aaron Bensoussan here: http://www.amazon.com/Aaron-Bensoussan/e/B000APN688/digital/ref=ep_artist_tab_digi





Moldavian and Roma dances with Steve Weintraub & The Other Europeans

A concert of Roma musicians, and a Moldavian dance lesson for a multitude in an open stage.

Slideshow: Moldavian and Roma Dances. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Video: Moldavian and Roma dances. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Moldavian and Roma Dance at Ashkenaz Festival 2010 from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

Divahn concert

A concert with an amazing music band of young Newyorker women, Divahn, with songs with far middle Eastern influence.

Slideshow: Divahn Concert. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Audio: Yonkipur Song. Divahn Concert. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

 

(You can find and buy cd and mp3 by Divahn here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/divahn)

Balkan Beat Box concert

A concert of one of the most crazy Jewish band I have ever listened to, Balkan Beat Box, from Israel.

Slideshow: Balkan Beat Box Concert. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

You can look for Balkan beat Box music on internet, it is a very famous band.

Ashkenaz Parade and Performance

Slideshow: Ashkenaz Parade. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Finally a very live performance and parade with hundreds of people lead by Shadowland Theatre Group with their big puppets and music bands.

Seeing a street theatre performance in Toronto is almost a miracle, there are some acrobatic groups performing here and there (Orange Circus and others), but street theatre groups I only know Shadowland Theatre Group. It seems they are working in Toronto since many years ago, and some of their first performances had political connotation for the city during the eighties, so it has been a long way on an almost deserted land. Good for them.

Video: Askenaz Parade and Performance. Ashkenaz Festival 2010.

Ashkenaz Parade and Performance at Toronto Ashkenaz Festival 2010 from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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"On the side of the road" a Theatre Performance in Toronto

Program of "On the side of the road" a Theatre Performance in Toronto
Originally uploaded by Gustavo Thomas

Curious production by Theatre Junction (Calgary), "On the side of the road" at Fleck Dance Theatre in Toronto.

A Happening-like style production but with a common American way of saying things: storytelling (monologues of the characters addressed to the public telling their views about the story and their views about anything) with some dramatized scenes.

A very open style of directing theatre where anything can happen: live music, singing, dancing, sculpture and acting in French or English are all mixed, almost with success.

What it seems very interesting, from my point of view, is the Canadian roots inside the play: it is a Canadian story with Canadian characters (well, one of them is French) in a very Canadian atmosphere, where deers and lakes and trees are symbols, are ways of understanding life and are more than subjects of interest.

It happened that I saw it, happened I liked it.

So, now I can keep my self repeating the last song:

"I am a deer, deer, I am a deer!..."

Here a video a found in Youtube about "On the side of the road"

Theatre Junction page: http://www.theatrejunction.com/

Box, a Dance Performance by InDance at Fleck Dance Theatre in Toronto

They are dancers with Asian and Western background, leading by and Indian-Canadian choreographer; they dance with old and new styles, with old and new stories, using a traditional Indian technique of dance in contemporary, modern, funny, queer, gay, and kitsch subjects, and they most of the time are successful in it.

Last Saturday night enjoyed (because it was a pleasure) Box, a dance performance by InDance, directed by Hari Krishnan, at Fleck Dance Theatre. Seven surprising choreographies full of energy, good humour and beauty. You will see in the videos I've posted (from InDance's Yotube page) that mix and energy I'm talking about.

InDance is doing what many (many) dance companies around the world: taking their ancient techniques of movement and folk stories and transporting them to our times talking about our times. Many are successful and many simply are not. But the most interesting thing in InDance is that they are trying to talk about queer contemporary culture in a fresh and funny way with a very powerful theatrical weapon as ancient Indian dance technique is (and a little part of classical dance and ballet from Western culture), and you don't see anything like this in other part of the world... And they are doing it well.

In the end of Box you have not changed your way of seeing the world (even the world of the dance), not, but you leave the theatre with a big smile after have had a very new, powerful and different experience as a dance spectator, a surprising combination between the seriousness of an ancient performative culture and a new approach to our current bizarre way of living.

Different ways of saying things are the first big step of the big changes and I appreciate that InDance has shared it with us. We'll see how it goes through the time.

