Cesena at Sunrise

The jury got up at 4am this Sunday to watch Cesena, a music and dance piece by choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Here is the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum on arrival at 4:45...

Anne talked to the kids in person before the show (earliest artist talk ever?) to explain the concept and prepare them for what they were about to watch. She talked about developing the show in Avignon, the middle ages, the plague...

The jury was given ginger/scallion soup as an early morning snack.. but they didn't go over too well

Coffee wasn't a much better alternative... eww

It's light outside! Consensus after the show?

We ate breakfast and were visited by one of the French dancers in the show, who answered lots of questions about her training and work as a dancer (Do you get paid? Did you go to dance school? Do you do it for the money or because you love it?)

The kids jamming on the player piano. Hassan was enamoured.

The Bochum kids dancing on the Europeras set. Their energy for 8am on a Sunday after a 2 hours non-stop dance performance was astounding.

Running up the risers... (see the video in the previous post)

Queen Lise, on Our Century

Then finally... home and back to bed.

Castellucci's Folk, part 2/3

Castellucci's Folk, part 3/3

Folk

On Saturday night, the jury saw Romeo Castellucci's new work created for the Gebläsehalle in Duisberg, "Folk." We had no idea what to expect and we won't ruin the surprise. But needless to say, we had fun taking off our shoes and splashing around during the show...

VIP arrival time

Julia's second moustache-related outfit

Damien on the red carpet

Inside, waiting with the theatre goers for the show to begin

Should I or shouldn't I?

A man came up to the jury while we were waiting and told him how great he thought it was that the kids were coming to see all these shows in their spare time

Hamsa with (formerly) Jenna's Canadian hand sanitizer he got in the trade game at 12 Rooms

curly hair twins

snacks and a post show artist talk with two performers from Folk

as always, judgement time...

Seating Risers

Red Carpet INTRUDER

Red Carpet Treatment

One of the criticisms we've received even before the project was developed was the use of the red carpet and giving the kids a star moment. The concerns are usually that 1) It's fake. 2) Emphasizing empty fame - fake or not - is politically regressive.

My responses.

1) It's Fake. No, it's not, it's performative, which means that it's becomes that which it portrays. It's real because we say it's real. In the context of the festival, these young people are VIPs. Perhaps even more important VIPs than the artists. There's a never ending parade of artists willing to be artists but such is not so in the case of young people willing to be audience for contemporary performance. Audience development, particularly of difficult to access populations, is a tough slog and public support of the arts  depends to some degree on the continued appreciation of the arts by the demographics that these young people represent. They are, as they say, the future and if in the future we want to continue to fill the seats in the theatres, then we're going to need these kids.

Good thinking on this from the head of Canada's National Theatre School and chair of the Canada Council, Simon Brault.

2) Fame is stupid. Yeah, yeah, yeah and the sooner you learn that the better. So that's our contribution to progressive politics. The sooner these kids get their 15 minutes out of the way and get on with their lives the better. Like this guy:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e68_1345694804

Prescient but still a douchebag, Andy Warhol demonstrates that he and his crew deserve fame even less than the jury: http://youtu.be/ESGrKwIdb8A

links & 12 Rooms

On Friday, Jury 6 went to check out links, a workshop presentation at the Museum Folkwang in Essen. About 20 kids worked with French choreographer Boris Charmatz (also in town for the presentation of his performance, Enfant) over the past week to make the presentation. We didn't have a red carpet entrance because the museum had too many other premieres going on... and we did get yelled at the security guard to get out of our VIP parking space... but there were lots of VIP shoes happening.

The Gelsenkirchen girls from Jury 6

Brian leading an Adele sing-a-long with the Duisberg kids

more indoor singing?

Maurice

back to back... Pascale apparently grew over the summer

big pockets in Jury 6 are also cool

Q & A with 2 girls from the Links workshop

some feet went to sleep during the workshop, marks are still visible 1/2 an hour later

The jury checked out the exhibition 12 Rooms while we were at the museum, just for fun. These 3D glasses came from the now-famous trade room...

The favourite shot with the kinder jury... a camera foto.

Darren and the jury 6 Duisberg kids

Chaos in the van-ride back to Bochum...