Saturday, October 27, 2012

Leslie Jones

Last week Rosemary and I attended the opening of the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre.

At the very least I can assert here that both of us did lots of laughing. The play entertained us. That would have been enough to get us home in a good mood at having sacrificed a cozy evening at home for a cool and rainy day outing to the theatre.

But there was more, lot’s more.

Consider the short-haired man sitting to my right. I almost did not recognize him as I had photographed lighting man Itai Erdal back in 2006 for the Georgia Straight. Six years have passed and on Erdal’s face I could still read enthusiasm, passion, wonder. I am positive that the Millerd folks have not hired a claque to laugh at plays or to clap with gusto.  And yet there were moments in She Stoops to Conquer when the only ones laughing (and loudly we were) were Erdal and me. He was enjoying the play, not as an established and renowned lighting man, who as a matter of fact lit the show, but as one of us.

On stage the good cast became invisible to me with the standout performance of the “future mother-in-law-from hell", Mrs. Harcastle played by Leslie Jones.

Back in July 2000 when I photographed Leslie Jones I remember calling up Straight theatre critic Colin Thomas for some info on Jones. By 2000 writers in local publications did not write weeks before but to tight deadlines a mere hours before publication. Sending a photographer a draft of manuscript to give an idea of one’s subject was by then fading into memory. By then magazines and newspapers had entered the age of the phoner. This meant that writers and reporters would shun face to face interviews with local people to the convenience of the phone and a bit later the email. What ever happened to Skype?

I needed input to Leslie Jones. I don’t like to photography my subjects cold turkey without previous knowledge of who they are and what they are like.

Mr. Thomas told me, “Leslie has lovely blue eyes.” That was it.

From my very good seats I could still not see Jones’s blue eyes, but I was mesmerized by her over-the-top performance as a woman that would certainly have precluded Goldsmith from writing a sequel to the play. I am sure that as soon as the darkish handsome heartthrob/almost fop Charles Marlow (played by Luc Roderique who reminded me of Leslie Howard in the 1932 The Scarlet Pimpernel) saw Mrs. Harcastle in action any promises of marriage to her daughter Kate Harcastle, Jenifer Mawhinney would be cancelled on the spot.

As an aside I always enjoy any performance (even if it does not include the influence of gin) of Norman Bowering who was a very funny and unduly patient Mr. Hardcastle. Imagine a man like that married to his Mrs. Hardcastle?

Mr. Harcastle attempted many times to tell the story of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy to a non interested Charles Marlow. I wanted to stand up and shout, “Listen to him it’s a good story!”

The relationship the two generals had (a rarity between generals) and how it led to the decisive battle of Blenheim (13 August 1704) was deftly told in the book Battle of Blenheim, a lovely book I read back in 2004 by one Charles Spencer. Charles Spencer?

Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer DL (born 20 May 1964), styled Viscount Althorp between 1975 and 1992, is a British peer and brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. He is an author, print journalist and broadcaster.

The play took me back to my infancy, even though I did not live in Goldsmith’s 18th century. As a little boy of 6 or 7 my mother and I would get on a tram in Buenos Aires to visit her mother downtown. There we would be accompanied by my aunt and uncle. My aunt would play the violin, my mother the piano and my uncle and grandmother would sing. I was bored but I suffered and now I see this as part of what was the age of the radio and movies. TV was yet to come as well as that TV invention the laugh track. This production of She Stoops to Conquer includes a lively acting choir including a fiddle player and a mandolin man.

Itai Erdal

Back at the Stanley as we all laughed I found it strange that there was no laugh track. We were providing a real live one. During the 18th century, the age of theatre and opera, a play such as Goldsmith’s was mass entertainment. And the face on Itai Erdal was proof that an 18th century play is still good mass entertainment. Better as there is no canned laugh track.

I was charmed in the opening of the play by a set (David Roberts), a simple one (almost as it later featured lots of structures that went up and down) that featured warm autumn colours in a leafy garden. To my surprise I found later that the warm ochre shifted into cool blues and greens. How was this possible?

At the end of the show I asked Erdal, who told me, “I love sets that are open on the side. The original colour of the leafy sets is light green. With lighting I can change their colour.”


She Stoops to Conqurer closes on November 18

Friday, October 26, 2012

El Parque Japonés

In the next couple of weeks I will be taking pictures of two Russian women (separately). I have indicated to them that a good place to start for photographs is with nostalgia.

Nostalgia does not have to be obvious as long as the person being photographed understands and contributes. If nobody else gets it, it is not important.


Consider this photograph of the very Argentine Linda Lorenzo that I call El Parque Japonés. There is a vague Japanese motif to the photograph. And that’s it. How could I have nostalgia for a country I have never been to?

