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| Luc Charette, Chenapan, bandit sournois |
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| Linda Rae Dornan, HELLO |
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| Linda Rae Dornan, Brooming |
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| Mathieu Léger, with match performance |
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| Monelle Doiron & Denis Lanteigne, Une histoire anodine, un couple ordinaire |
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| Mathieu Léger |
This was our second weekend, with three venues. Monelle Doiron & Denis Lanteigne joined us for two evenings and Luc Charette for the third venue, Moncton. New performances to see, new audiences! Linda began the evenings with a greeting performance—while shaking each audience member’s hand, she said hello in a different language to each person. With 35 translations of “hello” memorized, she opened up a discussion of cross-cultural acceptance, pushing back against language (and cultural) prejudices, and fear of “the other.” Her second performance combined building the book cover structures with the candles lit within and brooming wooden letters throughout the room, eventually surrounding the book covers. Again, with the overhead lights extinguished, the book “homes” glowed with ghost knowledge, surrounded with waiting letters.
Mathieu had a new performance with cast bronze bells of varying sizes which he slowly revealed, one by one, ringing each before placing it on the floor. The variation in sound echoing in the space was beautiful. The mini alphabet letters were slowly poured beside the bells and one laid on top of the letters. Mathieu backed away to the wall, standing silently. Quiet sounds are an integral element in Mathieu’s performance oeuvre, requiring us to listen closely, to pay attention. Mathieu again performed the match stick piece but with variations sensitive to the space. One of the pleasures of performing regularly on this tour is the chance we have to shape performances as they develop from place to place. What might work in one venue needs to be rethought in the next.
Monelle Doiron comes from a contemporary dance background, and Denis Lanteigne is a visual artist and photographer. Their collective,
Les drôles de Moineaux, began in 2015. Their work creates structured improvisations, uses simple and repetitive movements, and incorporates linear, circular, or static space.
Une histoire anodine, un couple ordinaire, the movement piece they performed over two nights explored a couple’s relationship, from rejection to fragile collaboration. At one point, Monelle tried to drag Denis by his legs in Campbellton but the carpet made that impossible. Barefoot at another moment, Monelle shadowed the slow slow walk of Denis, creating a tension in us, the viewers, of stalking or blindly following whatever someone tells you to do. Sensitive and insightful, their silent performance mimicked daily actions, exposing some of the hidden processes in any relationship.
We have a question and answer period after the performances. Discussions blossom, people ask questions targeting the heart of the works, such as, where do you get your ideas? How do you develop them? What is performance art is a common question.
In Caraquet, Linda performed the HELLO performance again and the
Brooming work by itself. HELLO is cross cultural, gentle, giving a gift across languages, and a pushing back against language prejudices. Brooming as an action by itself can be read several ways, such as pushing language around, dusting up old disagreements, owning your own language, or carrying it. Someone suggested the collecting of lost, misplaced or jumbled words, as in dementia.
The dance piece by Monelle et Denis filled the larger space of the Galerie Bernard-Jean. Choreographed by Monelle, they walked and ran, passing each other, using the space while drawn together like magnets, not touching, then being swept apart in a history of a couple’s relationship. A body inhabits a very personal story, reacting to the presence of another body, letting it live its own truth and this is what we are seeing. (Titre:
Une histoire anodine, un couple ordinaire)
Mathieu placed various objects on a low circular table, a hammer, a watch, a compass, a flat marble board, two garlic cloves and a brown paper bag. Every small action helped to build a story from stripping the garlic buds and blowing away the skins, to pouring the alphabet letters (inside the brown bag) on top of everything. He turned the table regularly, changing the story, the direction of the work as we expected to be. His personal iconography is there in front of us yet the “answers” we crave remain partially opaque, open to our own imaginations, parallel to his.
There are people who saw us perform last year and returned again. It is wonderful to see their faces in the audience and to engage in long conversations about the art form, and about their art practices and their community. New Brunswick is a large province geographically, it takes five hours to drive from Sackville to Edmundston. Without an easily accessed visual arts education and gallery system, artists struggle in small communities from lack of information and contact. PERF
form 19 Biennale reaches out to include these communities.
One purpose of performance art has been to expand art beyond the often conservative conventions of traditional forms of visual art such as painting and sculpture. For his second evening of performance with PERF
form, Luc Charette’s work was called
Chenapan, bandit sournois. He drew on a large white wall board, repeatedly ran down the gallery space before throwing himself against that wall, wore a mask like a madman mocking himself afterwards and hung a clock on the opposite wall. In describing his performance oeuvre, he has written, “I materialize innocuous gestures, often zany, in order to question the notions of work within the framework of a creative activity.” The title translates into “Rascal, a sly bandit.” In this work, Charette assumed a character via a mask (as in his first performance in Caraquet), adding a piquant reference to a bandit, an art bandit?, who runs from the graffiti wall before discarding the mask and once again throwing himself at the art. The artwork withstood all pounding.
A thought: with another evening of Linda Rae Dornan’s
Brooming performance done with more wooden letters added, the amount of letters could be easily doubled, tripled or quadrupled in quantity for the next performance. The action of brooming can be seen as “work” associated with house cleaning and the performance as physical language—letters, words, language constantly changing, rearranging and being pushed along outside of ourselves. The sounds of the wooden letters being broomed on the floor had a speaking quality and one viewer commented that they reminded her of bones...
The opportunity to refine one’s performances over the length of this tour is unprecedented. Mathieu has done this with his match performance and reworked the bells performance as well. The recurring use of the alphabet letters (mini pasta) covering various objects in his different performances speak of meaningful associations/memories for him, ones necessary to share. There is a sense of thoughtful pacing in the works, letting the audience breathe in the visuals, to make their own associations. Luc prefers to create a new performance each time he appears. Linda does both.
After five performance evenings we are definitely in the groove, rethinking actions, developing new ones, feeling free to experiment and expand our practices. With the four artists joining us in different venues this year, the diversity of performance activities is healthy and thought provoking. To quote Yoko Ono, “I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.” And yes! We are verbs for art—active, live, performative.
