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LuminaTO

Yeah, all those ladies' portraits as part of the everyday visual scenery at BCE *ahem* Brookfield. One thing that struck me is how Jeanne Beker's photo makes her look a decade older than she is, never mind has pretended to be. And oh yeah, spotted a pic of one particularly sullen-looking young thing with a lip piercing, and I guessed right: Caitlin Cronenberg...
 
The talk at Colour ... for the End of Time was interesting, but the visual representation of the music didn't work at all. The music was at times jagged and startling and abrupt, but the colours swirled within a blobby circular shape that suggested calm and wholeness, and they changed slowly. A fundamental mistake.

I closed my eyes and made my own colours - shapes, actually, since I see music primarily as form and mass - during the Gryphon Trio's performance.

Clarinetist James Campbell was wonderful, especially in the extraordinarily long, drawn out passages; I wish I could hold my breath for that long.
 
I enjoyed "Canadian Song Book" last night at Massey Hall. It was the most relaxed and genuinely fun presentation I've yet seen over the last four days, even with the presence of the usual politcos and big-wigs. Each of the performers chose songs by a Canadian composer to sing. There were several references to the oddity of singing a Leonard Cohen song while the man himself was singing just down the street at the Sony Centre.
Marika Bournaki's variation on the National Anthem was lovely and had the audience standing, even though it wasn't required. A touching moment. Nikki Yanofsky has incredible pipes for a girl her age, just needs a little maturity to lend credence to some of the songs she sang. Danny Michel was particularly good in a very, very good second half of the show. I won't go on anymore about it, just that there is so much talent in this country it was nice to see a little of it on stage singing the songs of other Canadian talent.
 
From Daily Dose of Imagery:

luminato_light-balls_dundas-square_01.jpg


luminato_light-balls_dundas-square_02.jpg

kristopher,

What camera do you use? Some sort of dslr? That first pic is a great night shot.
 
So, I went to see "The End of Cinematics" at the St. Lawrence Centre, one of three of Mickel Rouse's works to be presented at Luminato. ( I'd heard him the evening before at the "Canadian Song Book" concert and was impressed.) The orchestra section of the Bluma Appel Theatre was, at best, half-filled...and then the performance started. It began with trailers from up coming summer action-movies that set the context for Rouse's work, a context that he was to distort and turn inside out. Film he shot in Paris several years earlier, was superimposed over live singers, or was it the live singers who were superimposed on the film? It moved so seamlessly from live performance to filmed that in minutes what was live and what was not didn’t matter ;my brain stopped registering the difference. Confusing? Yes, to a great many, some of whom began to sneak out if the intermission-less performance. This is the purest work of art if I’ve seen at Luminato so far ;seeing and hearing are the only way to believe. It was like being immersed in an surrealist canvas, that sang and played musical instruments. A linear plot? Forget it. He has screwed over what we think movies can be, mixing inseparably, live, with pre-recorded video, live-action video, special effects and some very wonderful, trance-like music and voices. The man is gifted and I want to thank him for the gift he gave me last night, although so many people wanted an exchange/return. I hope they kept the sales slip.

Then I walked up to Dundas Square for “Disco†night. Perfect weather, under the balloons and the half –moon, to listen to the music of my misspent youth. A great crowd and a great time and a good way to rest my aching, multi-media attacked brain.
 
slow dancing

I really enjoy slow dancing. Am I the only one disappointed with the chosen location? Would the front of the Four Seasons Centre have been a better venue? The courtyard at First Canadian Place? I like the way the pieces were displayed in New York.
 
Thanks for the enticing review Benc7 - I may go tonight if I get the chance. What a great week this has been so far ...

Last night I saw another Mark Morris - All Fours and Violet Cavern. As with Mozart Dances, almost a full house and a very appreciative audience. The two dances are very different, each a unique world with a unique language of movement - sometimes done at a blistering pace, sometimes barely moving ... sometimes not even performed standing. The world of All Fours felt like that of the COC's The Handmaid's Tale - prayers and angular movements.

The music was all vim and vigour and nice and loud at times - especially in Violet Cavern when, to my ear, it sounded like an ironic mix of jazz, circus music, and '50s movie soundtrack.

Engaging to see, and something to mull over.
 
kristopher,
What camera do you use? Some sort of dslr? That first pic is a great night shot.

as kristopher mentioned, the pictures are from a blog called "Daily Dose of Imagery". Those images were taken by the person who does that blog. He (i believe it's a he) sometimes will say a blurb about what camera and lens he is using, although he didn't with this group of photos.

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/06/08/
 
as kristopher mentioned, the pictures are from a blog called "Daily Dose of Imagery". Those images were taken by the person who does that blog. He (i believe it's a he) sometimes will say a blurb about what camera and lens he is using, although he didn't with this group of photos.

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/06/08/
you are right, it is a he. his name is Sam Javanrouh.

and the info is actually in every picture he posts. if you place your mouse over the picture, the info about the photo will show up.
 
Nunavut last night at the Isabel Bader Theatre was excellent.

In the title piece, which closed the first set, Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq issued the most extraordinarily sounds as she did the rounds of the four men of the Kronos Quartet in a musical simulacrum of wild, sweaty and very loud sex - yelping, growling, moaning, and slurping her way from one musician to the next. Way to go, Tanya! What a great vocal range she has - at times sounding like a dog, at times making whale sounds, and at times sounding ... oh so human.

Not surprisingly, this piece got a rapturous standing ovation from ( most ) of the near-capacity audience. CBC was taping, and it may appear on The National tonight.

Kronos also performed wonderful pieces by Xploding Plastix, Sigur Ros, Kaija Saariaho and Hurdy-Gurdy.

Tundra Songs was an equally thrilling highlight of the second half. Tanya used her speaking voice, by way of a change, in this one. She looked quite demure in a lovely purple dress.

One of Luminato's best so far, as far as I'm concerned.
 
i'm really suprised and saddened by the fact that they already took down the white spheres from dundas square. they could've at least kept them until the end of the festival this weekend.
 

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