September 25, 2006 Source: :
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/060925-2579.asp Nuit Blanche brings together
students, staff and
faculty Contemporary arts
celebration slated for Sept. 30
Sep 25/06
by Michah Rynor (about) (email) The city-wide Scotiabank Nuit Blanche event, running September 30 from 7:01
p.m. to sunrise, is turning out to be yet another example of how members of
the university community so often come together in positive – and unexpected
– ways. The "all night contemporary art thing" – as Nuit Blanche administrators
refer to it – will see staff, students and faculty not only consuming this
massive cultural pudding, they’ll be right in the creative kitchen so to
speak, cooking up works of art with a U of T flavour. Louise Liliefeldt, an instructor in the Department of Fine Art, sees this
night as a way of educating both the U of T community and visitors to the
plight of the world’s poor. Presenting a conceptual, 12-hour performance piece on King’s College Circle
along with fine art student Nahed Mansour and fine art alumna Carali McCall,
she will illustrate the physical and mental processes of the disenfranchised
at work. Using buckets, water, dried beans and corn, soil, chains and whips,
the three will appear to be working in a desolate environment trying to
survive. "You’ll see us sweating and reacting to the elements as our bodies deal with
both stamina and endurance issues over a long period of time," Liliefeldt
said. "We’ll use a lot of repetitive actions and when one of us can’t
physically or mentally continue, that person will stop and be motionless
until she has the energy to continue." Trevor Jablonowski, a fourth year University College drama program student,
will also be challenging himself physically that evening as he performs,
with other students under the direction of Professor Pia Kleber, scenes from
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth in the downtown garden of the
Italian Consulate. "We’ll be competing with traffic, streetcars and crowds in an urban downtown
environment," Jablonowski said of this "contemporary assault on the senses"
with the actors in modern dress performing fight scenes with non-traditional
weapons. "It’s Filipino-style combat in Macbeth while the enemies in Romeo and Juliet
square off using Kill Bill-style samurai swords." The two-hour show is repeated during the night along with a film version of
Samuel Beckett’s play Not I which students produced last year. "I think Nuit Blanche is fantastic," he added. "I’m an optimist and I really
believe Toronto is undergoing a cultural renaissance right now. This idea
that students and others can just go out in the evening and suck up some
local colour from whatever ethnic group and background without feeling
hesitant is quite remarkable." Andrei Tanasescu, a third-year cinema studies student at Innis College and
curator of the Hart House film club, has put together sixteen contemporary
film shorts produced by club members, including his own 3-minute
Destination: Off-Balance, which shows the progress of a truck struggling up
a hill. "It’s going to be amazing," he added. "Not too many people walk around the
city at night so Nuit Blanche will allow us to explore the St. George campus
and Toronto in a very surreal fashion." Sonnet L’Abbé, a news services officer for the university’s Department of
Strategic Communications and a poetry instructor for the School of
Continuing Studies, is currently working on a creation for the Pitch Black
segment (poetry recitations in a dark lecture hall) of the school’s
festivities. "Art is about questioning our ideas, our values and our knowledge of
ourselves," said L’Abbé, whose new collection, Killarnoe, is forthcoming.
"And U of T is a great work environment for an artist because everyone here,
from social scientists to engineers to ethicists to educators, are all
participating in that constant questioning." Visit www.arts.utoronto.ca/nuitblanche.htm to find a complete listing of the
Nuit Blanche events at U of T.
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