HUSK is a MUST: George Stamos @ Agora de la danse
More : Agora de la danse, contemporary dance, Elinor Fueter, Frederic Marier, George Stamos, Husk, Jackie Gallant, Montreal Danse, Rachel Harris
From the moment musician Jackie Gallant and dancer Elinor Fueter walk across the stage of the Agora looking like muscle-bound characters in a Michel Tremblay play, to the stunningly sexy underwear sequences and brilliant on-stage music and lighting, George Stamos has surpassed himself. In short: HUSK is a MUST.
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“It’s like contemporary dance for people with attention deficit disorder, but in a good way,” Stamos and I agreed after the enthusiastic crowd spilled into the Agora de la danse mezzanine for sparkling wine and elbow-rubbing after the sold out opening night of HUSK. “We pushed ourselves really hard,” Stamos gushed, standing beside a beaming Kathy Casey, the perspicacious artistic director of Montréal Danse. Casey had the elated look of someone who had won a bet: the new choreography by George Stamos is a daring, sexy, fabulous stunner.
As George intimated when we interviewed him about the HUSK for this month’s 2Bmag cover story, he created the work with a backlog of ideas and concepts waiting to be embodied on stage, and a virtual dream-team of performers. Jackie Gallant, no stranger to making live music incidental music for contemporary dance, was flawless and engaging on the electric guitar, drum-set, and digital orchestra of samples and beats. When she steps in front of her console to “tend the fire” (which consisted of red plastic high-heel “logs” arranged under a television playing a video of flames), the audience relaxed into gentle laughter. Serious? Yes. But Stamos’s use of wit and humour is everywhere in this piece.
Elinor Fueter + Frédéric Marier in HUSK (c) Alejandro de Leon
But the real show-stopper was Elinor Fueter, a company staple with Montréal Danse since 2005. From her frenetic solo at the start of the show to the Salome-like dance of 7 wigs – led by Harris and spot-lit by a half-naked Marier – Fueter’s character took my breath away.
As a reviewer, there is a particular pleasure in knowing that your predictions about a performance will come true:
Husk is going to make you and his performers twitch, sweat, shout, writhe, and hopefully triumph over the duality of our ideal body vs. the body we are ashamed of.
I was right, and HUSK is a MUST.
Husk
Feb 8-10, 2012 Agora de la danse 840 rue Cherrier, Montréal (514-525-1500)
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[...] shown for 3 nights at theAgora de la Danse, (but which he will not be dancing in himself ; click here to read our [...]