Choreographed chaos

LAUREN KRAMER

Vancouverites will be in for a treat around Valentine's Day this year, when the musical ensemble Turning Point presents Erik Satie's Relache.

"This is the last piece Satie wrote before he died," said Jeremy Berkman, the ensemble's co-founder and trombonist. "As a composer, he created reflections in his work of what was going on in society at the time and Relache, which roughly translates to performance cancelled in French, is an anti-concert, a play on the traditional role of a concert's performers and audience."

Berkman, 45, moved to Vancouver 20 years ago from Massachusetts, enticed by his future wife. Today, in addition to his work with Turning Point, he is principal trombonist for the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, a seasonal instructor at the University of British Columbia, a member of the quintet A Touch of Brass and a stage manager with the Vancouver Academy of Music's Music in the Morning series.

"My favorite genre is always the one I'm playing in at any given time," he laughed. "I'm very fortunate, because Vancouver has a lot of wonderful, creative people from all different genres, and I get to work with many different people who are all inspiring."

Berkman and his team of 22 musicians started working on Relache a couple of years ago and received support from the city of Vancouver, which has included Relache in the 2009 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. There will be three performances of Relache at the Playhouse Theatre on Feb. 13 and 14. The venue was chosen because it's large enough to accommodate the dancing, but small enough for the audience to feel intimate with the production.

If you're wondering what, precisely, Relache is, you're not alone. The performance is a mixture of dance, acting and music in two segments, interrupted by a movie called Entr'acte by Rene Clair. Acting is by Patti Allan, while the dance performance is by one of the city's newest dance companies, Move.

"The original production in the 1920s was meant to confuse the audience and ask them basic questions about their assumptions," explained Berkman. "We're inspired by that production, but we're not repeating it."

Instead, Relache will feature the choreography of Simone Orlando in what Berkman calls an "instantaneous ballet and an interdisciplinary, stunning event that celebrates artistic creativity at the beginning of the 20th century."

The performance will be fascinating, but also fun, he said. "One of the questions Satie asks in his music is: where does art fit in our lives?

Lauren Kramer is a Vancouver freelance writer.

^TOP