As usual, no videos or photographs allowed inside Harbourfront, so here a slideshow of photographs of the program and of some decoration at the theatre's hall, then three promotional videos from InDance's Youtube page.

Slideshow: InDance at Fleck Dance Theatre. March, 2010.

Videos: Promotional clips of Box, by InDance.

"Loin", a dance performance by Rachid Ouramdane in Toronto

Program of "Loin", a dance performance by Rachid Ouramdane in Toronto
Originally uploaded by Gustavo Thomas

I witnessed a strange travel as a spectacle.

A spectacle with an installation as a scenography but also as a structure, almost a dramatic structure.

Imagine an audiovisual installation, where you can listen to music and poems, where you can watch images through video, and see and listen to people who are interviewed about their past, a terrible one.

Imagine a dancer as a poet who sometimes dances, but most of the time he moves his body in slow motion, pushing buttons which turn on music, video or a microphone. The poet recites his poems in a quickly and monotonous way, poems with hard images of his past and images from his last travel to Indochina.

Imagine this poet as a dancer who dance beautifully, in some moments doing it only with his hands with a dark background, then you can only see his hands in movement, like in a photographs with lines of light of a city by night.

Rachid Ouramdane dances very little his poetry, exposes his past through words, through images, in a travel to his father's destiny in Indochina; he exposes all about this travel and its origins as in an art gallery, exhibiting it.

Imagine that we can not feel any identification with him because he never opens the door to it. Even without identification there is no place for a Brechtian theory, this spectacle is only an exhibition, far from theatre and drama, but it is an installation in movement, an installation on stage which speaks and dances.

This is the first time I got this experience from a dance spectacle and I'm interested in what will happen with this strange structure.

Should I say I liked it?

No video allowed inside Enwave Theatre but you can see a video from Youtube with some images of this dance (Loin) and other works:

Marlon Barrios from Dancetech.net gave me the address of other video with Rachid and images of Loin:

Watch live streaming video from dancetechtv at livestream.com

A Blind Date at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto

Last Saturday (March 5th, 2009) I went to see "Blind Date" by Rebecca Northan at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. After the show I wrote in Twitter:

"Just seen the Cabaret show Blind Date by Rebecca Northan and one improvised actor from her public. Very funny and nothing else. World Stage?"

As usual 140 words are not enough for covering a whole personal appreciation, but that's why I got a Blog and we're here.

Blind Date was a very funny cabaret show, a nice commercial and practical product, but not better than any other good cabaret show anywhere using people from the audience. The actress knows her job (comic improvisation) and it works well.

The premise is very simple: An actress, with her character constructed on a very simple personality basis and all her improvisation skills, plays with a very practical performance structure, a blind date with one person from the public (yes, exactly as many showmen do everywhere); so, during 90 minutes on stage she manages to be in different places and times with her scene-partner, a new one each night. It sounds delicious, full of comic potential, and of course practical, ingredients for a great success, as Blind Date has been for two years.

Then, my next personal appreciation, "but nothing else. World Stage?"

I don't think this is a theatrical production which deserves to be programmed into a festival as World Stage 2009-2010 has been till now: a group of very compromised and interesting theatrical productions with very high technical and artistic goals. Especially when a big part of Blind Date relies in an improvised actor from the public and the final result is only a simple comic effect, nothing else.

Sorry but I didn't learn anything else than the usual final sentences in any episode of comedy central's series, some wisdom words, in this case about the "real guy" the actress was working with.

Wherever you see Blind Date, its argument, its development of the story, its technical work, or the final result are no more than what you would expect from a nice and good cabaret show, entertainment, but not from a world quality theatrical production in the frame of an intended world theatrical festival.

It is the first time in my life I heard that in this kind of festival a "successful" production repeats in two years, not with the same director in a new production, not with the same cast with a new production, only the same work with extra time. That sounds weird.

My question is, in 2009-2010 Canadian Theatre (or theatre in Toronto) didn't have any new production (besides Necessary Angel's Hamlet) which deserved to be in a festival like World Stage? The rules of this festival are only based on "if the performance is very successful then you should program it again"?

I loved to be last Saturday night at the Bergantin Room inside the Harbourfront Centre, I enjoyed Rebecca Northan's performance a lot and how she worked her night partner, but I'm still thinking I payed for a world quality festival performance I didn't get.