Cool is good. But does anyone actually want to admit we are trying to be good? No. It's much cooler to be bad. But if trying to be bad is cool then shouldn't we not follow the herd and be good? It's damn confusing. It's damn subjective. It doesn't matter.
This dance project exists in the gap between dance in the Contemporary Dance world and dance in society.
I am not so not interested in adhering to what is good in the dance industry. It started at a point of frustration with how formulaic good is in the dance industry, how insular its own world is, how removed it is from LIFE. How little it demands of itself in terms of relevance to LIFE. How simplified and ridiculous it is, and how naievely the whole entire industry cannot see this. Taking the simplified nonsense it produces so seriously is a ridiculous sight.
So I started thinking about trying to present the "bad". Using every cliched element of contemporarydance production. Squares of light, complicated abstract movement phrases made by using letters of the alphabet, androgynous costumes, obssession with open parrallel stance, empty expression on the face... And then this might parody the "good." And then be "cool." Which is what we want, sort of, at least. But there was a hiccup on the way, I discovered the imdominable force of Celine Dion. And she has opened up a can of love worms.
What is Celine Dion? She is the ultimate manifestation of LOVE in the commercial world. 200 songs in her career, 198 devoted to the exploration of love between a man and a woman. She is in the top ten list of Biggest selling female recording artists of all time behind Maddona, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Her whole life is about love. Her whole world is about with how much she loves her 14 brothers and sisters, her mother, her fans, her collaborators, her home country, her music and her manager- Rene Angelil. The only man she's ever known and loved, 28 years her senior and her lover since she was just 16. Totally extreme stuff. The ultimate. So complex. So huge.
You ask a person vaguely interested in being cool, what they think of Celine DIon, throw in a phrase such as "Celine Dion will have a bigger legacy than John Lennon in 100 years time" and one gets extreme responses of absolute disgust. Similar to that of the name John Howard/George Bush. But for Celine, like John Howard/George Bush, there must be some out there who like her, it is actually a lot. Is it not the dismissal of artists such as Celine Dion highlighting the narrow window of acceptable topics we are willing to consider to work with? Can we equate our dismissal with Celine Dion to a lack of investigation in to the mechanics of the mainstream? The dominant force of the world whose welfare drives global politics and economy. So our quest to destroy the axis of evil is an act of support for Celine Dion.
So what does this have to do with dance? I am working around this idea that as artists we have to get out of this insular world where themes, methods and production go round in circles. Where nothing stands out. Where understanding is pegged to the education of the audience. Not education as in Eton versus Chingford 6th Form College- but whether you're been to a dance institution. Is it so specific that it wipes out the majority of a potential audience base? This acts as a repellent in this world so obsessed with spectacle, flashiness, instant gratification, newness, excitement, sensorial indulgence, speed, excitement, things, stuff, success...
Dance is an integral and unavoidably fun part of society. It is everywhere. It is something every single person on this planet can feel and do for free. It is something that blows people away, instigates romance, exercise, an outlet - to use the cliche - it totally brings people closer together. Ask any dancer why they started a career in professional dance and they will say it's because they seriously love doing it. The fact that so many dancers, after dancing a show still want to go out disco dancing is testament to the power of the dance. There is a huge apetite for dance, poeple just can't get enough of dance. Being in the dance industry we can totally ride this ready made wave.
People are interested in seeing how professionals can take this and turn it into something else. It is a totally brilliant art form full of potentiality and wonder. This art form which is so pervasive throughout all of society - so accessible to so many. It is super ridiculously exciting it makes people watching it sweat. I want to embrace this - and I want to empower those millions of potential audience members. They are just as knowledgeable about dance as me. My dance world has just been cluttered up with the weight of trying to forge a career in an industry tailored for the past.
We can relax a little on the demands we place on ourselves as dancers. It's really hard to train to be a dancer, and right now, honestly, the phrase jack of all trades and master of none has a little bit too much truth. Let's aspire to have a heterogenous base of artists with which to create an array of works that reflects the contradictions, variety and insanity of society.
Let's seek out those making the new as opposed to those making another quality version of something we already know. Let's not be constrained by what we have been taught but challenge what we know and launch ourselves into the territory of the unknown. Let's embrace the battle with this art form so that it means something to us, the dance makers as people not as products of institutions. Tears, belly laughs and grimaces of embarrassment. Let's throw in one massive goodbye to open parallel in performance. Hiding behind technique is not so much fun at all. It's scary.
Dance has the ability to capture the mysteries and complexities of the world and present them in a way that is itself different to all other arts, it also allows audiences to see the world through another lens. Dance is a crucial part of the arts. It's important and valid. It is EASY to inject the life back into this artform. But in order to do this... We'll have to give away the current measuring sticks that are killing it. No art form, not even somethign functional like ceramics survives on the quality of craftsmanship. We need to question the necessity of every single element being used. What don't we need anymore? What is totally under-valued? What do we need to make it relevant to the souls in the audience? What loses them? What excites them? What pisses them off? Are they wrong? Are they right? Are they immature and inflated? Can we take the piss? Have we really ever asked? Can we swallow our pride and take a bashing by asking "normal" people what they actually think of us? And then accept that they are knowledgable about what we do? Do we have the balls to fail? Do we have the balls to make works that make us so excited that we want to work so hard that we don't want to sleep?
