MONUMENTAL choreographed by Holy Body Tattoo, with music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Presented by Holy Body Tattoo and Luminato, at the Hearn Generating Station (440 Unwin). Tuesday and Wednesday (June 14-15), 8 pm. $32.77-$83.62. See listing. luminatofestival.com.
The Holy Body Tattoo’s current revival of their 2005 work, monumental, melds physically challenging choreography with a barrage of sound played live by the iconic band God Speed You! Black Emperor and projected text by American visual artist Jenny Holzer.
It’s the kind of grand-scale work that Luminato does really well. This year’s festival venue – the splendidly industrial Hearn Generating Station – could not be a better fit for a work about urban anxiety and the politics of personal space.
But what’s it been like working with one of the best-loved cult bands Canada has ever produced?
“Surprisingly smooth,” says HBT co-choreographer and director Dana Gingras, who’s been based in Montreal for the past decade.
“I was kind of terrified going into it, not sure what they were like as a band – were they consistent with tempo? How precise could they be live? After all, we need the music to be precise because the choreography is very exact.”
Those concerns turned out not to be a problem.
“They’ve been incredible,” she says. “Super-precise, super-accommodating, really into the process. I feel like every time we rehearse or perform the piece they add stuff, building in texture. And they’ve been very respectful around my main concern of preserving the overall arc and build of the piece. It’s been pretty dreamy.”
The process may have been dreamy, but HBT has always been known for more hard-edged and intense choreographies of endurance. Monumental is no departure from that style of driven performance.
For most of the piece, the nine-member cast performs atop pedestals. They come off, says Gingras, just at the point when the audience wants to scream with frustration.
“That’s the intention – to build up this tension. You want them to break out and take control of their space after being confined for so long.”
That concept forms a kind of political backbone for the piece.
“For me,” says Gingras, “it’s always the body that is the starting point for the political. Then we consider how we share space, how we are with each other – it becomes more of a global thing. The dancers are really pushing the work to another level. It’s a hard piece to learn and a mind-fuck to perform.”
Gingras and Vancouver-based creative partner Noam Gagnon (who has blessed but not participated much in the monumental remount) wrapped up the Holy Body Tattoo project in 2007.
“Noam and I only ever said we would do it for 10 years. At a certain point we both had to do something else. We didn’t ever want to build an institution out of what we were doing, because then you feel you have to reproduce your signature, and it gets entrenched and very hard to break out.”
Still, as real rock stars of the Canadian contemporary dance scene, they have been missed.
“I think people miss the energy,” says Gingras. “Holy Body has had a kind of echoing resonance through time, and that’s really great. But you only get to have that if you disappear.”
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