Art: what is it good for?
DANIEL LEVEILLE DANSE
“La Pudeur des Icebergs”
(Click above for a small video clip)
What is it with contemporary arts nowadays? Aiming to shock, stimulate, and provoke, we fall into a certain gratuity with regards to the substance, the essence, and the core.
Hiding under the cloak of the daring, the avant-garde or the experimental, and dotted with a subjective very superfluous discourse, contemporary art failed to convince me, yet another time, tonight.
Six nude dancers were on stage tonight at the Agora de la danse, performing and dancing, jumping and rolling, to the “solid” choreography of Quebec’s very own Daniel Leveille:
“La pudeur des icebergs (2004) - Following on the two shows with which it forms a trilogy (Utopie, 1997, and Amour, acide et noix, 2001), La pudeur des icebergs belongs to that research in which the liberation of codes is fully accomplished and complete, opening onto an awareness of the body. The encounter is absolute and primitive, and its esthetics open onto an archaic scene that is doubtless the essence of its message: only here can the body be considered as gesture, sign and signifier at one and the same time. Through dance, it has achieved the status of language. To explore this dance is not a process of saturated meaning, but a gradual work of deconstructing the community of the body as a community that is fragmented by language and rediscovered in the timeless act of exhibition and trust. (Georges Leroux, Spirale Magazine)”
Of course I am not THE art critic of reference, but I do belong to the general public, and I demand and deserve a certain amount of convincing, before I could be impressed, and give a standing ovation. This wasn’t there in tonight’s dance. Sure the dancers were busting their ass up there, performing the best way they can, but unfortunately I thought many of the scenes and the figures were pointless, the dancers were somehow week, non synchronized, and non balanced. Sure the postures are hard to attain, but I would think they would, or should rather, get to them no problem.
I wasn’t alone thinking that, my friends felt similar.
I did enjoy the show nevertheless; don’t get me wrong. I am just being the devil’s advocate out of frustration with art for gratis.
All we get these days is excellent talk and mediocre application; or a sexy skin, and a very banal core. The story is most of the time half complete, from performing arts, to design and then Architecture. It should be denser, and more consistent.
Don’t we deserve a masterpiece anymore? Don’t we deserve a complete piece of art? Or is it still up to us to fill in the blanks…since art IS subjective and very elusive, and that’s what makes it ART.
My concern is that this subjective ness that is associated with the “stroke of genius” and the creation of art itself, be its own annihilation and destruction in states of nonchalance, arrogance and egocentricity, and why not eccentricity.
This being said, I actually do recommend “La pudeur des icebergs. If you happen to be in Montreal, and would like to spend 60mns* experiencing something different, drop by the “Agora de la danse” on October 5th or on November 16th. It is quite an interesting performance.
*60 mns that I think should have been divided into chapters, not a full home run.
posted by _z. @ 3:54 AM
5 Comments:
nope no masterpieces .. everyone wants to make a quick buck ..
well art has to imitate life to an extent. maybe the contemporary reflects the impatience and the chaos of today's world as opposed to the well constructed well carved masterpieces.
maybe you're right mirvat. but that's too bad. on the other hand one could say that it is time for experimental art. most artists are trying to "create" something "new" a new current.. if that still exists anyway.
babykaos, i don't think it is about money... not at all actually. it is just impatience, tentative, and lack of inspiration plain and simple I guess. you can do anything and hide under the cloak of the absurde, the "you don't get it"... it is how art is.
well my friend i might be replaying late but it happens that i'm reading a book "presentement" and here's what is said: " la majeur partie de l'art contemporain s'emploie a s'approprier la banalite, le dechet, la mediocrite comme valeur et comme ideologie".......le bluff a la nullite forcerait les gens a " donner de l'importance sous le pretexte qi'il n'est pas possible que ce soit auss nul"... l'art contemporai joue de cette incertitude, de l'impossibilite d'un jugement de valeur esthetique fonde et specule sur la culpabilite de ceux qui n'y comprennent rien, uo qui n'ont pas compris qu'il n'y avait rien a comprendre"
eh bien voila!
thank you for this contribution voisine. t'éclaires nos pensées lo lo!
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