Radiant II

Radiant, a contemporary dance work by Holly Small, is an inter-disciplinary collaboration with Toronto-based composer/media artist John Oswald and theatre designer, Emile Morin from Quebec City. An incredibly complex piece merging dance, video projections, live music and music performed on lap-top computer - all condensed in a good 30 minutes. The whole experience of the work was quite mesmerizing. I was glad to see the premier of this dance. The fruit of a group of creative people still in its rather raw stage. Lionel and Mathieu, the two guests who stayed in our B&B were among the working team and worked as videographer and technical director. They both have worked with Robert Lepage before. In our conversation during breakfast, Mathieu told me that his girl friend is also running a B&B in Quebec city.

Radiant I

The last time I went to a dance performance was a few years back. It was performed by the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company at Harbourfront Centre's Premiere Dance Theatre (now Fleck Dance Theatre). My interest in dance was rekindled by some guests staying recently in the B&B, all of whom are working in the technical area of dance productions. Jean-Philippe and Pierre in lighting design, Lionel in videography and Mathieu in technical direction. Jean-Philippe was here earlier for Susie Burpee's dance piece In Tune, and the second team arrived after Jean-Philippe left, for Holly Small's contemporary dance work Radiant. One morning during breakfast I asked Lionel about the theatre where Radiant was performed. He told me the stage was considered quite large for the two hundred something seats. Later I goggled Betty Oliphant Theatre, a place I have never been to (like so many other places in Toronto) and found out some history. The theatre was designed by Canada's famous architect Jack Diamond. It was originally built as a stage training facility to assist students to make the transition from studio to stage.

Birds and Little Blue Riding Hood

It was nice to see the exhibition review of Blair Drawson's Nest Eggs by David Jager in the recent issue of NOW magazine. These birds certainly call in Spring as both shows (Blair Drawson's and Marcelo Suaznabar's) opened today - on a beautifully warm and sunny Saturday. There are not short of eggs in Marcelo's paintings, as one viewer pointed out. Talking about eggs and birds, I really love Gaye's shirt. She is seen here in front of Drawson's birds. The cat posing as Little Blue Riding Hood is looking at the birds too...with more birds around her.

Breakfast with art

After a few wet, rainy, still-snowy days Spring is returning and showing her face again. Birds start to sing and people start to jog. This week Our B&B is filled with guests who are either artists or working in the art-related fields. There is the technical team from Quebec, Mathieu, Lionel and Pierre who work on the dance production Radiant - a new work by Toronto-based artist Holly Small. Another couple, Karen and Paul arrived yesterday. Karen works in sculpture and Paul in photography. Both of them are very exciting to stay in our place. This morning all the guests were having breakfast in the gallery, where Marcelo Suaznabar’s new exhibition has just been mounted. Paul mentioned that he met the Hong Kong artist Leung Chi-Wo during his artist residency in Banff. We told him this is exactly the same artist we are going to show in May, in the Annual CONTACT Photo Festival. What a small art world.

Birds, dogs and cats

Yesterday was the last day of Tomio Nitto’s show. We joked about having another “re-visit” show from his sketch book on “working in the garden” next Spring. As we were putting down the show David Jager of NOW magazine came and previewed Blair Drawson’s “Nest Eggs”, a suite of eight mixed media work of birds. In fact Blair has a few of his dog paintings with us too. They are all very adorable and we are ready to show people who are specifically interested in artwork of dogs. But if you are a cat lover, don’t be disappointed. INDEX G ART SHOP is organizing one SUNDAY BAZAAR event on ”All Things Cat” on June 7.