Beautiful Feet

Photo credit: Julien Lambert CanStage's presentation of  Cold Blood was the much-anticipated follow-up (but not prequel or epilogue, they point out) to last year's Kiss and Cry , created by  Michele Anne De Mey, Jaco Van Dormael and the Collectif Kiss & Cry, with text by Thomas Gunzig. While some reviews found it not as satisfying as the fi rst, I disagree, with one exception. Cold Blood is  very different than the other, and that is a good thing. While I loved last year's, this one was more disparate because its text was on a theme, whereas last year's was a theme along a narrative, and more linear. This week covered the topic of death but with humour, and there was more variation in the scenes: contrary to promotional material, there are more than just fingers and miniatures, including some surprises. Add music ranging from Bowie to Arvo Part and clever filming ideas, and you have a very satisfying show--and it's perfect for those with timely short at...

The only connection I could make between the two works I’d like to recommend this week is that both have blue covers... Photo In the better-late-than-never category, I found a CD called Trinity Requiem with music composed by Robert Moran. It was commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and features a youth choir from, poignantly, Trinity Wall Street Church, and the recording includes, serendipitously, a siren left unedited at the beginning of the Offertory. There are three other good pieces on the CD (Seven Sounds Unseen, Notturno in Weiss and Requiem for a Requiem), but the eponymous composition is exactly what this minimalist likes. My only disappointment was that I couldn’t find a photo credit for the cover image, which is Turrell -ish. (Which means utterly beautiful and sublime, all you millennials who’d never heard of him before Drake’s “Hotline Bling.”) My other blue cover is on Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky (Ballantine, 2013). This...