Multimedia lecture reflects Montanaro’s approach to dance

irene caselli

Michael Montanaro entertained an audience in the Black Box space in the new EV Building on Jan. 11 with tap dancing, the explanation of complex technological models and videos of circus acrobats.

His presentation, titled “One Step at a Time: From Circuits to Circus,” reflected the eclectic personality of the Contemporary Dance professor, who chose an unconventional way to discuss his past work and future projects.

Montanaro started dancing at the age of three. He screened one of those early performances to launch a multimedia presentation that traced his path as a dancer, composer, musician, actor and choreographer.

His mother had encouraged him to take up dancing when he was young because it was thought for a time that he had epilepsy (he didn’t), and she hoped dancing could get him an easy job. He was glad she did. “When you teach dance, you don’t have a lot of work to do,” he joked.

Montanaro has never lacked projects to work on. Since his 1974 graduation from the Hartford Conservatory, he has performed with ballet groups in the United States and Canada. He choreographed dozens of works for the new dance laboratory Le Groupe de la Place Royale and created a vast repertoire of experimental shows with his own company, Montanaro Dance.

Since 2001, he has worked as a choreographer for the Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai, now on a 12-year world tour. However, his favourite research area is the interaction between performers and technology.

Before he began teaching at Concordia in 1998, he collaborated with multimedia artists at the University of Arizona’s Institute for Studies in the Arts on a work using video sensing technology.

The result, Time in the Eye of the Needle, gives the dancers almost total control of the performance. The sound and light effects are triggered by their movements on stage.

Now on sabbatical, Montanaro is exploring how to redesign performance space. He says the ideal sensing environment should integrate reactions from the audience and be flexible, giving performers more space to improvise.

Although his research projects focus on mixed media, Montanaro is aware of their limits.

“Integrating human beings in a technological environment can be somehow cold,” he said. “One has to bring back humanity.”

As a teacher, he doesn’t push multimedia. “I help students learn how to control the tools they already have, rather than ask them to look outside. Theirs is a journey of self-discovery of their creativity,” he said.

In 2004, he developed a monthly performance of works in progress by Fine Arts students. These cabarets incorporate music, dance, theatre and videos in a black box environment.

The next show will take place on Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. in Room TJ-303, 7315 Terrebonne St., on the Loyola Campus.

Montanaro’s lecture was part of the Defiant Imagination lecture series organized by the Faculty of Fine Arts with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. Please visit http://fofa.concordia.ca/news to view the complete list of events.