{"id":69973,"date":"2020-12-14T19:05:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T00:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=69973"},"modified":"2020-12-29T13:40:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T18:40:05","slug":"scrutiny-against-the-grains-messiah-complex-finds-a-radical-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2020\/12\/14\/scrutiny-against-the-grains-messiah-complex-finds-a-radical-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Against the Grain\u2019s \u2018Messiah\/Complex\u2019 Finds A Radical Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Against
Tenor Spencer Britten performs in Against the Grain’s online production of Handel’s Messiah.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Against the Grain: Messiah\/Complex. Streams online at <\/em>atgtheatre.com<\/em><\/a>. Dec. 13, 2020, through Jan. 7, 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Against the Grain Theatre\u2019s Messiah\/Complex<\/em> unveiled its live stream vision of a Canada present and future last night, but through the challenging lens of a resonant work well-rooted in the past.<\/p>\n

AtG\u2019s sprawling vision of a Canada rooted in values of equality and diversity pivoted on select readings of Handel\u2019s texts and music selected from arias and choruses extracted from of the most well-known works in the repertoire, and were well-read into by co-directors Joel Ivany, artistic director of Against the Grain Theatre, and Reneltta Arluk, Banff Centre director of Indigenous arts.\u00a0 If the social media response seemed indicative of anything, the adaptation captivated its very curious audience.<\/p>\n

The acknowledgement at the outset that erasures of language and culture were to be deplored as atrocities by all, including those involved in the AtG creative team and artistic collective, set the mood in the title credits.\u00a0 What followed often was breathtaking cinematography filmed from locations across the country by sixteen film and production crews, edited with conspicuous mastery by Stephen Bell and sound design from Doug Doctor, with a crisply resonant albeit reduced Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Debus.\u00a0 But most notable of all was that each setting seemed offset by equally impactful visual and textual ironies impossible to ignore with their synchronous visual presentations.<\/p>\n

While it was eminently pleasing to hear several well-known arias in Handel\u2019s famed English oratorio rendered in a multitude of languages ranging from Dene to Arabic, each individual performance came with a subtle twist in self-deprecating commentary on what the texts would have meant to the colonizers who came to this country long ago, and the performers\u2019 responses to those texts today as they have come down to us in their often-unchallenged socio-political meanings.\u00a0 The results were often surprising, especially responses from Indigenous performers who come from multiple cultures much older and well established in their own profound spirituality than those represented in the texts they were singing.<\/p>\n

\"Elliot
Elliot Madore: Messiah\/Complex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In our Canadian socio-political landscape, it has often been expressed in a wide variety of official reports through electronic media, and even personally to me, that many in the Indigenous communities continue to voice frustration and defiance in the face of continued erasure and that they \u201care way past sorry\u201d on these issues.\u00a0 While this is not the view of everyone in the Indigenous communities, it still must be said that paltry attempts at staged apologies from the arts communities, however sincere in intent, are often rightly derided or criticized by many Indigenous artists and writers, even if at some point, grudgingly conceded for their efforts.<\/p>\n

It was clear that there was to be no bleated, empty apology on offer here \u2014 the issues we face certainly require one \u2014 rather the point here was that the creative team put together a true grasp of the intertextual complexity Messiah<\/em> presents as evinced by its many and diverse participants.\u00a0 Furthermore, the adapted oratorio also presents a model to expand beyond its small number of reworked arias and choruses, showing that it could serve as a self-reflection of wrongs committed, a condemnation of past attitudes, a genuine healing spirit of reconciliation with a sincere joy in the communal vision of the land and cultures we share together.<\/p>\n

In short, AtG\u2019s brilliant Messiah\/Complex<\/em> offers a way forward in our conflicted land.<\/p>\n

\"Looee
Looee Arreak: Messiah\/Complex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the end of the livestream, I thought I had viewed a Canada at last which could make me proud, one which seemed to erase borders, defy political conventions of the past and present, and ultimately allowed me to see my country as I had hoped I could begin to one day, as a land populated not by artificial divisions on a map, but one massive territory blurred into mutual co-operation by all its peoples, quilted into an unterritorialized diversity.\u00a0 But such idealism can only come at the cost of doing the hard work of willing to rethink what we think is \u201cnormal\u201d within the political sphere before attempting to reshape it to a future goal that can potentially transcend the colonial Messiah complexes which were superimposed on a reluctant land.\u00a0 This seemed to be the quiet, but sure goal of the AtG creative team.<\/p>\n

