A Taste of Iceland - Art, Film & Food come to Toronto

A Taste of Iceland
Iceland comes to Boston March 11-17 & Toronto March 17-20

There are only 300,000 people in Iceland, did you know that? And yet, there seems to be an abundance of arts and culture in the island country that sits in the cold seas between the coasts of Norway and the U.K., and Greenland. They're bringing a little of that culture to Toronto this month (after a stop in Boston March 11-17) - a taste of it, if you will - in conjunction with the Drake Hotel. The Drake will have a special menu and will exhibit Icelandic art, and I'll be trying to get to the Underground for Mugison on the 19th or 20th. (Image is of the coat of arms of Iceland.)

In the meantime, you can also check out two films in FREE screenings:

Thursday, March 18, at Cumberland Four Theatre (159 Cumberland Avenue)
6:30 pm - Sveitabrúðkaup (Country Wedding) &
8:10pm - Reykjavik-Rotterdam

I just checked them out myself - here's a quick look:

Sveitabrúðkaup (Country Wedding) 2008
Written & Directed by Valdís Óskarsdóttir
Starring: Hreinn Beck, Erlendur Eiríksson, Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Rúnar Freyr Gíslason

Valdís Óskarsdóttir is a well known editor who has worked on the films of Gus Van Sant, Michel Gondry, and Lars von Trier, among others, and Country Wedding is her directorial début. The film itself poses a fairly simple story - a young couple wants to get married in the country. They, their families and guests, board two buses and head out of Reykjavik for the treeless Icelandic countryside for what is to be a couple of hours' journey to a charming church in the bucolic grassy hills and fields... But as any filmgoer knows, such journeys are never that simple.

Interestingly, Óskarsdóttir chose to "write" the script à la Mike Leigh - she only gave her actors a character outline. They were then asked to come up with their own back stories, and a minimum of one secret that they might or might not choose to reveal during the filming. Rehearsals consisted only of those back story events - things that would have happened before the events that take place on screen, and the actual filming was accomplished in a mere 7 days, (in part, Óskarsdóttir says, to keep it on the cheap.)

Naturally, they get lost. The result is a comedic road flick, with the two half empty buses full of would be wedding guests lurching about the Icelandic countryside - either beautiful or starkly ugly, as debated by the characters in the film - and two families that disintegrate into a Kafkaesque maelstrom of confessions, revelations and fights both cat and otherwise. There's a granny suffering from dementia who wanders off, the weepy bride to be, a bickering gay couple, the not-so-closet drunk and more as the two families communicate via cell phones from the two buses and the situation spirals out of control. This is the family unvarnished, no glossy sentimentality here - not even of the poetic landscape. As someone points out, it's an island - you can't get away - the film is coloured with Scandinavian fatalism, if I may call it that. You may find yourself disliking most or all of the characters, but I think that's the point. The humour is definitely on point, and interestingly, the hapless engaged couple are pretty much the only ones left standing by the end of it.

Óskarsdóttir's editing background is in evidence as she keeps us interested in what is essentially a bunch of talking heads in a bus, contrasted by the beauty of the sparsely populated Icelandic countryside that's almost a character in itself. The film screened at TIFF in 2008, along with the Chicago International Film Festival, London Film Festival and more.

Check out the trailer here - the film will be subtitled in English for the screening, of course.

Reykjavik-Rotterdam 2008
Written by Óskar Jónasson & Arnaldur Indriðason
Directed by Óskar Jónasson
Starring: Baltasar Kormákur, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttir, Jörundur Ragnarsson

Reykjavik-Rotterdam is a taut, expertly paced thriller that will keep you guessing as to its resolution right up to the end. In the first scene, we see some kind of shady deal going wrong, with a violent end for one of the conspirators. Arnór, the one left standing - or running away, as it were - high tails it to his brother's place. Kristófer, older brother and security guard, is reluctant to get involved, having gone straight. But Kristófer has financial problems of his own, including two months' unpaid rent, and a "friend" who suggests that one last big job to end all jobs...

