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Culture Theatre

Picnic In The Cemetery is an atmospheric study in contrasts

PICNIC IN THE CEMETERY by Njo Kong Kie (Music Picnic/Point View Art/Canadian Stage). At Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs (26 Berkeley). To May 6. $39-$69. 416-368-3110, canadianstage.com for tickets. See listing. Rating: NNNN

Combining chamber music, video projection, dance and an alluring spatial design that actively encourages audience interaction, Picnic In The Cemetery is an atmospheric study in contrasts: life and death, motion and stillness, gloom and luminosity.

Its sundry sensory elements, which include items to taste and smell, are associated only loosely. Its narrative-free 75-minute duration doesnt develop so much as sustain. The work of creator, composer and pianist Njo Kong Kie and his collaborators exudes camaraderie and lightness in the face of mortality and despair. Picnics rigour is concentrated in its determination to play.

A current Canadian Stage artist-in-residence known for his tenure as La La La Human Steps musical director (as well as the recent opera Mr. Shi And His Lover at the Tarragon), Njo has written a series of crisp, propulsive pieces for piano, cello and violin that recall works by Ryuichi Sakamoto or John Cale.

Branches, lamps, plush toys and overturned furniture surround the musicians. Veils of various materials serve as screens upon which we see images of wooded landscapes, inter-titles quoting Einstein, Rumi and Brecht, and films of Njo and company dining al fresco at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Iris Chan Chi Ian joins in as a kind of ghost, weaving through the space, manipulating objects and alternately joining the audience and drawing spectators into the playing space. Theyre given little to do, but the dissolving of clear boundaries between audience and stage is in keeping with Picnics spirit of immersion and relaxation.

Like Fung Kwok Kee Gabriels set and Chan Chi Ians performance, so much of the mood of Picnic is diaphanous and twee. There is an overall sense of aversion to the graver aspects of communing with the dead. Which is to say Picnic is very much a work for springtime: its invigorating, often delightful and seems to pass by before its barely begun.

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