The opening recitative \u201cComfort Ye\u201d with luminous tenor Spencer Britten (British Columbia) was a telling case in point.\u00a0 The closest element to moving toward a collective re-thinking about our relationships with each other comes early in the line \u201cthat her iniquity is pardoned.\u201d\u00a0 Even though the whole Messiah\/Complex<\/em> project was going to raise many of the uncomfortable feelings we have on all sides of the colonial issue, there was going to be at least an atmosphere of forgiveness behind all of it in this production, so that as a nation we could consider how best to move forward.\u00a0 These were some of the most constructive seconds I have experienced in any art form on this topic and led Britten to sing a robust and joyful \u201cEv\u2019ry valley shall be exalted\u201d as an affirmation of individual identity.<\/p>\n

And there were so many similar highlights, often in sublime snapshot with stellar videography.\u00a0 Diyet\u2019s eloquent reworking of \u201cOh thou that tellest,\u201d now adapted as \u201cChe Yan Na\u0144 K\u00e4y\u201d in Southern Tutchone, shot against an endless backdrop of majestic Kluane\u2019s stunning mountainscapes, was as natural and beautiful a fit to the melody, even including the added notes to get the text to adapt to some of the extended phrasing, and I enjoyed it very much.\u00a0 It was the appropriate anthem to the Creator, and a worthy transladaptation of the sentiments \u201cget thee up into the high mountain\u201d found in the original aria for low alto.\u00a0 Diyet was wonderful: her focused timbre, a love for sweetness of tone and the most genuine personality one could imagine for any kind of spontaneous performance event. Her voice flowed from her like she was born to share it.\u00a0 Diyet\u2019s voice healed, the first of many I heard during Sunday\u2019s livestream to do so with calming eloquence.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam
Miriam Khalil: Messiah\/Complex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I couldn\u2019t get enough of Andrea Lett\u2019s fluvial talent in \u201cRejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion\u201d with tone out front in the A section and then dipping into a dark reservoir of richest resonant depth in the B section (\u201che is the righteous savior\u201d). \u00a0But it gets deeply disturbing at the words \u201che shall speak peace unto the heathen\u201d with Lett\u2019s glance casting aside at the awkwardness of the text.\u00a0 I wondered how this would be filmed, and perhaps the best way was to have her sing it directly to the camera.\u00a0 It was chillingly effective.<\/p>\n

Numerous highlights included Rihab Chaieb\u2019s moving paean decrying intolerance in \u201cElle fut mepris\u00e9e\u201d (\u201cHe was despised and rejected\u201d), Looee Arreak\u2019s devotional hymn over a mystical Arctic landscape in the Inuktitut translation of \u201cHe shall feed his flock\u201d, Catherine Daniel\u2019s defiantly powerful aria in Toronto\u2019s Graffiti alley \u201cWhy do the nations so furiously rage\u201d and finally an ironic twist on \u201cBut who may abide\u201d set against the Sherwood Park Refinery, brought to glowing light and tone in front of a raging fire in a remarkable performance by Jonathon Adams. The line \u201cfor he is like a refiner\u2019s fire\u201d took on a new and immolating, if not consumptive meaning \u2014 a direct warning regarding the destructive nature of our functional duality as stewards of the land and as consumers of its resources.<\/p>\n

None was more devastating than Miriam Khalil\u2019s plangent version of the oratorio\u2019s final aria, \u201cIf God be for us who can be against us,\u201d here stripped of its triumphalism, much like the St. Raphael\u2019s Catholic Church Ruins where she sang it in a glowing Arabic, prefigured with a traditional chant.\u00a0 It was a pungent warning of how the passage of time eventually lays waste to the sentimentalities of faith when such feelings are allowed to proceed unguarded and ungrounded in peaceable respect for others.\u00a0 Khalil\u2019s performance was visually and musically stunning.<\/p>\n

But, it was perhaps the translation into Dene of \u201cI know that my Redeemer liveth\u201d, sung to beautiful effect by Leela Gilday (Yellowknife) which most sublime, set amid a peaceful snowy backdrop with images of a billy pot on an open fire and a stove melting snow for drinking water. Her anthem to the Divine, with its promise of living with her Creator after passing out of this life was stirring and encompassing.\u00a0 It was one of the loveliest moments in the entire performance. Gilday grasped both the essence of the text and the most important goal of Messiah\/Complex<\/em> \u2014 to make an offering of a much-needed community healing project on a national scale.<\/p>\n

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Against the Grain\u2019s reimagining of Handel’s classic offers a way forward in our conflicted land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":69974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33451,43,52],"tags":[186,5166,38771],"yst_prominent_words":[38761,38763,38758,21869,38760,10976,10546,22659,38764,18802,6615,38765,7451,8214,38769,38768,38767,12957,37415,38759],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/Messiah_Complex-Against-the-grain-theatre.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-icB","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69973"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70057,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69973\/revisions\/70057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69973"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=69973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}