If you're Icelandic, or even European, you'd "get" what's happening right away, in fact the film's title probably says it all. Those of us not so familiar with the geography of that region of the North Atlantic may take a little longer to cotton on to the implications - island = scarcity of resources = ultra expensive booze = smuggling - but you'll get caught up in the action nonetheless. The setting is integral to the plot.

Kristófer takes a job on a ship, where apparently smuggling is pretty much de rigueur, the crew finding odd spaces and areas ont he ship where they can effectively slip through the cracks of inspection. Jónasson is a great storyteller, revealing bits as the film progresses. It effectively builds up a feeling of impending doom on several fronts - the ship, where Kristófer runs afoul of a suspicious captain, at home where wife Íris and their two children are confronted by thugs, and Kristófer's growing realization of just what he's done by leaving his pretty wife at home alone with Steingrímur, just incidentally the guy who set up this last job.

It has an unglamourized, indie feel to it that's very realistic. These are working class criminals, not the high living sort, people whose precarious finances are what keeps them in a dangerous game. We feel the tedium of their criminal work as they measure and repackage the drugs that come into their possession in just one of the many plot twists. Things fit together piece by piece to and ending that is, like Country Wedding, a victory for a couple in love - but not necessarily for law and order.

The film screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and Rotterdam Film Festival, both in 2010. An English language version is planned by Working Title Films, reportedly with Mark Wahlberg in the role of Kristófer the security guard. Interestingly, the Hollywoodized version will be directed by its original star (and also producer) - Baltasar Kormákur - at least, that's what's being proposed (according to the Hollywood Reporter).

Check out the trailer here.

The National Ballet of Canada

The National Ballet of Canada
Highlights from 2010/2011 Season

With its disciplined beauty and grace, ballet has an otherworldly sort of quality about it. That appeal is only enhanced by the airy 4-balcony high environment of the Four Seasons Centre, as I was reminded when taking in the last show of 24 Preludes by Chopin & A Suite of Dances & The Four Seasons on Sunday (March 7).

The programme was an interesting mixed bag, with music from Chopin to Bach to Vivaldi and the dance from avant garde to contemporary. From lighting design to costuming to the performance itself, they delivered a polished, yet passionate interpretation of the works, with a developed dramatic sense that went from comedy to pathos. Check out a previous version of Summer from Kudelka's Four Seasons (with Rex Harrington) here.

In the five years' since she's become the Artistic Director of the National, Karen Kain has developed a reputation for putting together varied and entertaining line ups like the one I just saw. Here are some interesting collaborations I will be looking forward to - from their upcoming 2010/2011 season, (tickets on sale since earlier this year).

British Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon & Alice in Wonderland
(a North American Premiere and co-production with The Royal Ballet)
- June 2011

Perhaps most exciting of the offerings, Wheeldon will create a full length, two act interpretation of Lewis Caroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The work will have Alice a troubled adolescent who goes through a journey that's coloured with both humour and tragedy. The score will be commissioned by Joby Talbot (dance is a small world - see Wayne McGregor below!) and makes its début in London next February and in Toronto in June 2011, where it will be presented as part of the Luminato Festival.

You can hear Christopher talking about putting together Tryst, another of his works, here.

British Choreographer Wayne McGregor & Chroma
- November 24-28, 2010

Set to the avant garde music of Joby Talbot and the modern indie rock of Detroit's The White Stripes, McGregor's Chroma was a senasation on its London début in 2006 and won multiple awards that year. Recently appointed as Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, McGregor's work often inlcudes multimedia components, and intersections between movement, science and artificial intelligence. The National will be the only company other than The Royal Ballet to perform this exciting and visceral work.

You can listen to him talk about it here.

