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Please note change of title from fOXYMORONIC to molt in reading the following articles.
Preview By Gail Johnson
Publish Date: 31-Mar-2005
Local dancer and choreographer Cori Caulfield has established herself as a solo maven. Over the last 20 years, she has made dozens of “portraits”, as she calls them, short works that are as elegant as they are haunting. She has the kind of sharp technique and intense theatricality that artistic directors the world over crave, and although she injects offbeat humour into the mix, her themes are never flighty. Despite her considerable talent, however, Caulfield has found that presenting an evening of solos doesn’t generate much excitement (or cash) from funding bodies. And while she admits that repeated unsuccessful attempts to secure financial backing have led her to the woe-is-me syndrome, it’s not nearly strong enough to tear her away from the stage. Besides, meagre cash flow has long been a sore reality for Vancouver dancers. So, what’s Caulfield doing in response to nearly nonexistent support? She’s creating and performing in a new full-length production complete with an original electroacoustic score, video imagery, and set design, of course.
“This is my joy, this is my bliss, and if I had to make a choice I would still be in the studio,” says the artist, who also heads Port Moody’s Caulfield School of Dance, in a phone interview. “Every time I heard ‘no’, I’d make another 10-minute solo and make the best piece I possibly could. I have to invest in myself. I can’t stall, I can’t keep waiting. I have to just go and do it.”
Hence her new show, fOXYMORONIC, which has its world premiere at the Firehall Arts Centre Wednesday to next Sunday (April 6 to 10). If Caulfield is known for her strong solo voice, she can also be counted on for tackling such weighty topics as gender stereotypes and the objectification of women, and her latest is no exception. Io sono dolce amorosa toyed with notions of female beauty in classical art; Bought and $old looked at images of women within the context of mass commercialism; and Party Girl was an unsettling take on female insecurities. fOXYMORONIC dives into the association between birds and women in
classical ballet.
“The connection is very strong,” she says. “There’s Les Sylphides, the Firebird, Swan Lake, the bluebirds from Sleeping Beauty, the Valkyries....
Preview by Gail Johnson continued
“There’s the aspect of defying gravity. And as women become more skeletal, they take on a physical resemblance to birds....We perpetuate this strange stereotype, and young girls are still getting these archaic messages that they’re fragile, delicate, at the mercy of men. These are the images I grew up with in the ballet world—and that was as someone who’s very tall and strong and not delicate and who doesn’t look like a bird.”
At 6-foot-2, Caulfield was often told she was “too big” and not feminine, delicate, or “girly” enough for pointe shoes. So at 16 she gave up on dance: “When I couldn’t be a swan, I left.” She went to SFU to pursue psychology, but found herself sneaking into the studio and left with a degree in fine arts.
“I realized it’s OK to be a woman who dances instead of a swan,” she explains. “There’s so much sexism in the media. We have Wonder Woman, this powerful figure who runs around in a bathing suit… Today, girls have to align Britney Spears with Dr. [Roberta] Bondar.”
fOXYMORONIC will explore the link between outdated female myths and avian imagery not only via Caulfield’s kinetically surprising and characteristically fractured movement—?which will be set to Mark Taylor’s electroacoustic score, a blend of excerpts from such works as Richard Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries with original classical-guitar and piano sequences—but also in Tim Matheson’s video projections. She’s emphatic about the value of the piece’s collaborative nature, a fact that was made all the more challenging because of limited resources.
Still, no matter how effective the other elements may be, it’s Caulfield’s brilliantly warped physicality and her powerful solitary presence that are sure to make this offering fly. –
Please note change of title from fOXYMORONIC to molt in reading the following articles.
fOXYMORONIC
Coriograph Theatre
Thursday 7 April
Firehall Arts Centre
Cori Caulfield could probably run a degree course in Women’s Studies from her dance studio. In 2002 the local choreographer and performer explored patriarchy’s erosion of the goddess in Eve, a work which dissected classical mythology with a lethal combination of kinetic sensuality and academic precision. In her first full–length solo show, she shakes down classical ballet and documents its parallel course in neutralizing female power. Unlike the earlier work, which employed a teasingly didactic tone to present a thesis, fOXYMORONIC felt like a very personal journey in which Caulfield was using dance to work things out.
As if to allude to what had been lost, the piece began with the enormous shadow of a Valkyrie looming across the upstage wall. This awesome presence would recur like an avenging angel amid the firebirds, swans, and other trapped or enfeebled chickadees in the classical repertoire. When Caulfield inhabited the Valkyrie costume with her long, strong body, her movements were angular, yet sinuous. She oozed psycho–sexual power—and for the most part, played it straight. It was the other stuff that got detourned: a tutu bouncing perkily on her hips proved to be a big, circular saw blade and the Firebird’s flaming headdress was dangled before her on a pole which she chased, en pointe, with anxious little boureés. (Actually, there are quite a few male dancers who’d love to be wearing toe shoes and tutus, but let’s not even start on that.)
Voice–over narration, from text written and delivered by Caulfield and collaborator Myra Davies, offered provocative historical insight as well as droll commentary. (“The swans are dancing for daddy” was choice.) Tim Matheson’s video projections were so compelling that they were almost a performance unto themselves—particularly those on a circular screen suspended, moonlike, downstage. Mark Taylor’s music and sound design was alternately cheeky, dreamy and disturbing.
As good as the various elements were, they didn’t always feel well integrated. There were long periods when only narration or video held the stage; without the dancer’s powerful, unifying presence, the piece seemed fragmented.
Those slight misgivings were all but forgotten, though, with the closing segment: an exquisite routine on the stationary trapeze. Working first with the trap enclosed in a golden cage, and then free to swing sans cage, Caulfield left us with the perfect combination of spectacle and metaphor.
Please note change of title from fOXYMORONIC to molt in reading the following articles.
Please note change of title from fOXYMORONIC to molt in reading the following articles.