The inspiration for Compagnie Kafig’s latest dance performance of two intense, physical pieces – Correira and AGWA – was an encounter between founder, Mourad Merzouki and 11 young dancers from Rio de Janeiro. Recently, they performed on the Eric Harvie Theatre stage , and through broken English, a few Portugese words, and lots of French to fill in the blanks, Jiggy and Alessandro – two current company dancers – gave me a behind-the-scenes scoop on the creation of a the company’s new show. All photos by David Copithorne.
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Hear, feel, move, dance…
Choreographer Aszure Barton and composer Curtis Macdonald. Photo: Don Lee.
“Sound is vibration, vibration is movement … and movement is dance,” Curtis Macdonald says. “It’s all connected.” He’s talking about his latest project, collaborating with internationally acclaimed choreographer Aszure Barton to compose music for her new work, PROJECT XII.
Both of them have been in Banff for the past few weeks. Macdonald is an alto sax player, composer, and sound artist, and he’s been here with Aszure and dancers from her company, Aszure Barton & Artists, working six days a week on the new work, which is backed by The Banff Centre and a who’s who of partners, including The CanDance Network Creation Fund, National Arts Centre, Danse Danse, Canada Dance Festival, Le Grand Théâtre de Québec, La danse sur les routes, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
“There’s a subtle energy in the mountains that helps bring things to life,” Macdonald says. He’s been able to mix environmental recordings made at Lake Minnewanka and along the Bow River into the soundscape for PROJECT XII. He meets regularly with Barton and the dancers. “I sketch something, and bring a recording to their studio. They listen as they rehearse, which gives them a chance to absorb it, and then we have a dialogue about how it’s working. It’s a very organic process.”
PROJECT XII will premiere on June 8 at the 2012 Canada Dance Festival , but those of us in Banff will have the opportunity to attend a special late-night sneak preview on Saturday, June 2.
Live Webcast March 16
Strings in action on a Friday Evening at the Rolston
Listen to our Live from the Rolston webcast beginning at 7:30pm MST, this evening, Friday, March 16!
Connect via the web to our streaming server and listen via iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player.
Or try our mobile friendly stream.
Tonight is the final concert of the 2012 Fall and Winter Music residency; featuring pianists Elizabeth Dorman and Christopher Bagan, original compositions by Diana Syrse, soprano Taylor Strande, accordionist Olivia Steimel, and the Temple Street Trio.
Click here for the full program.
The concert will be hosted by director of Fall and Winter Music programs, Henk Guittart, and broadcast by The Banff Centre’s audio department.
Opening the concert, flautist Lelland Reed will perform a new work inspired by Syrse’s original composition, Astral and Stockhausen’s Virgo music box, from his Tierkreis series.
Banff Centre sound designer Alyssa Moxley spoke to composer and singer Diana Syrse about developing the piece with Reed.
Diana Syrse and Lelland Reed developed a new work based on the Virgo Music Box.
Ana Sokolovic: dance / theatre / music
Ana Sokolovic, Marc Boivin, and the Bozzini Quartet in rehearsal for Commedia Ruzzante. Photo: Kim Williams.
“Here at The Banff Centre, I’m pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, because as an artist, I believe this is the only way I can move forward with my craft,” says composer and musician Ana Sokolovic. She comes to The Banff Centre this season with the Bozzini Quartet and choreographer Marc Boivin to work on her first self-prompted, multi-genre collaboration, called Commedia Ruzzante.
As a composer, Sokolovic has created more than 40 works, including compositions for stage, opera, orchestra, voice, and chamber ensembles (the Societe de musique contemporaine du Quebec’s (SMCQ) Homage Series has devoted its entire 2011 – 2012 season repertoire to her work, celebrating its scope, diversity, and quality). “In the past, the music I created just touched on one particular part of my personality, and of my creativity. With this project I’m incorporating more of myself – my love for theatre, stage, dance, and music – into one project.”
Ana Sokolovic and the Bozzini Quartet in her Banff Centre studio, rehearsing Commedia Ruzzante. Photo: Kim Williams.
After receiving two 15-minute commissions around the same time – one for the 2010 Banff International String Quartet Competition and one for the Bozzini Quartet— Sokolovic decided to combine both into one long piece and include Boivin’s choreography. “I wanted to create something that was not limited to 15 minutes, and I had a very profound, artistic, human instinct that we would all go well together,” she says.
The group has been working on this collaborative project for more than a year, and now they’ve come to Banff to perfect the performance aspects, and work on the staging. “You’ll see that there are some elements that can only come from a friendly familiarity between all parties, and that’s from taking such a long time to get to know each other artistically.”