Russian Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky & Russsian Seasons
- March 23 - 27, 2011

From the Bolshoi to the American Ballet Theatre, dancer and then choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has been making his mark in the world of dance in a big way. Russian Seasons was created for the New York City Ballet in 2006 and as a whole the piece is loosely patterned on the Russian liturgical calendar. The work involves 12 dancers, a soprano, solo violin and string orchestra, and includes three songs for each season, representing life in a rural village, tied to the cycle of seasons and set to the modern score commissioned from Leonid Desyatnikov.

You can check out the European premiere here.

Images by Degas

Tinariwen, Madagascar Slim, and a Meditation on the Blues

From the southern Sahara to Madagascar, there's something about the blues... For two nights in a row this past week in Toronto, I was treated to very different versions of the musical form from some of the best musicians you'll hear anywhere.

Thursday night (March 4) - Tinariwen at the Phoenix Presented by Small World Music

The place is packed with a crowd that's very Toronto mixed - all shades, all persuasions and all ages it seems, most of the front section where I was moving to the hypnotic bass and drum driven music of Tinariwen. It was impossible not to feel the rhythm through your body and let yourself be moved by it... Their playing is as accomplished as it is impassioned. You felt the sincerity of every note, the way the music simply took them over too. (video is from the 2007 release Aman Iman: Water is Life)

The enigmatic Ibrahim Ag Alhabib comes on and off stage for various songs with his slightly weary demeanour and vocals, elements that seem entirely genuine and in keeping with the music even if you don't understand the words. He lets the others in the band take a more flamboyant role, like singer-guitarist Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, bassist Eyadou Ag Leche and percussionist Said Ag Ayad (and I'm taking names from a published list - hopefully I'm crediting the right people!)

It's their conviction that gives the music its fire and makes it so compelling. Their latest CD is called ‘Imidiwan’ which is translated as companions, but means friends, companions, soul-brothers, fellow travellers.

Friday night (March 5) Madagascar Slim at the Gladstone Presented by Batuki Music Society

If Tinariwen's music is coloured by their desert home, then Madagascar Slim's is definitely a sunnier version of the blues, with catchy songs fueled by his nimble Madagasy fingerpicking style. Madagascar Slim acknowledges the influence of people like B.B. King on his whole journey into music, but its an influence that blends perfectly with his Madagasy polyrhythms and sweet, singing guitar.

He's got a great band took including Ebenezer Agyekum on bass, Aisha Wills on flute & vocals and Rakesh Tewari on drums, (and someone I couldn't get a name for on guitar). Each had space to shine in three sets that had people swaying where they stood, along with a group on the dance floor. Another very mixed crowd.

In looking up references for both Tinariwen and Madagascar Slim, most of the descriptions cite some kind of "blend" of both African and American blues influences. But isn't the Blues African in the first place? The blues scale itself is an adaptation of the African 5-note scale into the 7-note European scale via the addition of two blue - or flattened - notes. Sure, it developed in the U.S., but directly from the displaced African diaspora and actually mostly from and about the conditions that enslavement engendered. (And there were slaves in Canada too, in case anyone's feeling smug at this point.) There is an American blues, to be certain, but it just seems to me more like they're two branches of the same tree - not different influences. If any continent and its people knows the blues inside out, it has to be Afrika.

The other thing I wondered about, seeing packed and noisily enthusiastic houses at the Phoenix and Gladstone, is that the market for what we call world music (a term I dislike but is at least easily understood - and searchable) clearly exists - so why is it so absent from the world of mainstream? Why is it treated like a fringey category, so that only the few who know how to find it are exposed to it? Why do we act like everything outside of North America is somehow the same, and ghettoize it under the same "world" category?? Even talking about "African music" is a misleading concept, since the styles vary so much from region to region, far more than in North America. There's an obvious answer for all this, of course...

Images are courtesy of John Leeson of TO-MusicPix.ca - Ibrahim Ag Alhabib from a 2005 concert in Toronto, and Madagascar Slim & band at their CD release in September 2009.

