Luminato’s ‘monumental’ lives up to its name
Dance show that tackles anxieties of urban existence will rock you to the core
“The work is made to break you down.” NOAM GAGNON CHOREOGRAPHER
It’s not often an event justifies its advance hype, but when Luminato bills monumental as “the must-see dance show of the year” it’s about as close to the mark as you can get.
Monumental brings together onstage the visceral explosiveness of two legendary Canadian companies, the world-travelled dance troupe Holy Body Tattoo and Montreal cult post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor, for a 75-minute work that probes the anxieties of contemporary urban existence. It’s a barrage of sound and movement that’s guaranteed to shake audiences to the core, physically and emotionally.
Nine dancers, in prosaic office-worker wear, stand isolated on square pedestals of varying height.
As the music builds toward one of the eight-piece band’s deafening sonic tsunamis, the dancers obsessively twitch, tug at their hair, fall and recover, convulse and writhe. Prosaic gestures assume unsettling power as they are accelerated and repeated.
The pedestals are emblematic of a cityscape, a metaphor picked up by William Morrison’s projections. These underline the theme of human isolation as the dancers search for genuine connection. Projected aphorisms drawn from the writings of American artist Jenny Holzer add to the disquieting mix.
When the dancers step down from their solitary towers, tender moments give way to flashes of aggression, as if the psychological impact of modern urban society has corroded all capacity for empathy.
By the end, the dancers are sweatdrenched and exhausted, drained to the very essence of their beings. But so is the audience, assaulted and shattered by so much sensory overload. It’s cathartic, grimly so, and magnetically riveting.
“The work is made to break you down,” co-choreographer Noam Gagnon said.
According to Dana Gingras, Gagnon’s choreographic accomplice, monumental in its current iteration is a show “that really shouldn’t have happened.”
Monumental first took Canadian audiences by storm in 2005. By then Holy Body Tattoo, founded in Vancouver by Gagnon and Gingras 12 years earlier, was nearing the end of its natural life. Without any formal declaration, they knew monumental was going to be their last hurrah and a big one.
Gingras relocated to Montreal. Gagnon remained in Vancouver. Each began to pursue separate projects. However, neither had factored in David Sefton.
Sefton, a huge Godspeed You! Black Emperor fan, was then director of UCLA Live and presented the original monumental in Los Angeles, its last tour stop, in 2006. The show used recorded music, drawn from the band’s 1997 debut album.
Five years later, shortly before becoming artistic director of Australia’s Adelaide Festival, British-born Sefton heard Godspeed You! Black Emperor was touring again and hatched a plan to revive monumental with the band playing live.
It took another five years of complex planning and co-ordinating before Sefton, who presented the new monumental in Adelaide this March, saw his dream come true. “The fact that the band is now involved means monumental can go to a level it never could before,” Gingras said.
It’s far from a nostalgic revival. Today’s zeitgeist makes monumental’s message all the more relevant.
“Its theme of the loneliness and constraints of our modern lives has only become more pronounced since the time of its creation,” said Luminato artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt.
Gingras added: “In 2005 there was this optimistic sense that we were looking at the near future and something could be done. No, we’re living it.” Monumental is at the Hearn, 440 Unwin Ave., until Wednesday; luminatofestival.com or 416-368-4849.