Film News - imagineNATIVE Embargo Collective at the Berlin Film Fest

Hot Off the Presses:
(and gosh, doesn't that expression sound quaint these days?)

imagineNATIVE’s EMBARGO COLLECTIVE
to have its European Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival 2010
(Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin 11.-21.02.10)

(Toronto, February 3rd, 2010) The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is pleased to announce the official selection of the festival’s Embargo Collective programme for the Forum Expanded section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. This programme of works was commissioned by the imagineNATIVE festival for its 10th anniversary and will have its European premiere Monday, February 15th, 8.30pm at Cinema Arsenal 2 and a repeat screening Wednesday, February 17th, 4pm at CinemaxX 6.

Curated by imagineNATIVE’s Artistic Director Danis Goulet, the Embargo Collective is an international group of seven Indigenous artists at the forefront of the changing global landscape of Indigenous cinema. Inspired by Lars von Trier’s The Five Obstructions, the filmmakers brainstormed individual rules and restrictions for one another, resulting in seven new short films that forced each director in a completely new creative direction.

The three Canadian directors’ obstructions were severe: Heiltsuk/Mohawk writer/director and Sundance Lab alumni Zoe Leigh Hopkins* was pushed away from her dramatic leanings and ordered to make a comedy in a changing static location in Tsi tkahéhtayen (The Garden); Anishnabe documentary filmmaker Lisa Jackson* was challenged to make Savage a musical with heavy metal – she added zombies to match the residential school subject (image from the film above); and Tsilhqot'in documentary director Helen Haig-Brown* was “pushed beyond belief” and scored a coveted spot on the Toronto International Film Festivals Top Ten Shorts of 2009 list with her stunning science fiction retelling of a traditional story in ?E?anx (The Cave).

The international contingent was just as challenged: Australian Bulgunnwarra/Nga Ruahine Rangi filmmaker Rima Tamou scaled down his usual approach to production and was required to work with non-actors to create First Contact; American Sundance stars with dramatic features under their belts, Blackhorse Lowe (Dine) and Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek) were steered away from familiar themes, processes and shooting styles into new territory to create the moody romantic comedy b. Dreams and the poignant Cepanvkuce Tutcenen (Three Little Boys - image above); and New Zealand’s renowned Oscar-nominated Te-Whānau-ā-Apanui filmmaker Taika Waititi* (also at Berlin and Sundance this year with his feature Boy) flagrantly and hilariously addresses and breaks almost all the rules imposed upon him in The White Tiger. (Image from First Contact below.)

An important link in the programme was the universal rule that all of the films had to be in a language other than English. This resulted in a landmark exhibition of six new works shot entirely in original Indigenous languages, a significant accomplishment and fitting celebration of the diversity of the world’s Indigenous nations in an anniversary year.

Curator Danis Goulet stated: “The growing international recognition of Indigenous made works is a testament to the creativity and distinction that imagineNATIVE has been celebrating for ten years. The presentation of the Embargo Collective programme represents yet another breakthrough year of Indigenous-made works at the Berlin International film festival. Over 20 months, these filmmakers worked in the true spirit of collaboration to push each other out of their individual safety zones and, for some of them, to produce the best work of their careers.”

The Embargo Collective’s programme originally premiered at the 10th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto on October 17, 2009. imagineNATIVE’s impact in Berlin extends to its Talent Campus where previous imagineNATIVE mentorship award-winner Adam Garnet Jones is one of this year’s participants.

The Embargo Collective was generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

Angela Hewitt, pianist

Angela Hewitt in Concert
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 8pm, Roy Thomson Hall
60 Simcoe Street, Toronto

On May 10, 1985, pianist Angela Hewitt stepped out on stage at the 1st and only ever Toronto International Bach Piano Competition for her own-choice virtuoso piece, knowing her career was virtually in the balance. While she wasn't available for an interview, understandably, she does like to share with her fans and fellow music/Bach enthusiasts online in various forms, including her own website, and in an online post reminiscing about the win, she says,

For ten years, since the age of 16, I had been on the international piano competition circuit, winning many prizes but lacking the “big one”. Winning this would, I knew, launch me worldwide and put an end to competitions for life.

She launched into a version of Liszt’s “Aprės une Lecture de Dante” that left the competition behind, and a jury that included pianist Leon Fleisher, composer Olivier Messiaen and his pianist wife, Yvonne Loriod, and Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin awarded her first place. As she had judged, it launched an enviable professional career of concerts, collaborations and recordings. Enviable - but nonetheless a life she took on with a sense of responsibility.

