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The dark side of Cohen
By James Reaney London Free Press
The night time is the right time to be with the Leonard Cohen songs you love.
Thanks to the debut of Nuit Blanche London, that love and a whole delirious range of artistic affection is alive downtown this weekend. It’s free from Saturday at 10 p.m. to Sunday at 3 a.m.
The Cohen songs arrive from the Buckskin Metallic Arts Collective, a multi-voice London venture mixing choral and spoken-word tributes to the iconic Canadian singer-songwriter and poet titled The Tower of Song.
“Leonard Cohen and his words seem to suit the darkness of this witching-hour start time of ours,” says one of the Tower performers, Janice Johnston. The collective’s Cohen tribute hits the stage Saturday at midnight for the first of three performances.
“Who can bring magic to the night better than Leonard Cohen?,” asks and answers another performer, Patsy Morgan. “His sensual, baritone voice. His delicious, ominous words. Who better to help us illuminate the downtown of London on the occasion of our first Nuit Blanche?”
Who indeed? But there’s more — Cohen’s songs will have plenty of midnight-magic help from scores of artists from many genres. There will be a dozen sites and art here, there and almost everywhere in the night.
In alleys, on the streets and in venues ranging from the LPL’s Wolf Performance Hall to the Elite Lounge, magicians, jazz players, actors, comics, photographers and others artists with nocturnal adventure in their souls brighten the neon gloom.
“These artists approached us in most instances,” says London Fringe executive producer Kathy Navackas. “We’re calling it the ‘little’ (or ‘petit’ Nuit Blanche) because we don’t go until sunrise.”
That’s the only ‘petit’ thing about the London version of the all-night fests that have flourished in Toronto and St. Petersburg, Russia. Give London a few more nights and we’ll be rocking after sunrise.
Here’s one under-the-radar offering from Nuit Blanche 2010 that fascinates me. This big nuit for art is one time it pays to check out poster-appropriate poles in the wee hours on a Sunday morning. London artist Charles Vincent is placing the quotations from his meditative, witty Never — Attributions to a Strange Cast on those round objects for his Nuit contribution.
The wise words about “forever” and its meaning are borrowed from celebs ranging from Bobby Hull to
“My advice to anyone coming down for it is to see as many of them as you can, by anyone,” says Cohen male voice Richard Gilmore. “Even if you only see one, please come out. Community support for all these projects is vital. Without the people, without you, we are nothing.”
I would say, it’s already a magical nuit something wonderful. All these new endeavours and some noctural art action veterans are ready to set the nuit ablaze and brighten souls.
Unlikely night teams will take over.
The Buckskin brand mixes a photographer and Arts Project staffer (Gilmore), an LPL staffer (Morgan), a spa owner (Johnston) and an OCAD grad and UWO PhD student in health and rehabilitation sciences (Margot Stothers). Gilmore and Johnston are the Buckskin veterans at other events, including a Toronto Nuit Blanche. Morgan and Stothers have joined and there is a small choir brought to the Cohen game by London arts activist, singer, actor and entrepreneur Louise Fagan.
Fagan sings and is choral director.
Hallelujah.
“I thought if handed out the lyrics that I printed off of the Internet and we listened to the songs a few times, they could just, you know, sing them,” Stothers admits to the collective’s early plans for its turn in the Nuit spotlight. “It wasn’t until someone asked me what key one of the songs started in that the gig was up so to speak. Louise just makes it happen. She has delegated parts to people and can instantly pinpoint their singing strengths and weaves them all together. I would have to say I think she saved our musical (non-musically trained) asses. The whole choir is brilliant.”
Seems appropriate. Cohen has a pretty good song about a drunken midnight choir, doesn’t he?
Nuit Blanche London is your chance for some midnight and wee hours intoxication through bold and lovely downtown art.
It’s free. Just in case you needed to ask.
James Reaney is a London Free Press arts & entertainment columnist and reporter.
james.reaney@sunmedia.ca
Twitter.com/JamesatLFPress
IF YOU GO
What: Selected guide to Nuit Blanche London, a free contemporary arts event late Saturday and early Sunday in downtown London. Organized by London Fringe. Visit londonfringe.ca or call 519-434-0606 for details
When: Saturday, 10 p.m. to Sunday, 3 a.m.
Where: 12 sites, various downtown London venues.
What to do: Nuit Blanche encourages fans to take in as much as possible. Pick three: Sites of all these hits that intrigue Free Press columnist James Reaney are The Tower of Song’s Leonard Cohen songs (Site 2: The Arts Project Theatre, 203 Dundas St. Saturday, midnight, Sunday, 1 a.m, and 2 a.m.); (Eric Stach’s Free Music Unit (Site 10: LPL’s Wolf Performance Hall, Saturday, 11:30 p.m.; Sunday, 12:30 a.m., Sunday, 1:30 a.m.); and Toronto’s HerciniArts Collective’s blend of acrobatics, dance and aerial display (Site 6: Covent Garden Market square. Saturday, 10 p.m to Sunday, 3 a.m. with 45-minute performances).
LEONARD COHEN AT NIGHT
What: A set list of the first five songs by Cohen to be performed by the Buckskin Metallic Arts Collective in song and spoken word as part of the first Nuit Blanche London.
First We Take Manhattan; I’m Your Man; A Thousand Kisses Deep; Dance Me to the End of Love; Anthem.