PRESENTS
From Montréal / A Toronto premiere
Friday, April 30, 1999 / 1:30pm (student matinée) & 8pm (Opening Night)
Saturday, May 1, 1999 / 8pm
Electroacoustic Score: Jean Piché
Libretto: Yan Muckle & Frida Kahlo
Direction: Pauline Vaillancourt
Set, Costume and Video Design: Anita Pintin
Lighting Design: Axel Morgenthaler
Performer: Paulline Vaillancourt
Premiere Dance Theatre
RESERVATIONS: 416-973-4000
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Refer to Dianne Weinrib, D.W. Communications (416) 703-5479 / Fax (416) 703-5489 Autumn Leaf Performance presents the Toronto premiere of Yo soy la desintegración. This is a contemporary opera produced by Montreal's exciting Chants Libres company. Inspired by the journal of the extraordinary visual artist Frida Kahlo, Yo soy focuses less on the visual world of Khalo than on the expression of pain, courage and humour that she set down in the last ten years of her life in her diary. The music for the piece is by Jean Piché, the libretto by Yan Muckle and the visual elements are by the Venezuelan artist Anita Pantin. The performance as a whole however, is truly the creation of its interpreter, who is also its director: Pauline Vaillancourt, a major performer of new music and opera who has moved from performance to direction, from interpretation to creation. Pauline belongs to that category of performance artists known as extended-voice vocalists. Known for her intense musical and personal style, she bridges the gap between North American and European new-music performance. In the 1980's Pauline made her mark performing major new works of European composers. Although she has performed in Canada and the United States, she has been more active in France and London. In 1990 she founded Chants Libres or "Free Song" in Montreal with a mandate to explore and create a new opera repertoire. Since 1991, the company has produced a new work each, of which Autumn Leaf Performance has presented Alain Thibault's Ne blamez jamais les bédouins and Scelsi's Les chants des capricornes. However, Yo soy la desintegración has been her first work taken from conceptualization to realization. Identifying strongly with Kahlo's work, she set out to find ways to turn the inspirational journal in to a piece of music theatre. The scenes from Yo Soy la Desintegracion have been summarized as follows: 1. Childhood: A woman wanders through the house of her memories and revisits her childhood. 2. The Accident: Uproar of shredding, dismembering. The young girl's world teeters off balance in never-ending suffering. Nothing is as it used to be. Everything but pain is gone, wiped out. 3. Today Lasts Forever: The ruined body, eager to revive, begins to move again little by little. Stretched out on the floor, it takes an enormous effort for the woman to slide into what will be her new skin: the pillory-dress. 4. My Blood: The woman stands up. She rediscovers a portion of her femininity, regains her old mastery of movement and the world that surrounds her. The desire to live is so great ... But for the time being, mirrors reflect back only one image-her own. 5. Love: Extraordinary and electrifying encounter with the beloved. Love at last finds its object, and the woman finds what she had been forever seeking - the man appears everywhere from that moment on. During that strident marriage ceremony, part hymn of love, part provocative dance, all things seem possible. 6. In the Shadows: A slow procession through the man's kingdom, offstage but present in the heart. The woman knows she has been betrayed; yet still she dances, talks to the beloved, and seeks to be with him again. 7. The Child and Death: And death comes with the brutal and bloody aborted conception. No more dreams, useless body, restless mind. The woman returns to solitude and the pain of her dismembered body. 8. The Broken Wings: You can cut off a wing, mutilate a foot--but what if the heart managed to take flight all the same? Bled dry, worn out, the body ultimately lets go. Nothing remains of the woman but that strange force that has kept her going from the beginning. Ever increasing weariness comes side-by-side with never changing desire, and its over. "Superb! Radiant! An inspired performance." Voir, Montréal "Beautiful and risky. A form of art that feeds and givves hope." Le Devoir, Montréal Yo soy la desintegración takes place at the Premiere Dance Theatre at Harbourfront Centre April 30 & May 1 with performances Friday & Saturday at 8pm and a Friday matinée 1:30pm. Tickets run $15.50-$32.50. OPERA BOOM Paks for the three-show season are available at $35, $55 & $75. Call the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at 416-973-4000. All presentations at Premiere Dance Theatre will be followed by a public "talk-back" with the artists. On Saturday, May 1st (12 noon ) ALP, in conjunction with Indigo Books, Music & Cafe, will also host an INDIGO OPERA FORUM for Yo soy la desintegración at their Bay & Bloor store featuring artists from the opera and Toronto community. -30- |
