Both sides now

"Do I still owe you $60? Because I have it here." That was Joni Mitchell affectionately greeting her one-time landlady, Toronto multi-media artist Vera Frenkel, at a Wednesday night dinner in the home of dance critic Michael Crabb.

It was a surprise encounter for both artists. In the mid-60s, Frenkel rented a room to Mitchell in a house on Huron St., when the singer/songwriter was just trying to break into the music business, performing at any club where she could sing without a union card. She confessed she was quite poor and at one time sold coats at Simpson’s to pay her rent – or most of it. Frenkel assured her she remembered no unpaid debt.

Crabb hosted the meal for Mitchell and Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-Maître (Barberian’s chefs barbecued steak). Mitchell and Grand-Maitre collaborated on The Fiddle and the Drum, a contemporary ballet set to her music, with Mitchell creating the sets. The show opens Friday in the Four Seasons Centre.

-Susan Walker

 

 

Like something out of a Bollywood film

“You are my love,” declared the gold-spandex-clad dance instructor during the lesson at Yonge-Dundas Square at Luminato’s big Bollywood finale tonight. The jam-packed crowd showed their love right back - by dancing along.

It’s like that nerd in Dazed and Confused once said, it seems Toronto “just wants to dance.” Of course, again there wasn’t enough room for anybody to really cut loose.

The crowd was really pretty mixed and the surprising thing was how many men were up for the brown version of line dancing.

If you missed it, or just didn’t get your fill, you’re in luck. With New York City’s DJ Rekha (playing with local great Gurpreet “the tabla guy” Chana) at Harbourfront’s Brigantine Room on Friday and Nitin Sawhney on Saturday at College St. club Revival, those wanting to get down with the brown still have some great events to practise those new moves.

-Raju Mudhar

Hustle on over

For the last several evenings, the Telus Light on Your Feet event at Yonge-Dundas Square has been offering one-hour dance lessons for those wanting to get out and boogie. Tonight from 7-8 p.m. it's time to burn baby burn with a lesson in disco. Producer and host Vince Parrell, owner and director of Vince Parrell's Dance Show, tells how to do disco dancing.

"We're going to be doing presentations of line dances, such as The Hustle, done to that song 'Do the Hustle' in 1979, by the Big Apple. Disco initially was all line dancing. Finally the ladies can come up alone. They don't need the men."

Disco encompasses dances that originated with funk, soul or even salsa music. "It can also be a partnered dance," says Parrell, "very similar to the jive or the swing. Except this time we have a little bit more of a rock `n' roll back-and-forth motion. We might even bump hips. In fact, there was a dance called the Bump."

Come down at 7 p.m., Parrell says. "We'll have the whole square up line dancing." Music comes courtesy of Disco Inferno.

-Susan Walker

 

Covers, Canadian Style

Karen David is fighting a bit of an ear infection, but the now London-based singer and actress is glad to be home in Toronto.

"They say that homesickness goes away after a couple of years, but I haven't found that. I still miss my family a lot," she said.

Taking part in tonight's Canadian Songbook event at Massey Hall, she is taking three cracks at some Canadian classics.

"I'm doing ‘When you love Someone,' by Bryan Adams, which I chose because I think that I can sort of give it my own interpretation ... some of his other songs are so distinctive, this one I thought might be able to work with. At the very least, it will be a girl's voice so that'll change things up."

She's also doing "Something to Talk about" by Shirley Eikhard and "Coming in from the Cold" by Joni Mitchell.

While tonight will showcase David's interpretations of other people work, the up-and-coming singer is hard at work on her own album, with the hopes of one day joining the ranks of those being celebrated this evening.

Ron Sexsmith, Luke Doucet, Molly Johnson and Danny Michel are just some of the other performers taking on Canuck classics at the event. 

-Raju Mudhar

 

Wonderfalls

If you’re a tourist in Toronto, you have to go to Niagara Falls, right?

That's what Tim Supple and his all South Asian cast of Midsummer Night's Dream is doing today. The director stopped by the Luminato Media Hub this morning, and since the Toronto performances are going to be the last for certain members of the cast, there are some special bonding events before some members leave the production.

Supple, in particular, had some very personal reasons for checking out one of the wonders of the world.

"My parents actually lived in Canada for a few years right after they were married. My brother and sister were born here. There was an iconic picture in our home taken shortly after they were married, with them standing in front of the Falls. So that's one reason why I have to go there. Hopefully I can find the spot."

We advised checking out the Maid of the Mist, although he wasn't sure if it was in the budget, but there was a picnic in the itinerary.

-Raju Mudhar

 

Red flags for Green Flag Song

No disrespect intended for the great Joni Mitchell, but the current exhibit for Green Flag Song is the type of thing that had me understanding why people can have an automatic disdain for contemporary art.

Basically, the military themed piece is blown up photographs (taken using disposable cameras) of military scenes on Mitchell’s TV, which was on the fritz. Seriously.

Now, I’m the kind of guy who if that happens to me, I call a repair man, or get a new TV, as opposed to making art with it. But then, I am certainly not Joni Mitchell.

Thankfully, I ran into some tourists who helped me put the show into context. Emily Pothast, 29, is a musician and artist. She was with David Golightly, 29, a web developer and musician. Both are just visiting for the weekend from Seattle.

Here’s a short transcript of our talk: 

So why’d you come to town?

Emily: We came to see Leonard Cohen.

How was it?

Emily: Beautiful and totally worth it.

How’d you hear about this?

Emily: We didn’t. We were just wandering around and we’re fans of Joni Mitchell, actually of all your Canadian singer/songwriters … It’s a nice show and good to see. It’s nice to see her explore her visual art, because I know that she considers herself a painter, and this is a great way to put that side of her work into context.

