The Cultch Blog

By Jenna Livergant

In a powerful tribute to American icon, Tom Waits, Quebec-based band, L’Orchestre d’Hommes-Orchestres (LODHO) blends musical mayhem with avant-garde theatre, transforming Waits’ colourful repertoire into a must-see musical circus. This frenzied foursome (turned six-pack with the onstage addition of New Cackle Sisters, Gabrielle Bouthiller and Danya Ortmann) has been breaking boundaries – and dazzling audiences – since they teamed up in Quebec City in 2002.

Ten years later and the self-described “multidisciplinary workshop” – comprised of Bruno Bouchard, Jasmin Cloutier, Simon Drouin and Simon Elmaleh – are still surprising themselves and one another as they experiment on stage and off.

Originally, L’Orchestre d’Hommes-Orchestres began as a music ensemble that drew on the group’s individual backgrounds in music and theatre. Although its members also worked in various disciplines, LODHO gradually evolved into an interdisciplinary experimental workshop that prized resourcefulness and intelligence over uniformity and standardization. They adopted a do-it-yourself approach, dabbling in all forms of musical experimentation – regardless of their own expertise or experience.

But, for a group that was willing to try its hand at just about anything, it became necessary to find unconventional solutions. Enter: the figure of the homme-orchestre (“one-man band” or “jack of all trades”), whose fascination with “the truth of the musician struggling with his instrument” has led to the band’s eclectic invention of “music that can be seen”.

Unafraid of risk-taking – in fact, more often fueled by it than not – L’Orchestre d’Hommes-Orchestres combined traditional instruments and unusual or quirky musical objects borrowed from everyday life in an attempt to find new sound textures. Among their collection of nearly 100 100 musical items-cum-instruments used today are: boxing gloves, balloons, tea cups, a saw, a picture frame, pudding, a gas mask, a baby carriage, a golf club, and spaghetti.

Not surprisingly, then, the visual aspect of LODHO’s performance is equally important to their theatrical menagerie. Often the troupe will intentionally provoke acoustic accidents on stage, trade instruments with other band members, or play in front of, or over, one another.

As Danya Ortmann of LODHO once explained, “Not everything is to be heard, sometimes it’s more of a visual thing.” Even favourite items are sometimes discarded after a show because they do not mesh with the intended visual on stage. “We work on the tableau…if the picture doesn’t work, it has to be thrown out”.

This constant reinvention does, however, make for an original performance and experience – one even the band is sharing for the first time with the audience. The consequent “spectacle wildcard”, as band member Bruno Bouchard describes it, not only lends itself well to the group’s creative process – which is “based on the idea of the present moment, on the action” – it also mirrors that of their American muse.

Versatile and undefined, Waits too relied on unconventional instruments to produce his eccentric catalogue. Then again, it is LODHO’s unbridled appreciation for Tom Waits – his music, his showmanship, and of course his trademark growl – that keeps these cabaret-meets-theatrical-circus-performers continually perfecting their musical masterpiece.

L’Orchestre d’Hommes-Orchestres Performs Tom Waits runs March 21-24 with a post-show talkback on March 22nd. Tickets start at $28 and are available online at tickets.thecultch.com, by phone at 604.251.1363 and in person at 1895 Venables Street.

By Roanne Ward

Producing Ignorance, which premieres at The Cultch this week, was and is exciting new creative territory for the much loved Old Trout Puppet Workshop. This brand new puppet documentary explores the evolution of happiness – from the thick-blooded hearts of the ancient caves, to the ethereal heaven of our light-speed future – it’s about where we all went wrong, and how we might find our way once again.

You might be asking why The Old Trouts chose to explore the origins of happiness? Well, it seems they were plagued with a nagging sense of dissatisfaction, and thought you might be too! So, on our common behalf, they’ve gone searching for our lost bliss amongst the ignorant – our prehistoric ancestors, who once howled in gigantic joy, stamping the rock with grubby feet over the steaming remains of an eviscerated mastodon, while we, their clever progeny, make do today with feeble tweets and stuttering skype and hot yoga, all the while stifling the mightier shrieks that surge below.