As a very little boy, five or six I was taken to an amusement park not far from the main train terminal station of Retiro. There is a big tower next to it that we call La Torre de Los Ingleses. The amusement park is long gone and it has been replaced by an uppity neighbourhood with luxury hotels. The old Parque Japonés was replaced by Ital Park (perhaps the Japanese in WWII were scarier enemies than the Italians who made a large part of the 19th and 20th century immigration to Argentina.

I could never enjoy the rides because I became dizzy in swings, cars, streetcars and anything else that moved. I did not outgrow this until I was in my late 20s.

When I took the picture of Lorenzo as an Argentine geisha I was evoking my childhood and of being taken by my parents to a place where I had ice cream but looked longingly at rides I could never try.


Nostalgia is always a good reason for the excuse of taking pictures of beautiful women not wearing much.













Garufa

Tango 1927
Música: Juan Antonio Collazo
Letra: Víctor Soliño / Roberto Fontaina

Del barrio La Mondiola sos el más rana
y te llaman Garufa por lo bacán;
tenés más pretensiones que bataclana
que hubiera hecho suceso con un gotán.

Durante la semana, meta laburo,
y el sábado a la noche sos un doctor:
te encajás las polainas y el cuello duro
y te venís p'al centro de rompedor.

Garufa,
¡pucha que sos divertido!
Garufa,
ya sos un caso perdido;
tu vieja
dice que sos un bandido
porque supo que te vieron
la otra noche
en el Parque Japonés.

Caés a la milonga en cuanto empieza
y sos para las minas el vareador;
sos capaz de bailarte la Marsellesa,
la Marcha a Garibaldi y El Trovador.
Con un café con leche y una ensaimada
rematás esa noche de bacanal
y al volver a tu casa, de madrugada,
decís: "Yo soy un rana fenomenal".

Garufa Julio Sosa

Thursday, October 25, 2012

My Mother's Red Shawl - El Rebozo Colorado
André De Mondo - Wanderer






Think of talent not as a thing, but as process. Not something we have, but something we do.



Colin MacDonald Saxophonist/Composer
Nina Gouveia Yoga Instructor
Stacey Hutton Excercise Physiologist
Colleen Wheeler Actor
Sarah Rodgers Actor, Director,Mother
Timothy Turner - Real Estate Agent
Kiera Hill Dancer
Johnna Wright & Sascha Director/Mother - Son/Dreamer
Decker & Nick Hunt Cat & 19th century amateur
George Bowering Poet
Celia Duthie Gallerist
Linda Lorenzo Mother
Katheryn Petersen Accordionist
Stefanie Denz Artist
Ivette Hernández Actress
Byron Chief-Moon Actor/Dancer
Colin Horricks Doctor
Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun Columnist
Jocelyn Morlock Composer
Corinne McConchie Librarian
Rachel Ditor Dramaturg
Patrick Reid Statesman, Flag Designer
Michael Varga CBC Cameraman
Bronwen Marsden Playwright/Actress/Director
David Baines Vancouver Sun Columnist
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward Photographer
Lauren Elizabeth Stewart Student
Sandrine Cassini Dancer/Choreographer
Meredith Kalaman Dancer/Choreographer
Juliya Kate Dominatrix

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

My Mother's Red Shawl - El Rebozo Colorado
Colin MacDonald - Saxophonist/Composer







Rebozo draped over my shoulders, warming my skin in the coolness of the house. The rough wool is heavy and textured, from a time when people made things by hand.

Alex says, "You are in an exclusive club now. The Red Shawl Club." We are all woven together under the magic eye of his camera lens, our blood red lives frozen in a moment of time.

How many others have been touched by this fabric, how many more will join the club? What invisible threads have led me here, like Ariadne's cord guiding me safely through the maze?

Over time and across space, Bell's Interconnectedness Theorem binds us together, entangling our unseen quanta in the sticky webs of life. Like the Śrīvatsa engraved on my wedding band reminds me, our messy macroscopic selves stick together like tar babies, through love and hate, memory, dream, and fantasy.

Over land and sea the rebozo travelled from Mexico to Argentina, and eventually here to Vancouver. All those who touched it left an impression, helped it on its journey to reach my shoulders.

Redness shines forth from it, the dye it carries absorbing all colour but for that shade which it reflects back into my eyes, the tint of fresh blood now over my skin, but also within me.

King scale crimson, Homer's wine-dark sea, blood of the great mother that birthed the universe. The secret river carrying DNA messages through eternity, ferrying molecules of oxygen, glucose, serotonin, dopamine, endorphin, food for thoughts, giving rise to self-consciousness, becoming electrical activity carried mimetically from one brain and body to another.

