Ossip
OSSIP began as a dance performance developed during a residency at Overtigo, Montreal and presented at Tangente-Danse, Montreal with two performers, five altered chairs and a non-musical soundscape. OSSIP is a 'translation' of a single poem by Russian poet Ossip Mandelstam into words, movement and objects. The stage is occupied by several unusual or altered chairs. One with an extra back, others linked into pairs. We hear fragments of Mandelstam’s poem in russian, english and french. Performers move from one chair to another. The chairs are put through a series of manipulations. Finally the stage in still, leaving the voice and the chairs. The two performers move into a distorted social dance, as the poem becomes whole for our ears. The focus of “Ossip” is shared equally between the chairs on stage, the dancers, and the amplified words, each alternately building a sense of a whole, in its articulation of a voice who speaks and a listener who is both audience and intimate.
You and I will sit for a while in the kitchen,
the good smell of kerosene,
sharp knife, big round loaf
Pump up the stove all the way.
And have some string handy
for the basket, before daylight,
to take to the station,
where no one can come after us.
(Ossip Mandelstam - 1931)