Stepping away from their usual creative process, The Old Trouts documented and posted their ideas, scripts, pictures, and videos of the show as it progressed, opening it up for criticism and input from the online world. While they were making the finishing touches to their gorgeous puppets downstairs in the Culture Lab, we managed to grab a few minutes with Judd Palmer, the co-founder of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, and asked him about the ‘open-creation’ process. Through this, we discovered more about the blissful world of Ignorance.

RW: What made you decide to create a show this way?

JP: Our creative process is pretty open to begin with. We try to work as a collective, as opposed to a process that focuses more on the virtues of individual expression, like a playwright who never talks to the actors, who in turn never talk back to the director, and so on. We’re more like a bunch of folks gettin’ together to make a show. We’re like that basically because none of us are geniuses, and so if we’re going to get anything half decent onto stage, we’re going to have to work together. We also think that good ideas are actually pretty evident when they show up. Everybody can tell when something’s not working, and when it is, and it really doesn’t matter where the idea came from that solved the problem. Ultimately it’s kind of more fun, and more human, and more meaningful for everybody involved if their opinions and ideas matter to the end product. And so, the open creation idea kind of grew out of our creation philosophy. Who knows where the best idea in the world might come from? And another thing, too: We think the thing that makes puppet theatre kind of beautiful, and different from, say, television, is that the audience is also a kind of active participant in creating the dream. They have to give themselves over to the idea that a block of wood is actually a person with fragile hopes and crushing disappointments. In that sense, we wanted to highlight the fact that we’re all creating together anyway, if you see what I mean.

RW: How has the process been going?

JP: It’s been interesting. We’re learning about how to make it work. As a process, it’s definitely better suited to early-stage speculation about what the show might be like than to the later stage of “here’s-the-actual-nuts-and-bolts” script. At that point, it’s kind of way too much information to wade through. But the earlier phases were marvelous; some really great discussions happened, and some friendships were made, too.

RW: What is the most interesting or surprising thing you’ve discovered along the way?

JP: We’ve often speculated that Paleolithic people must have performed puppet shows, and then, one of our contributors pointed out a prehistoric artifact that was a great mystery to scientists. It looked like a stone mask, but it was too small. Obviously, it’s a puppet. So an enormous anthropological discovery was made through this process. Scientists don’t seem to have taken notice yet, but when they do, the history of art will have to be rewritten.

RW: Would you work in this way again?

JP: I think we’d re-strategize the precise method, but the general idea is still kind of beautiful, we think.

RW: How will audience feedback after the show contribute?

JP: One of the things we really liked about the idea was that audiences could send in feedback in a public forum, to generate discussion after the show. And also that audiences could track the history of the show backwards to gain a deeper picture of why we made the choices that we made and such. Hopefully, for some people, the website will greatly expand on the experience of the show.

Ignorance runs until March 10 with post-show talkbacks on March 3 matinee and 6 & 7 evening. Tickets start at $16 and are available online at tickets.thecultch.com, by phone at 604.251.1363 and in person at 1895 Venables Street.

By Roanne Ward

The Silicone Diaries opens here at The Cultch on February 14th. The diaries themselves, however, began as the content that formed Nina Arsenault’s 36 columns in Toronto-based Fab Magazine. Arsenault began writing for Fab in 2005 after appearing on several reality and talk shows in which the producers would manipulate her image and story. The desire for artistic control spurred the many hilarious, endearing, provocative and witty columns that document Arsenault’s numerous surgical procedures. In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, Arsenault commented: “I wanted to be able to talk about the surgical procedures without shame […] When I got a chance to write for Fab, I finally had control of my image and my voice.” Not only did she get to express herself creatively without censorship, she also shared witty and touching accounts of events in her life that often translate to laugh-out-loud hilarity. Take for instance “The Search for the Real Klingon Man” where Arsenault’s re-telling of her adolescent lust for hyper-masculine Klingon characters and her attempt to seek out the real thing as a transgendered adult:

Excerpt: “In the ’80s, while the other Grade 8 boys were jerking off to sweet Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth album cover or saccharine videos of Tiffany’s mall tour, I was wanking over Worf, Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s animalistic, honour-bound stereotype of masculinity in a spandex uniform. Never a hardcore Trekker, I watched the show because I was hot for Data – an android programmed with sexual capabilities – in my opinion, the most underused crew member.