"Hands reveal much about persons," Alex tells me. The hands of this tool-using primate are smooth and manicured, muscled for precise movements on the instrument of my choice, and bear the emblems of my devotion to my wife. I hold them crossed, right over left, in a sign of secret Art.

Under the rebozo we all sit: musician, dancer, writer, actor, butcher, baker, candlestick-maker, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. I imagine the red shawl growing, weaving itself longer and larger to cover the city, the country, wrapping the entire planet until every man, woman, and child is protected and preserved in its embrace.

I perch on the chair and face into the camera lens, as curious to see myself as to know how the photographer sees me. Will I recognize myself, or does my memory of my face come from another place and time?

Time is captured, fixed in the photograph's plate, this moment never to reappear, yet forming another vibrating strand in the web of reality. If I lift my arm, and slide over a little in the frame, I think there's room enough for you too, dear Reader.


André De Mondo Wanderer
Nina Gouveia Yoga Instructor
Stacey Hutton Excercise Physiologist
Colleen Wheeler Actor
Sarah Rodgers Actor, Director,Mother
Timothy Turner - Real Estate Agent
Kiera Hill Dancer
Johnna Wright & Sascha Director/Mother - Son/Dreamer
Decker & Nick Hunt Cat & 19th century amateur
George Bowering Poet
Celia Duthie Gallerist
Linda Lorenzo Mother
Katheryn Petersen Accordionist
Stefanie Denz Artist
Ivette Hernández Actress
Byron Chief-Moon Actor/Dancer
Colin Horricks Doctor
Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun Columnist
Jocelyn Morlock Composer
Corinne McConchie Librarian
Rachel Ditor Dramaturg
Patrick Reid Statesman, Flag Designer
Michael Varga CBC Cameraman
Bronwen Marsden Playwright/Actress/Director
David Baines Vancouver Sun Columnist
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward Photographer
Lauren Elizabeth Stewart Student
Sandrine Cassini Dancer/Choreographer
Meredith Kalaman Dancer/Choreographer
Juliya Kate Dominatrix

Tuesday, October 23, 2012




The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Monday, October 22, 2012

Guss Vasos - The Impresario

The Blood Alley Quartet From left, Randy Bowman (drums), top left Dave Olajide (bass), centre, Gus Vassos (vocals, guitar) right, Anthony Walker (vocals, guitar)

Mz Adrien - Mistress of Ceremonies

Pocket Venus - Burlesque Dancer

Veronica Vex - Burlesque Dancer

Sasha Minx - Burlesque Dancer

Scarlet Delirium - Burlesque Dancer

Goldie Monroe - Burlesque Dancer

Zoe Curly Locks - Singer/Card Girl/ Cigarette Girl



Sasha Minx



Pocket Venus

 



Veronica Vex


 


Scarlet Delirium

Goldie Monroe

Scarlet Delirium

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Sasha Minx before

Stripping killed burlesque. On line pornography killed stripping. Why pay for expensive beer in a bar in order to watch women peel off their clothes? You can do it from the comfort of you home sitting in front of a PC or lounging with an iPad on your sofa or watch it HD on you wide-screen TV.

I am at age 70 from that generation who will admit seeing one pornographic film, Deep Throat. I am a photographer who in the middle 70s was interested (my interest has not waned) in taking pictures of the undraped female. My only two options in Vancouver then were to go to Wreck Beach or to approach a stripper in such places at the Marble Arch, the Number 5 Orange or the Drake.

The idea that you could hire a model from a modeling agency was not one that had arrived to Vancouver. The art schools protected their lists of models for their figure painting classes with a figurative paternal shotgun.

Paradoxically Vancouver (in tandem with Europe and the US) has become more liberalized and the school where I taught, Focal Point had no problem getting models, of both sexes, to pose undraped for my classes. I say paradoxically because even though you are able to find people to pose the dominance of social networks, Flickr and the internet has made most people who pose undraped, understandably paranoid about their privacy.

If a picture of a young and very nude picture of our venerable and now retired Senator, Pat Carney were to suddenly appear and be posted on facebook, can you imagine the scandal in Canada and in BC?

Veronica Vex before

The above is but a prelude to my attempt to explain that my perception of burlesque as an art form (A teasing art form that did not deliver all the goods!) has always been clouded by the overt influence of my exposure to Vancouver exotic dancing when I arrived here in 1975. By the end of what I call the golden era of exotic dancing here (it may have ended somewhere around 1996) dancers were taking off all of their clothing from the first few minutes of their act. Why wait? Why tease? At one time stripping had lots of burlesque influence and many of our local dancers mimicked the burlesque moves and did actually tease. But by the end, women who could not dance made the motions and took off their clothes. Beer went up, smoking was not allowed, men got bored and they stayed home.

