Title: Voice and Body: Ahead of the Curve and Scouts Are Cancelled
Abstract: Over images of the rehearsal of a modern dance performance, acclaimed choreographer Christopher House says: is a physical suit of armor that men are forced to wear. There's a kind of anti-sensual physicality, so that men don't want to own their own bodies and consequently it's much more difficult for them to have any connection to their feelings. So that when feelings do kind of break outside of the envelope it can explode into violence. The arts documentary Christopher House: Ahead of the Curve (2007) explores the complex process through which modern dance comes into being, where the pleasure of feeling explodes in the physicality of movement. (1) We see the labour of dance as physical intensity and as joy. While the artist works intuitively, this process does not simply come out of thin air; it is grounded in the space of creative collaboration, a world of ideas, of personal history, and the experiences of moving in the All of this is brought together in what the artist describes as: intelligence of the body that comes through conscious practice. So that you develop this relationship with your body as an instrument, but also with your body as who you are ... The tension of that activity is what makes the dance happen. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The film is directed by Newfoundland filmmaker Rosemary House, his sister, and the discussion includes the (not uncommon) experience of leaving Newfoundland. House describes his departure from the region as necessary and inevitable, to escape what he describes at the time as a very homophobic environment. In turn, we see the subject immersed in the fast pace of the multicultural city and gorgeous shots of the dancer's body are set against the landscape of his travels and of his home. Geography is a state of mind as well as physical locale, and as much as this artist must leave home to become himself, the space of home travels with him. Another film would perhaps pursue the subject of coming out in St. John's in the 1970s; this one chooses to focus on creative practice in the present. There is a seductive calm to House's voice, but for me this too is a kind of armor, shaping the way we see the present. House speaks of the beauty of the Newfoundland landscape, but appreciating it in the present, in contrast with his childhood sense of place, which he describes as the wait for the slow arrival of what is happening in the rest of the world. Yet he generously describes the lack of pretension in Newfoundland, and how this has helped him to avoid taking himself too seriously, a disposition that allows his dancers to take risks in creative collaboration. This is an artist who has internalized a sense of place in order to see out into the The film's primary performance focus is on House's innovative and award winning dance show Timecode Break, made in 2006 in collaboration with video artist Nico Stagias (who also edits this documentary). Here we are offered a shift from the everydayness of body and landscape to the intensity of the cool media as backdrop for the hot dancers. (2) This intermedia collaboration allows a McLuhanite transformation of the body. Dancers on stage accompany themselves as projected onto a screen at the rear of the stage and we witness an overturning of the laws of physics. The video body is able to move in ways that defy gravity. What we see is both embodied and organic--technologized and set free of the constraints of place. The tension between organic and mediated body recalls, in a way, House's description of masculinity--here as well the screen is both armor and passageway. The dichotomy also informs the process of representation, as Nico Stagias explains of how he created the video footage of the dancers for this performance: I'd come in and just shoot them at rest or in casual conversation. My camera kept rolling. I wanted to find some casual, undancerly that would capture their personalities. (3) The video material includes dance segments altered through editing and motion effects, but also documentary style decisive moments that have a found footage quality with an intimacy drawing us toward the screen. …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-06-22
Language: en
Type: article
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