Museum at FIT & Museum of Sex

Fashion and Sex Fall Under "Culture", Right?

Museum at FIT
Fashion Institute of Technology
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street

You can scarcely walk around Manhattan without tripping over a museum or two, which is exactly what happened to me recently.

Like all the exhibits at the Museum at FIT, Night and Day has a definite female appeal. All those clothes to check out - and it's free! But like any intelligent exhibit on clothing, it looks at our collective social history and mores through what we wear. Night and Day, which is in the Fashion & Textile History Gallery, looks at paired outfits from eras that cover roughly the last two centuries - one for daywear, one for evening. At one point, in the 1800's, there was also afternoon wear, and one dress is noted as being suitable for the early evening. It underscores the formalized nature of life in previous eras, at least for those rich enough to live in leisure. From the mid 1940's, a day ensemble from Elizabeth Arden might include plaid wool pants with a velvet jacket - but only if you were in the country. Evenings (by Charles James) you would dress up in silk taffeta, silk velvet and chiffon. It reminded me that today's anything goes aesthetic is still pretty recent - hell, I remember working in an office about twenty years ago where they had just decided to "let" women wear pants to work.

You can see the rules start to loosen up after the World Wars, culminating in Yves St. Laurent's elegant pantsuit for eveningwear in 1966. From then on, the distinctions become much more fluid. In the 1970's, Halston used jersey knits both day and night., and by the 1980's there was a splintering of the fashion world into multiple styles and levels of style. Calvin Klein's clean cut 2008 suit for officewear includes sparkly crystal paillettes on the jacket. Current fashion seems to revel in mixing up elements from day and evening wear, especially embellishment - and even underwear. Designer evening gowns still exist, certainly, but they're worn by so few people in the world that haute couture only impacts streetwear by trickle down, and in fact often takes its inspiration from it. All in all, my favourite era, as presented, has to be the 1950's with its shapely silhouettes, and my favourite piece of all was, predictably, Givenchy's little black dress. (Image is of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's - in another Givenchy little black dress.)

Check out the Museum's website for Fashion Conversations with the likes of Rodarte and American Vogue editor André Leon Talley, lectures, book signings and more. It reminds me of Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum in the scope of its programmes and mandate.

Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Avenue

To be honest, I didn't have much time to do the Museum of Sex much justice, and it was packed too, and a bit hard to get around because of it. But its streetside display with multi coloured and multi shaped sex toys displayed like candy in a glass storefront hooked me for at least a run through.

Despite the playful nature of the visuals, the Museum of Sex takes its sex pretty seriously, with a Board of Advisors that consists of scholars and historians, and a mandate to explore "the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality". It houses a permanent collection of some 15,000 items from art to "technological inventions and historical ephemera".

One of their current shows is called Action, and looks at the impact of sex and nudity on our visual culture - a huge one, obviously, and a huge evolution from subtle titillation to celebrity homemade porn and "porn chic". It makes for really fascinating viewing, and more than a few omigod! moments. (Image of the Museum of Sex is by David Shankbone, 2007.)

Tinariwen, Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo This Week

Tinariwen
Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo
Presented by Small World Music
March 3, 4 & 5 - See Concert Details Below!

On the occasion of a recent concert at New York City's Highline Ballroom on February 19, The Village Voice mused about the differences between West Coast based Fools Gold, white American kids who play African inspired music, (not to put too fine a point on it,) and Tinariwen, the legendary guitar driven band from the Sahara, whose members initially met in a Libyan refugee camp, and whose latest album was recorded in a studio run only by a generator. The world of pop music, so they say, has gone looking for "authenticity" that it can't find in itself (quel surprise!) and come up with African aspirations. Without dissing Fools Gold, (who were opening for Tinariwen,) Vampire Weekend and their like - I love the music too, and if I were a musician, I'd want to play it - I think if it's authenticity you're after, then the difference is clear.

