Culture Nocturne At the Vancouver beautiful visions to be seen in alongside the rice-powdered but Butoh’s a form of expressive thing you just have to see, and, East Cultural Centre the hunched, fluid, and con- bodies onstage, lifting and movement you can’t accurately torted bodies of all four dancers, pulling limbs with mambos, describe. This is the sort of February 16-20 particularly in lead soloist flutes, symphonic excerpts, and ‘eae Matsuko Tanaka, the “demon forties big band tunes. ae, diva” of Butoh. Tanaka's total Lighting supervisor af What you get out of a show is immersion in the elasticity of Kiyokazu Kakizaki has created directly affected by what you bring to it. With this production from Ebisu Torii’s dance troupe Butoh-Sha Tenkei, I made the mistake of bringing a walloping dollop of exhaustion and, even worse, a handful of preconceived notions. Don’t you be doing that. More aptly described as an experience than a show, Noc- turne is physically stunning, alternately alarming, confusing, grotesque, amusing, downright weird at times, and best experi- enced with an open mind. My. companion, an active disliker of interpretive dance, was deeply moved by the performance, finding that the monumental characterisations and almost elemental timing freed his thoughts for contemplative wandering and mythical wonder- ment. My thoughts, regrettably, just wandered. There were extremely C0 O° Uo LAM Starvin the moment, and her muscular awareness down to the last eye blink, invites a slew of contra- dictory descriptions, such as ‘serenely edgy, ‘discordantly harmonious, ‘gorgeously horrify- ing; etc., etc., etc. None of which truly convey what it’s like to see this peculiar, amazing woman grow like a mountain, like a tree, shrink into a gravely comical child-king, tentatively flutter towards the light as a wren, or weep intensely from eyes, nose, mouth, possibly even ears, in extremes of horror or mad joy. I can honestly say that I've never seen anyone make strings of spittle look so deli- cately appropriate, or so brutally sumptuous. Masuru Soga’s live mix score does much more than merely integrate with or accent the performance. It frequently gave the impression of full interaction, an invisible, aural dancer straining and swooping the other disembodied character. More graduated and formal than Soga’s sound, Kakizaki’s light grows and dies with slow care, crawling up Tanaka's looming opening sequence, luring dancers Yuki Ebine and Yukari Ueda through salsa’d frenzy and jingling despair, opening col- umns of gauze, and blazing huge shadows in post-war Japan. It still surprises me that so much brightness can convey such dark emotion. I found the evening's last piece to be the most powerful, mainly because of, rather than . in spite of, the uncomfortable length of the final poses held for so painfully long by the whole troupe. A roaring muddle of sound, twisted into the three glaring spotlights on Tanaka, Ebine, and Ueda, scream, and scream, and scream, silent in the full madness of performance. Yeah, I know I'm getting all froufy with my descriptions, ’ . eo, ee a2 on Lites, as ail i ss I’m related to Bjork?! d a Cisk ON Teo R eu g Student ultimately, optimally, to feel. DISCOUNT NIGHT Just show your student ID card to participating retailers when you shop the first Thursday of each month from 5pm to 9pm. List of participating stores available at Customer Service, South Mall. To make life a little easier, Coquitlam Centre is offering Douglas College students, staff and faculty a ‘student discount shopping night’. , a av COQUITLAM CENTRE making life a little easier 464 8357 HMY Look for these Savings and much more! 10% off Poster Plaza 10% off regular priced merchandise The Oak & Brass Room 10% off ProSystems Beauty Centre 20% off Gourmet Muffins 'n More 10% off The Pantry Restaurant 25% off regular priced menu items Kerrisdale Camera 10% off selected items Park Avenue 10% off Cheesesteaks Plus 10% off Cartunes Sound & Cellular 10% off Versailles Jewellers No GST or PST, excludes sale items Pet Habitat 10% off B.B. Watch Service 10% off Le Chateau the Other Press February 24 1999 10% off regular priced merchandise Discounts not valid with any other promotions. Offers good at Coquitlam Centre only.