But mostly I lusted for Klingons, space Neanderthals with antiquated gender politics and forehead bumps, real rough-around-the-edges guys. I nearly drooled when Worf boasted that human females would be too fragile for his lovemaking prowess. When he collided with a woman of his own race, they growled at each other angrily and lustfully. With unstoppable Klingon mojo, Worf seized her, clenching her fists so tightly that her fingernails stabbed into her own flesh. She bled. I watched this otherworldly foreplay with my mom, lying on my stomach to hide my hard-on. […] Eager to find men who might actually share my xenophilic fantasies, I embarked on a Klingon manhunt at Toronto Trek 20, where fans often come dressed as their fave sci-fi characters. Since Trekkers are welcoming of all forms of intelligent life, I was sure I’d meet an otherworldly brute who would accept me as a tranny. But, strutting into the event’s Saturday night party, I saw only nerds doing what resembled a gay Vulcan mating dance, their fingers in the “live long and prosper” pose while they moved to Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Right Round.” […] I wanted to ask a rotund Klingon woman where the males of her species were hiding, but apparently she only spoke her home planet’s tongue. Her vocabulary was limited to things she’d heard on TV and in movies…” Read more>>

Some of Arsenault’s columns and stories became content for The Silicone Diaries but not all of it could fit in to the 1hr 45min performance. Some of those that didn’t make it in involve upsetting and touching tales of her interactions with customs officers.

Excerpt: Detroit, MI – February, 2004 “You mean to tell me you’ve got dicks?!?” Things turned sour for me and my girlfriend, [Candy], at the Detroit/Windsor border. The custom’s agent looked up from Candy’s full sensuous bosom and soft feminine face to her passport. There was a little capital M where he was expecting to find an F. He jumped on his walkie-talkie. ‘You guys gotta see this.’ […] We were told we were a flight risk and hadn’t been able to prove we were returning to Canada, even though we showed them copies of our new leases, proof of employment, a rental vehicle we had to return and only enough panties for two days. It took six security officers to escort two glamour girls back to our car. As we walked, Candy asked me if I had had trouble crossing the border before. “No, girl, my passport says ‘Female’.”
Read more >>

Excerpt: Houston, TX – October, 2001 “I’m a stripper.” I nervously told the customs officer when I saw him eyeing my big hair and heavy eyeliner suspiciously. He checked the details on my passport. Satisfied, he closed it and smiled at me. Whew! It was only weeks after September 11th, and I had set off the metal detectors in Houston’s airport after a trip to Mexico for a boob job and rib removal. The officer roamed over my body looking for weapons, lifted my shirt and found a surgical bra with a metal under wire and packing around my lower ribs. The dressing looked like sticks of dynamite strapped around my mid-section, and he demanded to disassemble it for inspection. (I lied and said I was recovering from liposuction.) With mascara running down my face, I pleaded with him, because the doctor had told me not to remove the surgical garments for two weeks. I heaved my breasts as I spoke. They were new and still swollen to the size of double D’s. He either took pity on me or was very impressed by my surgical results, because he agreed to let me go without checking for explosives. I was shocked. […] Sigh…A potentially explosive female can get helped onto a plane with TNT around her torso, but a bombshell transsexual is denied entry for fear she will terrorize US citizens. This is gender profiling at its worst! Read more>>

Shocking, enlightening, entertaining; Arsenault’s insightful prose provoked and encouraged many arguments for debate, something she hopes The Silicone Diaries will do also.

The Silicone Diaries is running at The Cultch from February 14-25, 2012. Post-show talkbacks: Feb 15, 16, 21, 22. Tickets start at $21 and are available online at tickets.thecultch.com, by phone at 604.251.1363 or in person at 1895 Venables Street.

Read Nina Arsenault’s Fab Magazine final column