Let's not masquerade as being Contemporary by hiding behind the stainless steel/factory chic architecture of the theatre. Let's take our dance to people who will give it a real flogging and can totally have fun doing it, and tailor its production methods to our lifestyles. Take our dances to people whose responses validate our intelligence. Take them to people who will make us feel like the self-indulgent souls we really are, who will really tell us it's shit if they don't like it. This feeling of inadequecy and honest unfiltered reaction might just give us the kick up the arse that will put some relevance back into dance in theatres. It's good to know how the real world actually perceives us. Because we participate in it, we roll around in it every day of our lives, we give and it is reasonable to expect something back. We devote our lives to this artform, it's unfortunate to not be appreciated. It' ll be a bitter pill to swallow, but in the long run, we will be laughing like hell, because we will actually be able to have FUN whilst being paid to work in an art form that heaps of people are interested in.
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I Am For a Celine Dion (After Claes Oldenburg)
I am for a Celine Dion that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. I am for a Celine Dion that grows up not knowing it is a Celine Dion at all, a Celine Dion given the chance of having a staring point of zero. I am for a Celine Dion that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top. I am for a Celine Dion that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary. I am for a Celine Dion that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself. I am for a Celine Dion that vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
I am for Celine Dion that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky. I am for Celine Dion that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender. I am for the Celine Dion out of a doggy’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.I am for the Celine Dion that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper. I am for a Celine Dion that joggles like everyone’s knees, when the bus traverses an excavation. I am for Celine Dion that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes. I am for Celine Dion that flaps like a flag or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief. I am for Celine Dion that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.
I am for Celine Dion covered with bandages. I am for Celine Dion that limps and rolls and runs and jumps. I am for Celine Dion comes in a can or washes up on the shore. I am for Celine Dion that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for Celine Dion that sheds hair. I am for Celine Dion you can sit on. I am for Celine Dion you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on. I am for Celine Dion from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist. I am for Celine Dion under the skirts, and the Celine Dion of pinching cockroaches.
I am for the Celine Dion of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind mans metal stick. I am for the Celine Dion that grows in a pot that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for Celine Dion that is flipped on and off with a switch. I am for Celine Dion that unfolds like a map that you can squeeze, like your sweeties arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth? I am for Celine Dion that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with. I am for a Celine Dion that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is. I am for a Celine Dion that helps old ladies across the street. I am for the Celine Dion of the washing machine. I am for the Celine Dion of a government check. I am for the Celine Dion of last wars raincoat. I am for the Celine Dion that comes up in fogs from sewer-holes in winter. I am for the Celine Dion that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worm’s Celine Dion inside the apple. I am for the Celine Dion of sweat that develops between crossed legs.
I am for the Celine Dion of neck-hair and caked tea-cups, for the Celine Dion between the tines of restaurant forks, for the odour of boiling dishwater. I am for the Celine Dion of sailing on Sunday, and the Celine Dion of red and white gasoline pumps. I am for the Celine Dion of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs. I am for the Celine Dion of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the Celine Dion of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the Celine Dion of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the Celine Dion of slag and black coal. I am for the Celine Dion of dead birds. I am for the Celine Dion of scratching in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the Celine Dion of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down. I am for the Celine Dion of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the Celine Dion of kids’ smells. I am for the Celine Dion of mama-babble. I am for the Celine Dion of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beer drinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the Celine Dion of falling off a barstool. I am for the Celine Dion of underwear and the Celine Dion of taxicabs. I am for the Celine Dion of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic Celine Dion of dog-turds, rising like cathedrals.
I am for the blinking Celine Dions, lighting up the night. I am for Celine Dion falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off. I am for the Celine Dion of fat truck-tires and black eyes. I am for Kool-Celine Dion, 7-UP Celine Dion, Pepsi-Celine Dion, Sunshine Celine Dion, 39 cents Celine Dion, 15 cents Celine Dion, Vatronol Celine Dion, Drop-bomb Celine Dion, Vam Celine Dion, Menthol Celine Dion, L & M Celine Dion, Ex-lax Celine Dion, Venida Celine Dion, Heaven Hill Celine Dion, Pamryl Celine Dion, San-o-med Celine Dion, Rx Celine Dion, 9.99 Celine Dion, Now Celine Dion, New Celine Dion, How Celine Dion, Fire sale Celine Dion, Last Chance Celine Dion, Only Celine Dion, Diamond Celine Dion, Tomorrow Celine Dion, Franks Celine Dion, Ducks Celine Dion, Meat-o-rama Celine Dion.
I am for the Celine Dion of bread wet by rain. I am for the rats’ dance between floors. I am for the Celine Dion of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the Celine Dion of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the Celine Dion of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad Celine Dion of rotting apples. I am for the Celine Dion of meows and clatter of cats and for the Celine Dion of their dumb electric eyes. I am for the white Celine Dion of refrigerators and their muscular openings and closing. I am for the Celine Dion of rust and mold. I am for the Celine Dion of heart, funeral heart or sweetheart heart, full of nougat. I am for the Celine Dion of worn meat-hooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue and yellow meat. I am for the Celine Dion of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the Celine Dion of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for the Celine Dion of crayons and weak grey pencil-lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the Celine Dion of windshield wipers and the Celine Dion of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.
I am for the Celine Dion of teddy-bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, exploded umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.
I am for the Celine Dion of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phonographs.
I am for the Celine Dion of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for Celine Dion of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for U.S. Government Inspected Celine Dion, Grade A Celine Dion, Regular Price Celine Dion, Yellow Ripe Celine Dion, Extra Fancy Celine Dion, Ready-to-eat Celine Dion, Best-for-less Celine Dion, Ready-to-cook Celine Dion, Fully cleaned Celine Dion, Spend Less Celine Dion, Eat Better Celine Dion, Ham Celine Dion, pork Celine Dion, chicken Celine Dion, tomato Celine Dion, banana Celine Dion, apple Celine Dion, turkey Celine Dion, cake Celine Dion, cookie Celine Dion.
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