The members of Tinariwen are Tuaregs, the semi-nomadic Kel Tamashek of the Sahara region of northern Mali. They are led by the charismatic Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who ran away from home at the age of 9, as legend has it. He grew up in the refugee camps of Algeria and Libya, meeting the people along the way who would come together in the late 1970's as the band - the band who wrote the songs of the Tuareg revolution that was going on at the time, for the MPA, or Mouvement Populaire de l'Azawad. They recorded in a makeshift "field studio" and distributed their cassettes via word of mouth.

After a stint of military action, Tinariwen went back to devoting themselves to the bluesy guitar meets desert music that would gradually conquer the world on its own terms, becoming arguably the most successful African group ever, and earning fans like Brian Eno and Robert Plant. Their songs still tell of the struggles of their people, and the beauty of the desert.

Canadian audiences may be more familiar with throat singing than most, having international stars of the artform like Tanya Tagaq in our midst. Interestingly, the Tuvan version played by Huun Huur Tu (Tuva being a sparsely setted region north of Mongolia in the former Soviet Union,) is traditionally only sung by men. The evocative songs are hypnotic and based on the sounds of nature.

Previous collaborations have included Ry Cooder (for the soundtrack of the film Geronimo) and The Kronos Quartet. This time around, they've chosen two time Grammy Nominee, electronic musician/producer/mixer/remixer/musician and co-writer Carmen Rizzo. Rizzo, who's worked with the likes of Seal, Coldplay, Alanis Morissette, Paul Oakenfold, BT, Tiesto, Jem, Esthero, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cirque du Soleil, KD Lang, and Pete Townshend, among others, added his electronica touch to their latest CD, Eternal. It's a true meeting of cultures like no other.

They all come to Toronto later this week in a unique opportunity for music lovers.

Check them out:
Tinariwen &
Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo

The Concerts:

TINARIWEN live at SONIC BOOM
Wednesday, March 3 at 6:30PM
20 minute acoustic set

***all in attendence at Sonic Boom will receive a special discounted price for The Phoenix Concert Theatre performance of TINARIWEN

Tuvan Throat Singers HUUN HUUR TU live at SONIC BOOM
Thursday, March 4 at 6:30PM
20 minute acoustic set

TINARIWEN live at The Phoenix Concert Theatre
Thursday, March 4, 9PM
$30 in advance / $40 at the door

HUUN HUUR TU w/ CARMEN RIZZO live at The Mod Club
Celebrating their BBC World Music Award nominated CD, Eternal
Friday, March 5, 8PM Sharp, $25 in advance / $30 at the door

COBA's Diasporic Dimensions at Harbourfront

Diasporic Dimensions
COBA
Fleck Dance Theatre - Harbourfront February 26, 2010

The Collective of Black Artists, or COBA, celebrated their 17th season with a performance of four pieces under the title Diasporic Dimensions.

Just as what we typically call simply contemporary dance speaks with a vocabulary developed through history via classical ballet and European/North American traditions, the pieces in this programme speak from African traditions. The vocabulary of movement is uniquely African in nature, a subject, as it happens, studied and written about on an academic level by choreographer/dancer/COBA co-founder BaKari E. Lindsay. That language has different dialects depending on where exactly it comes from, which handily plays back into the show's title. It wasn't necessary to have any particular background in dance at all, though, to enjoy what was an energetic, very interesting and engaging show.

The first two pieces, Mandé Variations and Maa-Keeba, were choreographed by Lindsay. The first presented an intriguing modern dance that took as its inspiration the layered, polyrhythmic playing of the kora, a traditional West African instrument, to the music of Toumani Diabaté and others. The kora is played on many levels at once, and the dance captured that sense of many threads woven and interwoven in a fluid group that came and went on stage, smaller groups that formed, then dissolved and went their separate ways.