And I say “the door had been opened” because in fact that is all it is. An immense opportunity to then build a life with music: to keep showing time after time that you were worthy of it; that you can continue to grow as a person and as a pianist; that you can withstand constant, enormous pressure; that you have the repertoire to sustain 100 concerts a year; that you can put up with constant travelling and never being at home.But that after 25 years of doing so, you can still get up on stage and feel the freshness of a piece you have played all your life and play it with all your heart.

On February 12, at that same Roy Thomson Hall, Hewitt reprises the programme that won the prize, including Bach’s Italian Concerto; Beethoven’s Sonata in D major, Op. 10 No. 3; and Brahms’s Sonata in F minor, Op. 5. Her current tour has seen her play Carnegie Hall (February 6). That concert ended her tour with the celebrated Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and she'll cross the continent to Oregon later this month before heading back to Europe.

Ms Hewitt grew up in Ottawa, born into a musical family that included a father who was a church organist. Her own musical involvement began early, at age 3, and she gave her first solo recital at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music at the tender age of 9.

In 1994, well established in her professional life, she set out to record Bach's complete Well-Tempered Clavier, an undertaking whose results are available on Hyperion Records, and one that took her 11 years. The results were immediately acclaimed as the new gold standard for Bach on the keyboard - described as “one of the record glories of our age” by The Sunday Times. She was Gramophone's Artist of the Year in 2006 not for Bach, but a recording of Beethoven Piano Sonatas.

In 2007 she took WTC on the road, a long road that took her from Colombia to South Africa, playing an exhausting repertoire of both books in full over two concerts on two consecutive days. Indeed, if you read a few of the reviews here and there, the only complaint seems to be the amount of time the reviewer had to spend sitting on his duff while Ms Hewitt played. You can check a taste of it out yourself here Live from Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, U.K. in June 2008 as part of her Bach world tour. In 2008, after 58 cities on 6 continents, the tour ended, and she recorded a new version of the Well-Tempered Clavier to universal accolades.

Ms Hewitt recently won Artist of the Year - Instrumentalist at the 2010 MIDEM Awards. Nowadays she lives in London, with homes in both Ottawa and sunny Italy, where every year she runs the Trasimeno Music Festival.

You can read the rest of Angela's reminsces on her 1985 win at this link. The evening - on the 12th - should prove sublime.

And So It Goes - George F. Walker's new play at Factory Theatre Toronto

And So It Goes
Written & Directed by George F. Walker
Starring Martha Burns, Peter Donaldson, Jerry Franken & Jenny Young
Factory Theatre, Toronto

Continues to February 28

George F. Walker's latest play, And So It Goes, unfolds in a succession of brief scenes, and it's that format - and the flashes of humour in the superbly written dialogue - that keep the piece from becoming too dark. It is, after all, dark material that it explores. Ned (Donaldson) has lost his job at an age where few are willing to look at him, and in an era where the opportunities are few to begin with. His daughter Karen (Young) is locked in a druggy schizophrenic hell where brushes with police and the judicial system have become routine. Gwen, (Burns) the wife and mother, tries to carry on through sheer will and the help of her own secret therapist, the ghost of none other than Kurt Vonnegut (Franken). Son Alex, who appears only in mention, left the scene long ago. (Donaldson - standing, and Burns consult with Franken's Vonnegut in the image.)

Things go from bad to worse. The house they live in becomes a series of ever smaller apartments, Ned flunks chef school and Karen runs away, disappears to go back to hooking on the street, where the police don't even try to find her anymore, until she turns up as yet another sad statistic. So what do you do when when the very underpinnings of your life give way, and you're left with nothing but despair and a palpable sense of grief? (Young as Karen in the image.)

It must be something of a challenge as an actor to so fully flesh out your role in the brief scenes and snippets of dialogue in Walker's play, but the casting here is virtually perfect. Donaldson and Burns, both veterans of the stage, don't have a false note as the parents who go from trying to manage and move on to simply trying to get through the day, morphing from middle class respectability to dirty denizens of the street and homeless shelters. Jenny Young turns in a wonderful performance as Karen, showing us the sad, confused soul inside the craziness. Franken has perhaps the hardest role of all, since his imaginary character is a reflection of those who imagine him, and provides much of the play's humour in the role of the self satisfied auteur. They're aided by an ingenious minimalist set design by Shawn Kerwin, consisting of a dimensional backdrop that handily switches from living room to park to street side and homeless shelter with a few props here and there. (The wall that was postered with Reg Hartt notices was my favourite touch!)

