Bitef

Photo / Foto: Marie Chouinard

QUELQUES MOTS DE LA CHOREGRAPHE Aux débuts de cette création, les danseurs et moi avons d'abord travaillé sur la musique des Variations Goldberg de Jean-Sébastien Bach telles qu'interprétées par Glenn Gould en 1981, ainsi que sur la voix de Gould, sur la rythmique de son débit oral, lors d'une entrevue radio phonique qu'il accordait au sujet de cette interprétation. J'ai procédé avec les danseurs à une sorte de remixage de leurs corps en utilisant divers supports; béquilles, cannes, pointes, harnais, etc. Une barre de ballet s'est vue transformée en portée musicale. J'ai demandé au compositeur Louis Dufort d'utiliser lui aussi un"support", soit l'interprétation de Gould et sa voix, et de me proposer des variations sur les Variations. Ce soir, ce ne sont donc que les Variations Goldberg 5, 6 et 8 qui vous seront offertes dans leur version intégrale. Et voici une transcription des phrases de Glenn Gould que vous entendrez: "I think that the great majority of the music that moves me very deeply is music that I want to hear played or want to play myself as the case may be, in a very ruminative, very delibe-rate tempo," "I would never argue in favor of an inflexible musical policy No, that just destroys any music; but you can take a basic pulse and di-

vide it or multiply it, not necessarily in a scale of 2,4, 8,16, 32, but often with far less obvious divisions I think, and make the result of those divisions or multiplications act as a subsidiary pulse for a particular movement or section of a movement or whatever. And I think this doesn't in any way preclude rubati. If you have an accelerando, for example, you simply use the accelerando as a transition between two aspects of the same basic pulse, you know. So in the case of the Goldberg, there is in fact one pulse which with a few very minor modifications, mostly modifications which I think take their cue, from retards at the end of the preceding variation, something like that, one pulse that runs all the way throughout." "[...] quarter notes in a bar but actually only two beats, two half notes to a bar, yooong til pooong pi, ya pa pam pa pa pam pa pa pam pa pa pam pa pam [...]" " I'm not sure that I can either, actually; it's been a struggle. I've been sitting here squirming in my chair, as you know, wishing I'd never said a word on the subject." "What was complicated was that I wanted to relate it somehow to the fughetta from variation sixteen." "Now that would have resulted in a tempo something like ya pa pa pa pli pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa paa, which sounds okay when you sing it." ( Glenn Gould, 1981) Marie Chouinard