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battery opera was founded in 1995 by Lee Su-Feh and David McIntosh based on their belief that the most exciting art is found in the intersections of form and tradition. battery opera believes that great performance is an experience that transcends traditional limits of dance, theatre or performance art; one that addresses the transformation of space, body, time and ultimately the transformation of spirit. The co-creators are, in their lives and in their work, a meeting point of intersecting and displaced cultures, histories and nationalities. Together they create work that is complex in ideas and imagery, firmly rooted in contemporary expression while drawing upon influences and sources that reach back in history as well as from across cultures. Works created by battery opera include Reptile-Diva (2000), which has been shown across Canada, Spektator (2001), which was performed at 20th Dance Week Festival in Zagreb, Croatia and most recently, Cyclops (2003), which was the winner of the Alcan Award for the Performing Arts in Dance. |
Photo CreditsDavid McIntosh & Jennifer Murray, Spektator, battery opera; photo: jamie griffiths Billy Marchenski & Ron Stewart in Cyclops, battery opera; photo: jamie griffiths Billy Marchenski & Susan Elliott, Spektator, battery opera; photo: jamie griffiths Photo of Lee Su-Feh & David McIntosh, Reptile-Diva, battery opera; photo: jamie griffiths |
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Photo of Lee Su-Feh & David McIntosh, Reptile-Diva, battery opera; photo: jamie griffiths |
Artistic Directors
Lee Su-Feh was born in Malaysia and trained in martial arts, theatre and dance, studying traditional Malay, Javanese and Balinese dance, contemporary dance and ballet, before emigrating to Canada in 1988. In 1998 she won the Prix de Jeune Auteur at the festival Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine Saint-Denis, in France, for her work Gecko Eats Fly. David McIntosh studied at Vancouver’s Emily Carr College of Art and Design, while performing in punk art bands and creating art videos. Since 1993, he has generated theatrical pieces that emphasize multi-layered use of text that are often laced with dark humour.
On Tour
SPEKTATOR
October/2001/Vancouver/Canada
90 minutes
8 performers
Lee Su-Feh & David McIntosh, Choreography
Spektator (2001) – This complex, strangely hilarious work combines choreography derived from pugilism and the movement of birds with text drawn from 18th-century sports writing. Performed in the round, Spektator virtually drags the audience into a loud and bloodcurdling world that is at once shamanistic, archaic and post-modern. The music is inspired both by the formal elegance of Purcell and the raucous bagpipes of the Basque country. In music,
movement and sound, Spektator creates a wild
juxtaposition of high- and low-brow, court and folk,
palace and barnyard. Eight performers explore
issues of power and ritual, relationships of human
beings with one other, and with animals.
REPTILE-DIVA
March/2001/Lethbridge/Canada
70 minutes
2 performers
Su-Feh Lee & David McIntosh, Choreography
Reptile-Diva (2000)– This work is a two-part amalgam of three earlier works. In the first, two solos – from A Character of Dubious Morality (1992) and Brick (1997) – are performed in simultaneous counterpoint. One element features a woman who moves toward, into and beyond a brilliant redbeaded dress; the other presents a man raging
against architects while telling the story of how he
ate a beloved pig. The third part of the work features
a duet between a broom-wielding woman and a man
with punching bag. With music provided only by the
rhythmic beating of the broom and punching bag,
the two characters weave ritual, martial arts and
housecleaning into a surprisingly sensual whole.
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