The house was deservedly packed for opening night. It's gritty, but not depressing, and while I wouldn't exactly go as far as to call it uplifting, it does speak to the strength of the human spirit, to that determination to continue and find purpose in life in the face of the worst of it. Walker's script is nuanced and keenly observant of human nature. You'll laugh as you sympathize, and you really must see it.

All the images are by Ed Gass-Donnelly, courtesy of Factory Theatre.

Lula Lounge Last Night - rinsethealgorithm & Tasa

Chemistry & Math 101 - rinsethealgorithm & Tasa
Lula Lounge January 28

If the musicians of one band stay to avidly listen to the next band's set, then you know that the bar will be set pretty high for the sound you can expect to come from on stage. Last night (January 28) at Toronto's Lula Lounge was just such an evening. The crowd was full of jazz lovers and those high standards weren't disappointed.

Formed by electric bassist extraordinaire Rich Brown, rinsethealgorithm turn out a fluid, very modern kind of sound, one with its roots in artists like Weather Report and Miles Davis. It took the jazz standard of verses, bridge, solos, and then again, with a take innovative enough to keep all of it fresh to the ears. It's another good sign when the band looks like they're having fun playing the music. It sounded loose, flowing, like it could turn in any direction at any given second, and the four of them would follow the thread seamlessly. Not surprisingly, their music is strongly rhythmic, with a great rapport between Brown and his drummer* a solid basis for the harmonic explorations of the tenor sax or keyboards. It was virtuoso playing that still took notice of its audience in a pretty tight set that left most, I think, wanting more.

*rich brown - bass, robi botos - piano & keys, luis deniz - sax, larnell lewis - drums

Next up was Tasa, the brainchild of Ravi Naimpally, an Indian born Canadian musician. With his roots in the music of North India, he put Tasa together to explore the cultural -and musical - depth and diversity that exists in Canada. The music is hypnotic, and came from an 8 piece band that included bass, guitar, drums, keys, and three wind players (tenor & soprano sax, trumpet). Ravi sits with his tablas to one side.

*Band members are listed as Alan Hetherington drums & percussion, Chris Gartner bass, John Gzowski guitars, dobro & oud, Ravi Naimpally tabla & percussion, Ernie Tollar sax & bansuri - three short!

Their sound is rhythmic, and while the Indian influence is immediately apparent, particularly in the melodies and harmonics, there's a strong element of modern jazz in it too. The music is infectious and polyrhythmic, multitonal and definitely danceable. Again, you felt the looseness and ease of musicians who knew each other well. There were rounds of solos that showcased the depth of talent there was on stage.

It was a different flavour of virtuoso than earlier in the evening, making it really the perfect double bill for a jazzy Thursday night out.

An Interview with Jenny Young, in the cast of George F. Walker's And So It Goes

I recently caught up with Jenny Young, a busy actress between rehearsals for And So It Goes, the world premiere of multi-award winner George F. Walker’s first new play in about a decade – and this role comes hot on the heels of her turn in Factory Theatre’s December production of Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Madonna Painter, leading to some interesting comparisons of working on both projects.

“I would say the biggest different between the plays is the voice of the writer,” Young observes. “The Madonna Painter was poetic realism – and a translation from the French. The language wasn’t as immediately accessible. There were lots of discussions, lots of studying the text. (Walker’s) voice is a voice we’ve heard before, and a language we understand. He’s got a really good ear for that.”

In The Madonna Painter, a Quebec priest commissions an Italian painter to create a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary in an attempt to protect his parish from the ravages of the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918.

“In the Madonna Painter, my character was shunned by the rest of the villagers,” Young notes, “in this play, my role is also outside the norm. With George, strangely, it’s not really magic realism… but he reaches for the extreme edges of society.”

As she mentions, And So It Goes is gritty rather than poetic in its scope, dealing with Ned and Gwen, a middle class couple whose lives are sent spinning out of control by Ned’s downsizing and their daughter’s schizophrenia. Young plays the role of Karen, the daughter, against Martha Burns as Gwen and Peter Donaldson as Ned. In an unusual turn, the couple turn to the unorthodox therapy of literary legend Kurt Vonnegut (played by Jerry Franken) to help them out of their rut.

“To be in the same room with these people was a thrill,” she says of working with the other cast members. “For me, it was about the challenge of playing a bipolar schizophrenic crack addict, to live inside her without making her into a caricature. It’s a trap even an experienced actor can fall into. It’s really hard to wrap your brain around what she’s thinking – we tend to judge people like that. It was a challenge, but a good challenge.”

