facing this;
being a part of it all;
the body as both a vessel and an artifact;
our wants and losses;
being replaceable;
the beauty of a vase the moment before it hits the floor;
how fragile it all is;
pre-emptive mourning;
the reverence for good things that never came to be;
things that overstay their welcome;
the accumulation of artifacts that make a monument;
being forgotten;
once you are born, you immediately start to die.
“DO NOT MISS THIS PERFORMANCE…It will move you to the core!”
- Peggy Baker
“Slaughterhouse/Requiem” was highly original and impressive, and is one of my highlights of the year in dance... it was “Slaughterhouse/Requiem” that invited us in, with a vivid and creative staging of some of her journey thus far."
- Penelope Ford, The Fjord Review
“There is deep meaning… great courage and melancholy here. Expansive movement, immense sounds and carefully crafted, elaborate scenic design makes the scale seem larger than life. This “bigness” has a layer of complexity.”
- Colleen Snell, The Dance Current
CREDITS
Choreographer: Belinda McGuire
Composers: Arvo Pärt, Michael Gordon and Alfredo de Angelis
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Set Design: Belinda McGuire
Lighting Design: Solomon Weisbard
Projection Design: Michael F. Bergmann
Premiere: Toronto, September 22, 2017 - “Belinda McGuire: Waltz Slaughterhouse Requiem”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Length: 34 minutes
About the Work: Slaughterhouse/Requiem explores the thrilling and frightening, reassuring and intimidating, grounding and unsettling proposal that “every day is a gift”.
This 34-minute solo dance work unfolds in three chapters, each shorter and more distilled than the last, the same story through a starkly alternative lens. Chapter I features music from Arvo Pärt’s Berlin Mass, Chapter II an orchestra of air raid sirens composed by Michael Gordon and Chapter III a melancholic and sweet tango waltz by Alfredo de Angelis.
Through the live dancer (and the myriad vestiges, reflections and impressions of herself which exist within and pass through the work) wrangle with connections between pre-emptive mourning, nostalgia, and the fleeting awareness that life is happening now.