Composer Ana Sokolovic. Photo: Kim Williams.
That familiarity has also given Sokolovic the freedom to do something else she’s never done before: allow the Bozzini Quartet to improvise with her music. “It’s the first time in my life that I’m allowing someone to improvise with my project, because I’m usually very controlling of the whole thing,” she says with a laugh.
Inspired alumna brings Banff to the UK
South is a silent film, made in 1919, and much of the footage was taken by Frank Hurley, who accompanied Shackleton on his epic voyage to the Antarctic in 1914-1916
Inspired by the diversity of the Friday Evening at the Rolston concerts, Banff Centre alumna Cheryl Law created her own series: Sallow Tree Concerts. Now, after 15 successful performances, Sallow Tree Concerts’ newest show, The Idea of South, features the creative works of composer and pianist Simon James Phillips. Developed at The Banff Centre, The Idea of South explores the haunting and mesmerizing story of Ernest Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica through improvised piano music and a screening of the 1919 silent film South.
Cheryl Law explains further.
Q: Where did you get the inspiration for Sallow Tree Concerts?
I simply love The Banff Centre, and I especially love the concerts that take place in Rolston Recital Hall on Fridays. Each time I returned home from Banff I searched for similar concerts, but nothing like it really existed. In Banff, I found there were people everywhere who can help you believe you can do anything, and this, without doubt, gave me the inspiration and the courage to set up my own concert series back home. The Banff Centre is alive in my series!
Q: Why did you call your series Sallow Tree Concerts?
I named the concert series after my small town, Sale, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for Sallow Tree—a type of Willow.
Q: How did your latest concert, The Idea of South come out of your partnership with Simon James Phillips?
Whilst I was in Banff on my own residency, Simon was also there working on The Idea of South. His mastery of improvisation, matched with his attention to detail in the film South, created a sound track which I found original and captivating. I truly thought it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in Banff – and that is saying something! ! I knew straight away I’d like to get Simon to the UK to perform.
Q: The Mountain Film Festival screening in Manchester will be promoting The Idea of South. Why do you feel the Festival audience is well-suited to this concert?
The Mountain Film Festival was on tour in Manchester just after I arrived back from the Banff Centre in 2011, and I felt so excited to be there—like Banff had followed me home! I found people in Banff to be open-minded and adventurous, with an interest in other people and cultures, and I found that the Mountain Festival audience in Manchester to be the same! As the film South is an adventure tale, I knew there would be an appreciation for the story.
Cheryl Law, creator of the Sallow Tree Concert Series in the U.K.
Composer and pianist Simon James Phillips.
Hunting for treasure at the Paul D. Fleck Library
Here at the Paul D. Fleck Library & Archives at The Banff Centre, there’s a treasure hunt underway. That is, if you regard little chicken-scratch-like markings to be treasure, the way we do.
The hunt is part of an Archives Society of Alberta-funded grant project to arrange and describe the records of Hungarian musician and composer Zoltán Székely, who came to The Banff Centre as an artist-in-residence in the 1970’s and stayed through his retirement, passing away here in 2001 at the age of 97.
In Hungary, Székely was a friend and collaborator of one of the most significant composers of the twentieth century, Béla Bartók. He was also lead violinist of the famed Hungarian String Quartet for over thirty years.
At the Banff Centre Székely coached a new generation of string quartets, and was instrumental in establishing the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 1983: His musical discernment, reputation and connections ensured that it was immediately received with the highest level of respect in the music world. He performed in gala concerts during the Summer Arts Festival and drew leading Bartok scholars to Banff for a special Bartok centenary celebration in 1981. He was one of the key faculty who, under the direction of Tom Rolston, transformed The Banff Centre’s music programs from a primarily amateur summer school to a world-renowned centre for creative excellence
The records in the archives include a few boxes of archival manuscripts and photographs. He also left 63 boxes of published scores and books, which may be added to the library’s collection.
In each box, a few of the items have markings that make them unique and therefore archival: inscriptions to Székely by the composer or author, or little annotations that represent his notes to himself on how to play a piece of music. While a score lays out the outline of the work, musicians have a key role in interpreting it. Székely’s interpretations, especially of Bartók’s music, are highly significant, since he worked with Bartók himself.
The Archives is fortunate to have Buffy Knill, a librarian and former musician, to work on this project. She understands the little chicken-scratches and is very good at spotting the significant ones. Because of her expertise, she had the privilege of working in our basement storage room for a couple of weeks, going through the 63 boxes looking for treasure.
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