Do You Know? .....Lucy Rupert


Well, I'm the one who compiled all these EUNOIA interviews, and it is my blog, so it seems weird to introduce myself....But in case you don't know me, I'm a freelance dancer and theatre performer and for ten years I've been the artistic director/founder of Blue Ceiling dance. I've worked with a number of amazing choreographers and companies over almost 20 years of performing (eek!!) including Anandam Dance, Sashar Zarif, William Yong, Puppetmongers Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille/Allison Cummings, and have spent about a dozen years working with Theatre Rusticle. This is my first time working with Denise Fujiwara's company, although she was an outside eye on two small projects of mine before EUNOIA started.

For what it's worth, here are my answers to the questions I posed to everyone else!

What were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process?
I love poetry. At about 9 I decided that I was a weird kid and I should write poetry. i wrote in all small case letters for many years because of my affection for e.e. cummings.  EUNOIA the poem was new to me and my first reaction to reading it was "I need to read more poetry again."

In regards to the dance project, at first I was just overwhelmed by working with Denise, trying to understand her process, the quickness and incisiveness of her mind and then trying to 'get it right' for her. It was intimidating to work with all these astounding artists whom I knew a little, but had never worked with before. It took a while for me to shake off these pressures....so I guess I didn't realize what a crazy beast the piece was going to be until I was in very deep.


What is the greatest challenge of your role in the project?
That is tough to say. It is the first time I've been in a work that is simultaneously so physical and so textual without a character or a notion of character or narrative. Many creatures emerge, but there is not necessarily a way or a need to find an inner logic threading them all together. It is challenging, but ultimately very freeing. I think it has been a real exercise in 'hold on tightly, let go lightly'.


Do you have a favourite poem from Eunoia? 
There is one that we don't reference in the dance which I think starts "Crowds of Ostrogoths who howl for blood..." I rather like that one. It gets pretty gory and ghostly.  Right now my favourite that is included in the dance is from Chapter O '...bloodloss...troop doctors....blood donors'. It might be the references to Kosovo and pogroms that get me. We don't hear the words to this one on stage, but the transformation that is happening in terms of bodies, light, projection, sound is incredibly moving.


What has been your relationship or experience with words-and-dance in the past?
I've done a lot of speaking on stage in the last decade. Mostly with Theatre Rusticle where I've been able to explore the words of Trudeau, Rimbaud, Congreve, Strindberg, Woolf, Shakespeare, narrative accounts of the sinking of the Titanic, even some song lyrics from the Violent Femmes. William Yong had me sing in Mandarin in his work for me, Jenn Goodwin had me tell the story of breaking my arm while dancing.

It is odd to me that I have wound up speaking on stage so much, since my impulse to dance came from feeling misunderstood and unable to communicate with my peers during some tumultuous (some might say disastrous) teenage years. I have always felt my body was transparent to others, that the truth was obvious even when my words tanked.


How do you think the 4 year process of Eunoia will inform or influence your own work in the future?
I have been fortunate to be immersed in the ideas, fierceness, quickmindedness and experience of a big team of collaborators -- the design team, the dancers (including our irreplaceable understudy Lacey), the choreographer, the artistic support surrounding this massive project. I have learned a lot !! The sustained training in butoh has made gradual, almost imperceptible changes in me. I am making more subtle and more outrageous choices in all my work.

After several years of working on solos, I think EUNOIA's most lasting influence is the desire to be part of ensemble dances, to learn and absorb and share with others in this way again and again. It might go back to those lonely formative years, but it is thrilling to be on stage with others and know we are all part of the same world.

EUNOIA opens tonight
Wednesday March 19 8pm
Enwave Theatre
tickets:
http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/worldstage/eunoia/



photo of Lucy Rupert by R. Kelly Clipperton courtesy of Theatre Rusticle


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

experimenting, sifting through memory and bravely: Allison Cummings at Summerworks 2016

Image
Allison Cummings' work album  -- a collaboration with actor and sound designer Lyon Smith -- is a compare and contrast visit through the memories of Allison's and Lyon's lives. Just writing those words creates a vibrating potency. An album contains captured moments of life, often visual and visceral triggers, for something bigger than the paper or the 0s and 1s that make them up. There's a trend in the dance contributions of the Summerworks festival this year, undoubtedly shaped by curator Jenn Goodwin, of simple, strong ideas guiding creations. They lead to deeper things, by way of the body not a philosophical, conceptual or technical approach. Below is a short interview with Allison Cummings, a wry, passionate, uncompromising woman who surprises with each performance work she makes. Her show opens THIS AFTERNOON at 2pm. Go see it and be moved. photo of Allison Cummings by Jan Blythe LR: OK, so the obvious but important question is what triggered the creati
Read more

John Brumell: the light and the space to figure things out

Image
This is the first thing I see when I reach the Cell Biology Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children. After fumbling my way through security and fobs and confusing elevators, I meet the director of the lab in this beautiful lounge. This is actually what we spend the first 15 minutes talking about: the architecture, the way this vista and lounge area connects three floors of research in a communal space of air and light. Dr. John Brumell speaks about watching the Nobel awards, FIFA World Cup and the action of city in this space. How all of this space and light induces collaboration, new ideas, and quick problem solving. Dr. Brumell is Co-director at the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Centre at the Hospital for Sick Children, Head and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute for Cell Biology, a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and the Pitblado Chair in Cell Biology at the Hospital for Sick Children He is also the father of one of my
Read more
Image
MY BATTERY IS PURE LOVE part one by Lucy Rupert for D and P, always. for Badie, David, Edan, Esperanza, Josh, Jovia, June, Patrice, and Yuki, with whom I shared time and space at the Ucross Artist Residency program in April 2023. And for Tawni, who understood the song. ** I fly through utter blackness. On one of those small planes that seats 50 people, the depth of the blackness is vivid. I am passing through a portal. Who knows what is on the other side? Well, most of the other people on the plane know. This is their daily commute. But for me it is flying into a myth. ** I am nervous. I am running. I am obsolete. I am stumbling. I am a calculator. I am a bird watcher. I am perpetual motion. I am an elevated heart rate. I am scared that I am not enough. I am full of love. ** I am sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for Tawni, the Ucross Artists’ Residency  Manager. I am allowing the almost nothing that is happening to be profoundly something. I eat scrambled eggs, toast, and coff
Read more