David: I really like the concise colour palette of green and purple, with the grainy textures of the images, signifying decay and destruction, which goes along with the images. And the art historical significance and use of the triptych is interesting. It’s very visceral and really brings home the subject matter. I like the use of the TV, and the feeling like we’re coming to an end of a moment. Like her TV is breaking, but so is the technology, so there’s the implied hope that time of war is also coming to an end.

Emily: It’s not though.

David: Yeah, I know.

I see you’re looking through a program. Have you heard of any of this Luminato stuff?

Emily: The fact that this is free is great. We just saw it walking by. That’s a huge plus. But yeah, what is it? I mean we saw the huge L’Oreal tent downtown, and I thought it was some kind of make-up festival. I mean look at this program, its like L’Oreal is really big, but the Art and Creativity festival type is really small. The sponsorship seems a bit heavy handed.

Cool. Awesome. Thanks so much for your time.

Emily: No problem. Hey, can we ask you a question? How do we immigrate to Canada?

-Raju Mudhar

 

Cheers to beer

On opening day, I asked Chris Lowray, the fest’s head of programming what he hoped for the next ten days.

He answered: “After every good party, you have a hang over. So if Toronto has a bit of cultural hangover by the end of the festival, I think we’ll be in a good place.”

There’s also the other - real - kind of hangover and one place that we’ve somehow managed to stop by the past few days is the temporary beer garden in Yonge Dundas square set up by the Mill Street Brewery and FAB concepts (the company that runs bars like The Foggy Dew and the Mill Street Pub). Built to hold about 1,200 people and even has it’s own VIP section, this is one low culture thing that we would love to see become a permanent addition to the square. Hey, making good beer is an art, too.

Mill Street, is of course, a sponsor of the fest, which explains its prime placement. The pub is open from 12 p.m.-11 p.m. every day for the duration of the fest, and there’s even food. I had the pulled pork sandwich and the excellent sweet-potato fries.

If you’re not a beer person, there’s been other booze opportunities, like the samples of Whyte and Mackay’s The Thirteen at the Skylounge party, which was also serving Luminatinis. I forgot to jot down how to make it and followed up with the fest’s PR mistress, Laura Barron, about what the ingredients were.

“There really isn’t an official cocktail for the festival. Everywhere we have parties just kind of makes one up on their own,” she said.

She's a lovely and honest woman, although afterward I joked to a friend that she should have stuck to the party line and tried to sell it as another way the fest is allowing bartenders to get creative.

-Raju Mudhar

Dancing on the big screen

Got going a little bit late today, but seemed like there wasn’t too much beyond the ticketed events in the afternoon. There was a Bunch Family party in Yonge Dundas square, and as we biked by, it looked like the beach balls were a big hit with the tykes.

The bang-on criticism with Luminato is that there’s too much disparate stuff, lacking the cohesive feel you get from other festivals, which is pretty much makes sense considering the mixed bag of high and low culture. The thing is if it’s free, people will come. I decided to stick to freebies today to see how well they fair.

First stop was the NFB Cinematheque showing at two o’clock, a dance-themed double bill of the NFB short Flamenco at 5:15 and Veronica Tennant’s Vida y Danza Cuba, about the making of the Cuban dance musical, Vida, which fittingly aired last year at Luminato. Dance is one of the fest’s big tent poles, and thematically these two movies fit into nicely, as tonight’s YD Square event is Latin dancing.

That said, it feels like the film portion of Luminato gravitates more toward clips and scenes in experimental art installation, as opposed to proper movies, but I was also pleasantly surprised to see that about 50 people showed up to almost fill the Cinematheque theatre, proving that there is an audience for this seemingly smaller portion of the festival.

-Raju Mudhar

Celebrity Watch

At the Drabinsky Gallery on Saturday afternoon, Barry Manilow popped in for a quick look at five original Leonard Cohen drawings, currently on display.

Meanwhile, Cohen, who is receiving no visitors while in town, was spotted wandering around the Village on the Grange shopping mall the other day. His first three shows at the Sony Centre were sold out months ago, but there still some seats available for his final concert tonight.

-Martin Knelman

Super Silent

It may sound like a goofy idea, but the Silent Dancing night was a total success. There were a few hundred dancers and about as many viewers at the late-night, last-minute addition to the festival.

The really cool thing about is was that there was finally actual boogie-ing by the masses on the floor set up in Yonge & Dundas Square. So far — other than the demonstrations and dance lessons — the special set-up parquet floor has mostly been used for seating by the crowds during the day performances, and has been standing room only for the evening affairs. Not so at midnight Sunday, when the fest’s head of programming, Chris Lorway, counted down from ten 10 and everyone hit play on their MP3 players and began to dance to the pretty fun set created especially for the event by New York DJ AC Slater.

“It’s good as a spectator and a participant,” said Derek McCallum, 24, an “almost” architect from Toronto. “It’s a lot cooler than I was expecting … It’s a nice use of public space in Yonge Dundas square, which doesn’t happen a lot because of the issues with the corporate ownership here.”

“It’s neat because you’re kind of in two worlds, separate and together,” said Sarah Harris, a 20-year-old U of T student, who was intrigued because she read about the origins of the silent disco in Matt Mason’s recent book, The Pirate’s Dilemma.

“It’s really cool. I’m also a dancer and this is really good floor that they have set up. How often do you get to do that outside?,” she said.

“I want to have one of these parties in my place,” chimed in her friend, Caitlin Grieve.

With the choreographed lighting from the balloons in the square, it did feel a bit like an outdoor club. But more than that, it was spontaneous and fun. People shared earphones with those that didn’t have. Every festival in town could use more of these types of moments. Judging by the delighted response from the various Luminato execs and staffers on hand, they felt the same way.

-Raju Mudhar