For some years now there has been a revival of burlesque here and maybe it has now reached its end. The formula seems to be to obtain pudgy, older women, many are ungraceful who compensate with standup humor and what I call the cutesy moves like fanny wagging.

But my “so what” attitude to a burlesque show has been dramatically altered by my two ventures into taking pictures backstage at Neverland Burlesque (held on the second Saturday of every month at the Russian Hall on 4th Avenue). This burlesque show is sponsored by the Blood Alley Quartet and their statuesque-of-liberty singer/burlesque performer Goldie Monroe. The second show I attended on Saturday was packed. Perhaps the crowd is unaware that Burlesque is on the wane. Or, like me they know that the house band is a solid band of seasoned musicians with lots of Vancouver chops to their credit. Forgetting the burlesque dancers (a totally imaginary condition here as they are not easy to forget) of this Saturday and the many lovely rock songs played by the band there were tunes interspersed where if I ignored the bass and the drum and concentrated on Anthony Walker's (aka Tony Baloney) guitar I was in guitar heaven. And if I ignored the vocals of the band (Gus Vassos, Walker and Goldie Monroe) and only listened to the Randy Bowman’s drums and David Olajide’s bass it was like listening to the loud and furious Subhumans. Listening to the band on Saturday was akin to going back to the Vancouver punk scene of the late 70s. I was no longer an old man.




Sasha Minx after

 But it was not only the band that kept me interested in the show on Saturday. The burlesque dancers themselves (from the very privileged position of the fact that I was backstage) helped me to understand them and what motivates them to perform for wages that do not justify the expense of the elaborate costumes these women make or have made.

But two dancers, in particular, that I will cite here justified my presence at the Neverland Burlesque Show.

Consider that I approached to former Globe & Mail, Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight dance critics, one freelance writer, one Vancouver Sun writer with the former experience of having been the manager of a punk band, and a former and very intelligent exotic dancer. They all either said no outright or had justifiable reasons for not accompanying me to write something to place with my photographs. I thought that (and became quite excited) a former stripper might find talking to burlesque dancers in a dressing room could have produced memorable copy. But that was not to be. The quality of words, any of the above might have contributed here, has been replaced by just the quantity of what I write now.

Yesterday’s blog posting, no words, just pictures to me is the justification for my lugging my equipment to take my pictures on my own. I see in the pictures, not very sharp Fuji Instant Film scans a story that a good writer could have sung some nice paragraphs.

The two dancers featured here are very different. One, Veronica Vex, is a seasoned burlesque dancer and the other Sasha Minx a first timer.

The hilarious mistress of ceremonies, the drag queen Mz Adrien asked the audience if there were any virgins among them. And here I was taking a snap of a woman who had never performed (and who was also going to sing live with the Blood Alley Quartet, while taking her clothes off. She was the real virgin if not the only authentic one in the Russian Hall.

Sasha Minx was nervous. She sat in a corner watching the first few acts and was especially nervous as she was on soon. The other dancers tried to calm her. From what I could see her act was very good and her singing, a throaty mezzo, went well with her dark look. She exited to back stage to pose for me all flustered that something had gone wrong. It must have been in her imagination as I am sure the crowd noticed nothing.

Veronica Vex after

In a communication preceding this blog Sasha Minx has shown curiousity in my direction if her nervousness will show in the initial portrait and if her face will be more relaxed in the one after the performance. Those who read this can make up their minds for themselves.

While Sasha Minx and Veronica Vex differed in experience they shared and endearing quality. With all her experience, Veronica Vex last September and on Saturday, (she dance twice) would emerge from her dressing room early, before the dance, and cat-like walk by me and my light practicing her moves. For the second act of the night she was dressed like Cleopatra and she practiced moves swirling sheer fabric or slipping it through her fingers. That very practice was marvelous. It was a wonder for me. I wanted to expose a video camera but I didn’t have one. I was getting a very private performance. What a luxury. I asked Veronica Vex is she was nervous. She said she was. I believe that when a professional no longer is nervous before a task, then there is an absence of passion. Some would say just making the motion.

All the other dancers watched Veronica Vex dance and were in awe. I could see what it was. She was somehow a dancer getting off a Continental Trailways Flxible in the mid 50s in Memphis with a cheap cardboard suitcase and suddenly being hit by lightning and transported in time and space to the Russian Hall. Her look, her outfit, her mannerisms, her demeanour, her smile and when I told her, “You are a class broad,” confirmed my lightning bolt scenario.

I anticipate with pleasure the next Neverland Burlesque show. You can look forward in the next few days to the posting of the colour slides that I took of the dancers before and after their performance.

Veronica Vex- burlesque dancer