Hit and Fall

14 Lieux /

Montréal

#FTA_hitandfall

Percussive Confrontation
The attack is explosive. The sound reverberates throughout the space, imposing its presence. The movement smashes forward as though through a glass door, the sound the source of its strength and its ruin, both hit and fall. The composer-performer Martin Messier and the choreographer-dancer Caroline Laurin-Beaucage throw themselves headlong into a fiery set-to around a set of drums, a merciless combat between sound and flesh. No brushes softly caressing the drum skins, no drum rolls to herald what’s coming. Disassembled on the floor, the percussive beast can perhaps be soothed and calmed, but only for a moment. Invincible and impassive, it watches the dancer flail in a furious, vain struggle.

Using physical connection to the drums, the two Quebec artists explore the powerful link between dance and music in this short piece consisting of four frenetic tableaux, the percussion creating an adrenaline rush.

Caroline Laurin-Beaucage

Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Dance-Music Symbiosis
Trained at the Toronto Dance Theatre, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage has been performing on Montreal stages for the past dozen years, dancing for many Quebec choreographers such as Jean-Pierre Perreault, Paul-André Fortier, Hélène Langevin and Jacques Poulin-Denis, and choreographing for directors Claude Poissant, Benoit Vermulen and Patrice Dubois. Right from her first pieces (Prise de sceau, La mort d'un poète, 100 legs) she has favoured live music, working with the composer-performer Nicolas Basque. By getting the body of the musician involved, her duo with Martin Messier marks a new phase in her research on the symbiosis between dance and music.

Martin Messier

Martin Messier, Looking at Sound
The composer, performer and drummer Martin Messier has long been interested in electro-acoustic music. Fascinated by the division of time and by the correlation of sound and image, he directs his talents in several directions. Apart from his collaborations with the choreographers-dancers Caroline Laurin-Beaucage and Anne Thériault, he creates audio performances (L’horloger, using old alarm clocks, Pencil Project, with lead pencils) and designs sound installations (Sewing Machine Orchestra, with eight sewing machines from the 1930s-40s). His video work includes the diptych Autoportrait. He also composes for theatre and dance, and worked on the soundscape and score for Ginette Laurin’s Onde de choc (FTA 2010).

Press Quote(s)

« Si l’on pense aux ruades affolées et fiévreuses d’un cheval dans un box, le combat mené sur scène est aussi vain, comme se frapper le front contre un mur. Hit and fall plafonne en termes de fureur et d’obstination. »

Marion Gerbier, Dfdanse, 15/02/2010

« Hit and fall: Crue et viscérale, une énergie forte se dégage de cette performance qui réunit un batteur et une danseuse. »

Cyberpresse, 02/06/2010

“A drum set is the pretext for their interactivity, say Laurin-Beaucage: ‘The dialogue between us [hinges] on our individual and powerful relationship to the instrument.’”

Hour, 27/05/2010