With all its quirks and Walker’s trademark black humour, it’s a story with universal themes. “It’s about two people struggling with the loss of their daughter – even though she’s still present.”

Walker is directing this Factory Theatre World Premiere. Previews start January 30, and I’ll be attending opening night on February 4 – review to follow.

Jenny Young Bio
Jenny is a graduate of Studio 58 in Vancouver and is the co-artistic director of tiny bird theatre with Claire Calnan.
Selected Theatre Credits:
A Moon For The Misbegotten, Ways of the Heart (Shaw Festival), Kindertransport (Toronto Jewish Theatre), Raising Luke, Inanna (tiny bird theatre), The Syringa Tree (Thousand Islands Playhouse, Western CanadaTheatre), The Penelopiad (National Arts Centre, Royal Shakespeare Co. UK), Eco Show (Necessary Angel), Having Hope at Home, Hockey Mom Hockey Dad, The Attic The Pearls & Three Fine Girls (Western Canada Theatre), Relatively Speaking (The Grand), The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine (Dora nomination - Theatre Columbus), Generations (Theatre Northwest), Unidentified Human Remains.(Crows Theatre) Unity 1918, Lt Nun (Theatre SKAM), The Shape of a Girl (Dora and Jessie nominations, Betty Mitchell Award - Tarragon, Greenthumb theatre), Mary's Wedding (National Arts Centre), The Wake (The Electric Co.); Selected Media Credits: Coach on Afghanada (CBC Radio 1), Flashpoint (CTV), Blue Murder (Global);
Upcoming: The Women, Age of Arousal (Shaw Festival).

Interview with Hettie Vyrine Barnhill - Part of the Cast of Fela! on Broadway

Hettie Vyrine Barnhill ,one of the ensemble players in Fela! took time out from rehearsing both for the show and an upcoming appearance on the Jimmy Fallon Show Live (January 21,) to speak to me about this remarkable production.

It's not often that a Broadway show gets national attention without the star power of a Hugh Jackman, let's say, or without a long run and a touring company or two. But Fela! - which tells the story of Fela Anikulapo- Kuti, a Nigerian singer/multi-instrumentalist/political revolutionary - is a unique show in so many ways, it's really no wonder it's been featured on national TV shows like the Colbert Report after getting rave reviews in the NY Times and other major media outlets, and garnering more than its share of buzz. A uniqueness in approach was apparent to Hettie from the moment she joined rehearsals back in June. (She's pictured to the right in the image above, with Lauren De Veux and Sarh Ngaujah as Fela.)

"The show was already structured," she says, "but flowing like water. It was a new process to everyone." Hettie describes a constantly changing, challenging environment. "I had to learn how to be flexible. I would learn all the material in the classroom, and then take it to rehearsal, and then maybe next week... it would change," she says. "It was changing right up to the previews. Working with Bill T. Jones, he wanted you to be ready to jump right in. He and the band always had a conversation going." She says that watching his mind work via the fluid development process was just one of the great rewards. "He was thinking as a dancer, as a choreographer, and as a director," she explains. "My favourite parts were his talks - seeing his genius." The unusual process also resulted in a strong dynamic. "This was a team effort," she says. "I feel part of a family."

It's a collaborative process that Jones has described in previous interviews, going back to the initial development of the concept itself as an off-Broadway show that ran to packed houses in late 2008. Jones worked with Aaron Johnson, leader of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, longtime proponents of Fela's Afrobeat style, who knew the music inside out, and Maija Garcia, a movement artist and student of Yoruba culture. Antibalas is now the pit orchestra, and Garcia an integral member of the cast. They looked to bring Kuti's infectiously rhythmic music, Afrobeat - being his own blend of Nigerian highlife and West African jazz, later also influenced by American jazz - to 21st century audiences.

But the effect of the show is not only about bringing Fela's music, which was actually well known in Europe but marginalized in the North American pop music machine, to greater awareness. "It's an important story," Hettie says. "It's needed. We see all the negative things about Africa in the media - AIDS, warfare... There's also beautiful art, beautiful music. There are people from Texas, from the mid-West - where I'm from - who come to see the play, and they leave feeling like they've learned something too. It opens up your mind."

