Flux

Premiere: 1994
Choreography: Bill James
Music: Robert W. Stevenson
Set Design: Mary Lou Lobsinger
Lighting Design: David Morrison

Performers:
Michele Bastien, Wilson Blakely, Mark Johnson and Yvonne Ng

About

In this work the properties of water and it's association to movement, sound and design are used as a metaphor for the hidden geographical aspects of water, such as caverns, underground rivers and marshes. Properties such as reflection, illusion, transparency, displacement and equilibrium; physical states such as ice, steam and liquid; actions such as swimming, drowning, ebbing, floating, dripping, spilling, dreaming, washing and poetic inferences, especially the sensual and evocative qualities are the generative devices for the work.

The collaborators, architect Mary Lou Lobsinger, composer Robert W. Stevenson and myself worked through two stages of development--in 1992 at Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa and in 1993 in an empty factory space on a pier in Toronto harbour. The complete production was presented in Toronto in 1994 in a former munitions factory also in the waterfront area.

The choreography uses the body in fluid motion and is built upon characters derived from an invented mythology; an underwater sea-godess, a half-human, amphibious being, and a Narcissus-like character on the surface of the water. The breaking of ice, floating, dreams, storms and both the beautiful and the terrifying, fearful aspects of water inspire the movement. The five dancers occupy the floor, walls, ceiling and the shadows of the space to suggest floating, as well as utilizing and interupting the architectural installation.

The literal use of water, a large pool, is the central element in the space. The presence of it reflects the surroundings as it is slowly filled with water, bucket by bucket, throughout the course of the performance by a solitary figure, a mythological water-bearer. The pool is balanced in the space by a metallic silver platform and by three 5-foot high ice blocks. A prelude to the work occurs in a separate space contained by polyethylene walls that "rain" into galvanized buckets.

The music by Robert W. Stevenson for clarinets and percussion is played live in various locations and amplified, sampled and played back through the space. The sound design by Randall Fox explores the way that sound interacts within the physical space and with instruments interplaying with water and ice sounds made by the dancers. For example, a sound first heard unamplified, later in time reappears, amplified, in another part of the space. This adds varying layers of depth to the sound during the performance.

David Morrison is the lighting designer, using lights outdoors projected through the windows, lighting the installation and the performance areas. Costume Designer Tony Sistakis used rubber, latex, lace and leather, with industrial zippers and snaps, to build the costumes. In 1994, Film Director Nick De Pencier directed a 30-minute film version of "Flux" that was shot within the installation and on location in Georgian Bay. "Flux" premiered at The Moving Pictures Festival in Toronto in October, 1996 and was also shown at the IMZ Dance Screen in Lyon, France.

In "Flux" the aim has been to create a non-verbal poetry that affects the viewer/listener on a subconscious level, challenges their perceptions of time and space and allows the audience freedom to move within the performance space. For an hour, the audience is encouraged, in effect, to be part of a single picture of ritualized experience.

Quotes

" From eerily quiet beginning to splash-o-rama finale, none of them has a boring moment in the hour-long show." Eye Weekly

" Wherever audience members go, they are implicated in the current of Bill James' new work.... ...an intensely physical work...." Globe and Mail

" Toronto's peripatetic maestro of site-specific dance..." - The Toronto Star

" ...follies and vistas hidden in an industrial forest glade." - The Globe and Mail