PAPER RAIN
Sylvain Émard is the flight control of his sensual choreographed kites
Text Philip Szporer
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Ballettanz
Europe's leading dance magazine
April 2004
In his latest piece, "Pluie" (rain), Montreal-based choreographer Sylvain Emard uses climate as a metaphor for life. How all the forces outside ourselves transform us, inform us, and influence our lives, is the larger canvas. Emard seems to be asking what do our bodies absorb- unbeknownst to us? This is a highly subtle and serene - yet not Zen - dance work.
As much as he is habitually interested in the exploration and research into the tensions and resistance in the body, the construction of a dynamic spatial environment is what equally charges Emard's theatrical batteries. This quiet production is a duet for seasoned dancers Sandra Lapierre and Marc Boivin. As is his custom, Emard isn't interested in projection or presentation but a gestural language that suggests worlds that are more contained and interior. His palette of experimentation is neither simple nor sentimental.
Aside from his contemplations of different ways of exploring movement with his dancers, and eliciting sensations in the body, Emard has been active in challenging himself in meeting artists from outside the discipline of dance and integrating them into his work. "I like to seek out different people," says the choreographer. "People who inspire me." The meetings also force Emard to clarify what he's seeking in his process and how to best express those objectives to others, and the range of this investigation is impressive.
In previous works, such as "Te souvient-il?," an intimate performance which Emard co-created with Louise Bédard, was inspired by the paintings of Pierre Bruneau which treat light, time and darkness. Bruneau was invited to create the set design for the stage work - phosphorescent sheets that absorbed the dancers' shadows for a few seconds after they'd move, underscoring the work's themes of time and memory. In a more recent production, Scènes d'interieur-artist Jacques Perron created a video installation wall with projections. For "Pluie," Emard happened upon the installation work of Edward Pien, the Toronto-based artist of Vietnamese origin, at the Biennale de Montréal in 2000. Pien wrote in his artistic statement for that exhibition, "The viewer must partake in a journey, initially engaging the work by bending or stretching to look into openings that lead to more layers and drawings. But beyond where the body can go, the eye can still negotiate the interior passages, allowing the exploration to continue." He later went on to say, "I feel that my work is both seductive and unsettling: the paper offers a softness and warmth, while ambiguities of surface and depth are fraught with unpredictability. It is through these transgressions of boundaries of subject matter and medium that my work confronts themes of fears and vulnerabilities." Emard found Pien's forays in works on paper both sensual and playful, and the experience of engaging in the artist's work was "inspiring." He liked the whimsy of his mutant creatures and the colour in Pien's brushwork, and he wanted to capitalize on those elements in his own work. The challenge for Pien, who accepted the choreographer's invitation to create the set for his new piece, was how to adapt his work for the stage.
As in his exhibitions, Pien uses paper in "Pluie." The decor has the appearance of lightness. His construction is modular and modern, and employs a textured eggshell coloured glassine-like paper, with a used, wrinkled parchment look. A large cylindrical suspended structure, with an inner cylinder, is anything but oppressive. The installation, with a wide concave wall of the same paper construction behind it, is in effect highly sensuous. Lighting, by Etienne Boucher, transforms the stripped-back set and gives life to the structure. At a certain point in the production, the oval rises, like an extraordinarily delicate petal, revealing an inner glowing sanctum of sorts.
Adding to the overall chemistry is the musical contribution of Tim Hecker, the Ottawa-based composer. Known for his work in the underground electro-acoustic community, this is Hecker's first experience working in the dance milieu. If the experience of listening to electro-acoustic music suggests a cold, cerebral, even austere sound, what Hecker has created is altogether different. The music is very organic; the sounds hint at rainfall, other times a kind of radio-like interference. The piano arrangement is dreamy, and the overall mood is one of intimacy with a subtle edge. The score doesn't illustrate but functions fluently in complementing the patterning and the emotional quality in the choreography.
Laotian-born, Montreal-based Yso has designed the appealing costumes. The designer is known for his collection which combines architectural structures with asymmetrical lines, creating a long stylish silhouette, which complements the dancers' long, fluid bodies. Yso's style is influenced by WabiSabi, the traditional rustic Japanese aesthetic. Wabi-Sabi functions today as a prototypical "complete" aesthetic, naturebased and "soft" in contrast to the "hard" digital aesthetics of modern computer-age design. The essence of Wabi-Sabi is that true beauty, whether it comes from an item, architecture or visual art, doesn't reveal itself until the winds of time have had their say". As an antidote to frenetic contemporary design, it is an expression of uneven imperfect beauty, fragmented and raw - in an object, beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, and the imperfect lines - the balance in contradiction. And so, Yso's costumes, like the contributions of the other collaborators in "Pluie," perfectly suit the register of Emard's own creative impulse.
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Sylvain Emard aus Montréal arbeitet bevorzugt mit bildenden Künstlern und Musikern, die mit Tanz keine Erfahrung haben. Seinem neuesten Werk «Pluie» (Regen) liegen Papierarbeiten von Edward Pien aus Toronto und «japanische» Kostüme des aus Laos starnmenden Yso zugrunde. Piens transparente Papierkonstruktion sieht aus wie zerknittertes Pergament. Ysos Kostüme sind von der klassischen «Wabi Sabi»-Asthetik beeinflusst, die auf den japanischen Tee-Meister und Zen-Mönch Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) verweist und ursprünglich eine Kultur des Unperfekten, Unbeständigen und Unvollständigen meint - eine «ästhetische Askese», einen «Zustand ohne Besitz», eine «Metaphysik des Nichts», die sich in der Einfachheit und Schlichtheit der Form manifestiert.
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