Maa-Keeba - the only piece of the evening that wasn't a premiere - celebrates the life and work of Miriam Makeba. The popular South African singer who came to be known as Mama Africa passed away after her last performance on stage in 2008. Naturally, the music was her own, including the Click Song she made famous, in a journey that began with young love and threaded its way in and out of her life story. In it, the dancers showed their considerable and appealing dramatic skills to bring the scenes to life. It was a fitting tribute, lit up by Makeba's music and its gorgeous harmonies.

Next up was Moments, a work by Haitian choreographer Jeanguy Santus to music by Haitian groups like Lataye and Zao, and including an interlude of what sounded like French Baroque, (although I can't say whose it was off the top of my head). Moments had a very contemporary and at times avant-garde feel. In it, that African and Caribbean vocabulary of movement was abstracted. He used diverse elements like the dancers' long, unbound hair or reams of cloth among others to amplify the dancers' movements in a piece that had what felt like spiritual dimensions. Interestingly, the dancers remained in character even to the curtain call.

The evening ended on an energetic note, with Julia Morris' Hightal. It was the third piece Jamaican born Morris, also a member of the company, has choregraphed for COBA, and it's a meditation on her roots to traditional Nyabinghi rhythms. Nyabinghi is one of the oldest "mansions" of the Rastafarian religion, and their religious chants (or binghi) form the basis for what we know as reggae and ska today. The music was played live with four drums and two singers, and kept up a hypnotic pace for the ensemble of dancers, rising and ebbing in intensity. It was a rousing way to close off the night.

Madagascar Slim plays the Gladstone March 5

Madagascar Slim
at the Gladstone Hotel
Friday, March 5 - 7 to 10pm
Presented by Batuki Music Society

Madagascar Slim, as he's been known to blues/roots/world music fans in the Toronto area for decades, was born as Randriamananjara Radofa Besata Jean Longin in Antananarivo, capital of the sunny island of Madagascar. Teaching himself to play an older brother's guitar at an early age was just the beginning of a long career.

"I grew up listeninig to a lot of music from Madagascar, traditional music. At the same time, Western music was very popular, like the Rolling Stones, Santana. I listened to that type of guitar driven music."

Salegy is the traditional Malagasy style Slim grew up with. Here's a little modern salegy if you're not familiar.

It's the kind of music that won't let you sit still, and involves really intricate finger picking - among other things.

"First, I was trying to play note for note, people I like - like B.B. King. But over time, I discovered things on my own. I came up with my own style. It's improvisational." Madagascar Slim's work is often called "bi-cultural", which sounds a little too pedantic for his infectiously likable music. "I would describe it as an amalgamation of Madgasy music, particularly the rhythmic elements, with guitar rock."

Although he's been in Canada "since the dinosaurs roamed the earth" (actually 1979 - he came to study accounting at Seneca College) it's the rhythms of his childhood that still echo most deeply. "I have a rhythm that I hear in my head that comes from Madagas," he says. "It's a different way of keeping time - the 6/8, they hear it as a jig. I hear it as Madagas."

Sweet voices and harmonies come together with that fluidly kinetic guitar playing. Along with this solo work, he's also known and been recognized for his work with Tri-Continental - Roots & Traditional Album of the Year Juno Winner in 2001 - and African Guitar Summit - World Music Album of the Year in 2005. His third Juno was won in the same category in 2000. For Slim, it's all about playing though.

"I've played in all the blues clubs in Toronto," he says, either alone or in collaboration. He's also known for his live playing with blues singer Ndidi Onukwulu. He's seen musical tastes change over the decades. "A lot of people are branching out, listening to new types of music," he says. Slim points to the influence of the internet, where more and more people are reaching out to find music that falls beyond the confines of a commercialized pop music market, along with the importance of some of the country's cultural institutions. "That's why we need institutions like the Canada Council for the Arts and the CBC - to offer an alternative."

The concert this Friday at the Glad is FREE of charge - I'll be sure to get there early.

Check out an excerpt from a documentary that followed Slim on his return to Madagascar after 25 years - and you can download his music here.