MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL
MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL MONUMENTAL
Photographer Yannick Grandmont
MONUMENTAL
BY YOUR RESPONSE TO DANGER IT IS EASY TO TELL HOW YOU HAVE LIVED AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO YOU. YOU SHOW WHETHER YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE, WHETHER YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO AND WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT’S ANY GOOD TO ACT.
– Jenny Holzer
monumental is an elegiac investigation into the physical anxiety of urban culture. In an ever-accelerating climate of greed and ambition, personal relationships are subjected to group identity and human connection becomes increasingly difficult. Even as some individuals are made larger than life, most break and topple under the strain.
monumental is set to live music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor combined with textual elements from visual artist Jenny Holzer’s series Living, film projections, and a cityscape environment sculpted by light. The nine dancers execute the choreography like a series of stop motion photographs or edits in a film. Structured against the desire for continuity and wholeness is the fragmentation and rupture of images – stopped in mid action, jarring, suddenly stilled. Each character is caught in the machinations of love, war, chaos and death. Separated by the physical barriers of the city and the rigidity of social order, the yearning for shared and abiding values is nurtured like a secret shame: desires, indicative of fragility and need, are silenced. Within this isolation, the need for intimacy remains, furtive and hidden beneath looming towers. In the disjunction between immaculate facades and human fragility, innocence is the first loss.
Press:
This exhilarating collaboration between post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor and dance company the Holy Body Tattoo lives up to its title
— The Guardian (Alice Bain)
Monumental is indelibly etched. Unique. Unforgettable. Incredible. An intense hour and 15. Assaulting the senses inspiring living. A paradox. Showing a disconnect while we connect. We clap and call out while wanting to touch loved ones and whisper we are alive.
— INDAILY (Greg Elliott)
Moments when it all comes at you – the dance, the words and the music – are like diving too late into an enormous wave and getting swept up in the surge.
— The Guardian (Kate Henessy)
…as a daring statement on urban culture, with its heady mix of intimacy and brutality, it’s surely one of the defining dance works of the 21st century.
— The Advertiser (Peter Burdon)
Altogether, [monumental’s] nerve-racking vision speaks to a vast audience because it encompasses almost every common contemporary angst, from office power struggles to sexual insecurity to apocalyptic, post-9/11 fears. And that is definitely a monumental achievement.
— The Georgia Straight
Press:
This exhilarating collaboration between post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor and dance company the Holy Body Tattoo lives up to its title
— The Guardian (Alice Bain)
Monumental is indelibly etched. Unique. Unforgettable. Incredible. An intense hour and 15. Assaulting the senses inspiring living. A paradox. Showing a disconnect while we connect. We clap and call out while wanting to touch loved ones and whisper we are alive.
— INDAILY (Greg Elliott)
Moments when it all comes at you – the dance, the words and the music – are like diving too late into an enormous wave and getting swept up in the surge.
— The Guardian (Kate Henessy)
…as a daring statement on urban culture, with its heady mix of intimacy and brutality, it’s surely one of the defining dance works of the 21st century.
— The Advertiser (Peter Burdon)
Altogether, [monumental’s] nerve-racking vision speaks to a vast audience because it encompasses almost every common contemporary angst, from office power struggles to sexual insecurity to apocalyptic, post-9/11 fears. And that is definitely a monumental achievement.
— The Georgia Straight
Press:
This exhilarating collaboration between post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor and dance company the Holy Body Tattoo lives up to its title
— The Guardian (Alice Bain)
Monumental is indelibly etched. Unique. Unforgettable. Incredible. An intense hour and 15. Assaulting the senses inspiring living. A paradox. Showing a disconnect while we connect. We clap and call out while wanting to touch loved ones and whisper we are alive.
— INDAILY (Greg Elliott)
Moments when it all comes at you – the dance, the words and the music – are like diving too late into an enormous wave and getting swept up in the surge.
— The Guardian (Kate Henessy)
…as a daring statement on urban culture, with its heady mix of intimacy and brutality, it’s surely one of the defining dance works of the 21st century.
— The Advertiser (Peter Burdon)
Altogether, [monumental’s] nerve-racking vision speaks to a vast audience because it encompasses almost every common contemporary angst, from office power struggles to sexual insecurity to apocalyptic, post-9/11 fears. And that is definitely a monumental achievement.
— The Georgia Straight
WORLD PREMIERE OF MONUMENTAL WITH LIVE MUSIC PERFORMED BY GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver PuSh International Festival January 28, 2016
Co-produced by:
National Arts Centre, Ottawa | PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver | Adelaide Festival of Arts | Place des Arts Montréal | Luminato Festival, Toronto | Edinburgh International Festival | BAM for the Next Wave Festival
Choreography:
The Holy Body Tattoo (Noam Gagnon, Dana Gingras)
Direction:
Dana Gingras
Music:
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Performers:
Caroline Gravel, Louise-Michele Jackson, Kim de Jong, Shay Kuebler, Louis-Elyan Martin, Esther Rousseau-Morin, Sovann Tep, Michael Watts, Jamie Wright, Nic Lydiate, Neil Sochasky, Jason Martin
Rehearsal Director:
Sarah Williams
Text:
Jenny Holzer
Film:
Dana Gingras | William Morrison
Lights:
Marc Parent
Costumes:
Marilène Bastien
Technical Director:
JF Piché
Stage Manager:
Claudia Couture
Sound:
Yann Dupuis
Producer:
Sarah Rogers
Produced by:
Animals of Distinction
Photography:
Yannick Grandmont
A big thank you to:
Jim Smith (Eponymous) and the original cast of dancers | Ric Brown | Sarah Doucet | David Flewelling | Andrea Gunnlaugson | Day Helesic | Farley Johansson | Blair Neufeld | Sonja Perreten | Sarah Williams
Photographer Yannick Grandmont
Photographer Yannick Grandmont
Photographer Yannick Grandmont
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