HOSPITALITY 5: The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information
2011
Jacob Wren in The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information at La Vitrola in Montreal (2016). Photo: Sergio Conde
Caroline Dubois holding up two records. Photo: Mathieu Chartrand
Claudia Fancello in The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information at a record store as part of the Noorderzon festival in Groningen (2011). Photo: Pierre Borasci
Jacob Wren Photo: David Jacques
Marie Claire Forté at the Bring Your Own Record/Listening Party at the Fierce Festival in Birmingham (2015). Photo: Meg Lavender
Claudia Fancello as the storm mounts during The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information at the Belluard Bollwerk festival in Fribourg (2016). Photo: Margaux Kolly
Scattered records on the floor with a Maraca on top of them. Photo: David Jacques
Caroline Dubois, Jacob Wren, and Claudia Fancello in The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information at La Triennale québécoise-Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2011). Photo: Mathieu Chartrand
Some of the records from The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information at La Vitrola in Montreal (2016). Photo: Sergio Conde
A turntable and a pile of records. For each record we have at least one story at the ready. These stories have come from hearsay, internet research, books, magazines, friends and our personal lives. One after another, we put on the records and tell our stories about them, each story growing out of the last and into the next. The audience can casually have a drink, stay for a while, come and go, exploring the way music – and the stories that surround it – infiltrate our personal and social lives, affecting our ongoing understanding of love, work and how we think society should operate.
It never ceases to amaze us how important and resonant music can be in our lives. Often connected with childhood and adolescence, it is difficult to imagine the modern world without the songs that form its continuous soundtrack. We have almost two hundred records and stories about each one: historical facts about the bands, gossip, anecdotes, things that happened to the artists, their friends, or us. Each time we perform, we find ourselves playing the records in a different order, creating new, on-the-spot connections between the music we love (and even a few songs we hate). For three to thirteen hours, a loose, improvised yet consistently effective journey through art, politics, love and work; all seen through the lens of every kind of music. A place to come together and listen, think about where songs take us and what we take from them.
Presented in parallel to the performance, we invite the public to bring a song of their choice and tell a story about it during Bring your own Record/Listening Party.
Other variations of the project exist, such as a Vinyl Party (FTA, 2012), where PME-ART artists used the show’s record collection to get the crowd dancing.
This project is part of the Hospitality cycle, an extended period of research on the theme of hospitality.
Created and performed by Caroline Dubois, Claudia Fancello, and Jacob Wren, continued and performed by Marie Claire Forté and Adam Kinner. Technical Direction: Mathieu Chartrand. Interns: Mélanie Cadieux and Séléné Caron.
A co-production with Forum Freies Theater (Düsseldorf), in collaboration with Studio 303 (Montréal) and Noorderzon Festival (Groningen). With the support of the Canada Council for the Arts (touring), the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, and the Kunststiftung NRW (Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), as part of Tallinn 2011, European Capital of Culture.
Montréal, Escales improbables/SPARK • Groningen, Noorderzon Festival • Mannheim, Zeitraumexit/Wunder der Prärie Festival • Oslo, Black Box/Ultima Music Festival • Malmö, Inkonst • Ghent, CAMPO • Montréal, Musée d’Art Contemporain/La Triennale québécoise • Tallinn, Nu Performance Festival • Düsseldorf, Forum Freies Theater • Montréal, OFFTA/Phonopolis/Place Émilie-Gamelin • Peterborough, Artspace • Toronto, Mercer Union/FADO • Kingston, Modern Fuel • Montréal, Maison de la culture tour: Borough of St-Léonard, Maison de la culture Villeray-Jarry Park, City of Westmount • Regina, Dunlop Gallery/Curtain Razors • Austin, Fusebox Festival • Marseille, Actoral Festival • Québec City, Mois Multi Festival • Birmingham, Fierce Festival • Manchester, Contact Theatre/The Whitworth • Bordeaux, Festival Novart • Munich, Spielart Festival /Pathos • Cardiff, Experimentica Festival/Chapter Arts Centre • Fribourg, Festival Belluard Bollwerk International • Salzburg, Sommerszene/Szene Salzburg • Helsinki, URB Festival • Vancouver, PuSh Festival/Western Front Society
The three artists from Canada put on an engaging performance created around music, album-cover art, and storytelling, all delivered with charm, enthusiasm, and humor. [...] PME-ART gives us a deeply human celebration of Pop-art, of the ways that music can accompany our lives.
– Thomas Hag, NRZ, Düsseldorf
The Montréal collective gives… a surprising, joyful and refreshing performance [...] The protagonists analyze with humour, inventiveness, finesse and sensitivity the particular relationship that each of us has with music, by sharing their story with each of the groups they make us listen to. In French and English, they welcome us with great hospitality in their personal record collection, which traces the common thread of their journeys and lives. And we really enjoy it.
– Nayla Naoufal, dancefromthemat.com, Montréal
PME-ART [appeared at] a vintage clothing shop on a Saturday afternoon for Bring your own record/Listening Party, the festival crowd mingling with shoppers [...] A few brave people begin to take the stage alongside Jacob, Marie and Caroline of PME-ART. We hear of family get-togethers, spontaneous sing-alongs and bittersweet loss. This public sharing is instantly arresting, the music that fills the shop becoming increasingly sharper and more compelling. [...] The liveness of the performance offers an alternative mode of being together, a difference pace for our communal rhythm.
– Phoebe Patey-Ferguson, This is Tomorrow, Birmingham (UK)
The vinyl discs, the performers, and the audience are physical bodies. They are sculpture. They are subject. They are the architecture of the room. They are objects that change meaning as they move in relation to each other.
– Laura Nanni, DAG Volumes: NO 2, Regina