Nuit Blanche 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010.
After some reasonable success last year, I decided to have another go at some Nuit Blanche art appreciation. Building on what I enjoyed last year, I decided to dial in even tighter, and try for quality over quantity, aiming mostly at sound/music based stuff.
Without a gig to go to beforehand, I also managed to get a good solid evening nap in to help me stretch things out. And to start a little later too, letting the first big wave of post-sundown explorers tire themselves out. I have a strict "no standing in line" policy, so I thought a few hours might help in that regard.
c. 10:45 p.m. — Sonic Toys in Transit, junctQín keyboard collective
Looking at the map, it made sense to start a bit off the beaten Nuit Blanche path, at the Miles Nadal J.C.C. on the corner of Bloor and Spadina. In the small gallery off the main foyer I found a lone cello player, slowly playing a spare, unaccompanied piece. With "QUIET PLEASE" signs all over, there was a slightly haunted quality in the space as people shuffled in and out, doing their best to keep silent.
That was okay, but it wasn't until I followed the signs to the theatre — a larger-feeling space than I'm used to with the seats rolled back — that I fully understood the nature of the piece. The cellist's playing — now hauntingly disembodied — was being piped into the large auditorium, and that was the sonic backdrop for a trio of toy pianos playing and moving to an elaborate score that was projected onto overhead screens. The sound was plinky and seemingly random, but there was a sense of deliberate choreography in the way that the piano players would pick up their instruments and rotate from one spot on the floor to another — as far as I could gather, it was the movements of the players that was being related by the score more than what they were playing.
I settled in and listened to that for about five minutes when the piece ended and the players departed, one by one. As the speakers switched over to a recorded version of what I'd just heard, a volunteer mentioned that this was a break for the performers and they'd be back in a few minutes. So I hung around to get the full shmear.
Seeing the whole cycle, once it got going again, didn't really give me much more of idea of what it all "meant" or what deeper purpose this was supposed to convey. But just sitting back and soaking in the sounds for the fifteen-ish minutes was pleasing enough. And as always, it was interesting to see how the steady flow of people coming and going affected the proceedings, from the percussion added by clomping shoes to the real-time interpretation that everyone made as to where the "wall" between performers and audience was, and how close they could get and so on. By and large, given that it wasn't too busy in the theatre, people hung back and left the performers in their space, though I also got the sense that part of the open, loose concept was to see if the audience would do more than that.
When the cycle ended again and the players left the room, I took my leave too. Pleasant stuff, and if not an overwhelming "art experience" it was a promising start to the night.
Check out an excerpt from this performance here.
After that, a bit of a journey on foot, kinda taking in some of the stuff along the way in a series of sidelong glances. East of St. George, Bloor Street was closed off to cars, and I found the crowd for the first time. Walked past some projections of the side of the ROM en route to Yorkville Park, where I figured I'd check out Iskootao, where Kent Monkman (in his drag persona of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle) would be using the giant chunk of Canadian Shield as his base to challenge the surrounding invasion of this one-time indigenous space. Ironically, by the time I got there, the event had been shut down, allegedly due to noise complaints from residents of the posh condos overlooking the park. Score one for colonialism!
I also had a passing interest in checking out the light installation in Lower Bay Station, but there was a gigantic line stretching out 'round the block, so I turned south and kept walking.
c. midnight — Intimate Music @ Canadian Music Centre
Turned on to St. Joseph Street to head over to Chalmers House, the headquarters for the Canadian Music Centre, institutional home to composers of "serious music" in Canada. Looming over the street, the turreted heritage home had been opened up for an independent project called Intimate Music, curated by John Oswald. The pitch for this was right up my alley: as an antidote to the large-scale crush of so many Nuit Blanche projects, this put viewers in close quarters to musicians, creating concerts that were quite literally one-on-one. It also felt rather appealingly like Doors Open, too, in the free-form exploration aspect.
Going in, there was a modest crowd in the lobby, so I made my way upstairs and found myself in the boardroom. I grabbed a seat to listen to a very nifty bit of roiling solo piano. I was just starting to think how groovy this was when the pianist wrapped up and chatted a bit with the handful of people on hand about the music she was playing. I quickly scrawled "Ann Southam", the name of the composer that she had been playing, before heading out to explore a little.1
At the end of the hall, I found a banjo player in the supply closet, just hangin' out and pickin'. I stepped back into the Boardroom as another musician was settling in on the piano. I was hoping for something like the stuff that I'd just missed, but this turned out to be more like Sondheim/tin-pan alley pop instead. The banjo player had taken to wandering the hallways, and I could occasionally hear him picking away in the background — my mind couldn't push aside the image of Bugs Bunny singing "A Rainy Night in Rio". No scuffles ensued, however, and I ducked out to see what else was on offer.
Went back downstairs and into the score library, standing behind a handful of people watching a duo at the far end of the room. This was "One in Ten" by Jerry Pergolesi (xylophone, singing bowls) accompanied by Rob MacDonald (guitar) and a laptop playing quiet ambience verging on white noise. Most people stood for a minute or so and moved along, so it didn't take long for me to work my way closer to them and grab a chair at the other end of their table. I leaned back and settled in for about fifteen minutes as people came and went, while an accordion playing in the lobby mixed in, creating a sort of real-time mashup.
It was worthwhile to take this in for a little longer — the music was indeterminate but not unbounded, and some of the xylophone/guitar figures would reoccur over time. I could also turn my head and look at some of the drawings by Chiyoko Szlavnics on display, architectural-style renderings denoting the artist's own compositional method. And then, I figured that was about enough time to sit. I wandered around and explored the library a little, listening on, then moved along to the next room.
Listen to an excerpt from this performance here.
Stepped into an office on the other side of the lobby to catch the last few minutes of Tim Postgate playing some slightly atonal violin, accompanied with some wordless singing. I sat down on the floor and listened for a couple minutes. No one else around — indeed here was that anti-Nuit Blanche moment featuring an audience of one. He played a couple minutes before hitting a break point, so I nodded politely and headed back upstairs. Caught the end of another performance by Matthew Tran-Adams with a Celtic/slightly new-agey vibe.
On the whole, this was an excellent idea executed well. The scale of this was certainly to my liking, and it certainly fortified me as I headed out to face the crowds.
The remainder of my Nuit Blanche wanderings can be found here.
1 This turned out to be one of those minor things that sparked a larger reaction. After the fact, I got some Ann Southam CD's from the library and was totally floored by a few of them — the solo piano work is often full of space and ambient drift, with enough moments of slight asymmetry to keep it interesting as foreground music — recommended to anyone who likes Eno's more Satie-esque moments. Grab Simple Lines of Enquiry or Pond Life (both available at the TPL) if you want to dip a toe in. And if you'd like another flavour, put a hold on a set called Ovation Volume 4, which has a disc of some very froopy electroacoustic synthesizer works.
And in a sadder sort of synchronicity, I was just getting to know Ann Southam through her work when she passed away late last year. Christina Petrowska-Quilico, the pianist who I'd encountered at Nuit Blanche is a noted interpreter of Southam's work, and in speaking after, she noted that as a teacher there are not many students studying Southam. Hopefully this rather vibrant music won't just become another unplayed score on a dusty shelf.
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