After settling back in Nigeria after travels abroad, Kuti, (whose adopted middle name Anikalupo means "he who carries death in his pouch",) opened up his own nightclub in Lagos, and began a life that has extreme outlines, from his marrying 27 women all at once, (many of them the dancers in his show,) to violent scrapes with authority, and starting his own political party. In 1977, he released an album called Zombie, the title song of which in particular is highly critical of the Nigerian military. In response, the army conducted a raid on his compound, nearly beating him to death, and throwing his mother - political firebrand and feminist revolutionary in her own right, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti - from a window. She died of complications from her injuries in the year that followed.

Jones' staging is set in the Lagos nightclub, Africa Shrine, and takes up Kuti's story around the time of that infamous incident, with Funmilayo (played by Lillias White,) appearing as a spirit. The show combines elements of theatre and live concert in a unique blend that has audience members clapping and dancing along. Shawn Jay-Z Carter and Will & Jada Pinkett Smith joined the production team just before official opening night in November, hopefully giving them the backing for a long run.

Fela's polygamist lifestyle is the easiest target for the judgement of North American audiences. Barnhill plays one of the wives, his Queens, as he called them, and though they have no lines, their roles are indvidual and researched, and far from the passive go-go dancer you might first imagine. "I play one of the original wives who left him and came back," she says. "There was a conscious decision to stay. When the soldiers came, the wives, they were treated horribly by the military. It wasn't easy to stay with Fela. But, they loved him and believed in what he was doing." Fela himself, although he's most often seen as an unrepentant sexist, would describe that mass marriage as an act of solidarity and support with the women who had suffered with him through the raid. "Myself, I don't know that's what I would do.." she laughs, referring to the polygamist lifestyle, "but they were sisters," she insists. "They kept the community going." She studied her character, Omarala, in pictures. "She was tall, strong - a warrior. I think of that when I'm dancing." (Kevin Mambo as Fela in the image above, with his Queens.)

The 1977 raid on his compound was not Fela Kuti's first or last brush with authorities - a reminder to North American audiences, perhaps, that while political activism can be something of a fashion statement here, in many places in the world, it's something you pay for with your life. In a real life coda to the story, Africa Shrine, run in recent years by Fela's eldest son Femi Kuti and other family members, was shut down by government authorities (also not for the first time) in June 2009, over what many assume to be Femi's own political activism. Plus ça change...

Just in time for the musical, Fela's catalogue has been re-released on CD. Check out the musical here, and check out the late great Fela himself here.

"It's been amazing," says Barnhill. "I feel very, very blessed to be a part of this."

Aldeburgh Connection's Schubertiad

Aldeburgh Connection
The Lady of the Lake, and other tales
Walter Hall, University of Toronto
January 24

The Schubertiad is a rather delightful and civilized way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and this past weekend I was treated to a superb performance of Schubert's Lady of the Lake and other miscelleneous Lieder and piano works by the Aldeburgh Connection.

The first half consisted of the Lady of the Lake, based on Sir Walter Scott's poem. Scott was hugely successful in Schubert's time, and many composers used his pieces as inspiration, in no small part to gain some access to the lucrative English music market. (Such is the level of knowledge I got from the copious programme notes - this is the University of Toronto after all!) The story is a convoluted one, concerning Scottish clan rivalries, a disguised King James V, and three men all after the hand of the lovely Ellen Douglas. It was the Romantic era, and love and justic prevailed, I'm glad to say.

The soloists were wonderful, including Anita Krause (mezzo), Christohper Enns (tenor), and James Levesque (baritone), displaying a really nice dramatic sense and range even while they sang simply standing beside the piano. The sense of drama was aided by narration from Raymond O'Neill, whose expressive reading of the text certainly added to the story and performance. Schubert's music is easy to love, and the songs included probably his most famous, Ave Maria, along with ensemble pieces sung by a student chorus. I almost prefer voices together to soloists, and the gorgeous harmonies were an aural illustration of why.

The second half began a piano duet from accompanists Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata, the Overture in C "im italienischen Stile", D597. Apparently, Schubert wrote it, along with a second Italianate overture, on a bet over a glass of wine and a fit of pique after his friends and companions admired a piece by Rossini a little too enthusiastically. There followed a series of Lieder, the subjects including a tribute to a trout, a jealously murderous dwarf, and the Erlkonig, after a poem by Goethe, in which a young boy is stolen from his father despite his best efforts.

There was an intimate and informal tone to the proceedings, in keeping with Schubert's original intention. Pieces like the Erlkonig were written by him and first performed by Franz and his friends, just hanging out together. Ralls provided the gems and tidbits of information that filled out the gaps between the music for a very fitting tribute to perhaps the most affable of the great Romantic composers.

Portrait of Schubert by Wilhelm August Rieder, 1875.