Oil eponymous George Catlin (1796-1872), Smithsonian, Washington. Berdashe, remember that word that all indigenous peoples of the three Americas (Indians, Metis, Inuit) are now back to the agenda, and not without having rejuvenated the best manner . It was invented by the French to designate these particular beings who identified with the gender opposite to their biological sex, which took their clothes and living according to their social codes. Among the three indigenous Americas (Indians, Metis and Inuit), it should rather speak of creatures with two minds (2 spirited people). And there were not only men, since this phenomenon of civilization was also reflected in women, but in smaller proportion.
Today indiscriminately come under the category of berdache and two-spirited people, transgender, transgender (s), transvestites, intersex social, hermaphrodites and homosexuals of both sexes.
For those interested in this little-known aspect of Native culture of the three Americas and who are lucky to be in Montreal this summer, it is imperative to visit the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal, 1380 Sherbrooke Street West. The show runs until October 4, 2009
Russel-A. Bouchard
Chronicle: JEROME DELGADO
Le Devoir, 30-31 May 2009
Captivating, even dancing. Enchanting, bewitching. And intriguing, high-dose mixing sources and references, eras and styles. With five screens and my frenzied rhythmic, video installation Dance Berdashe Kent Monkman what sow turmoil. From
powwow in air
is a show we attended, a choreography for five dancers, well mounted and finicky by piped music, narrative crescendo. It begins with the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky, and slightly remixed songs steeped in Native American and instruments, it continues with techno and it ends with the bombast of a very cinematic music.
The work that is rooted at the Museum of Fine Arts (MBA) for the next four months against risk by keeping its secret well communicative trance. In the basement where she is, visitors are rare. Between
ritual and artistic expression, between tradition and spectacle, between homage and critique, the work depicts the Berdashe, an ambivalent character admired among Aboriginal peoples - a transvestite [sic *], In our everyday vocabulary. The dance celebrates the most prevalent was in Sauk and Fox nations. Staging, and space, breathes Monkman party. There's pow-wow in the air.
But the artist born in Ontario, himself of Cree, does more than make today and what multimedia ancestral ritual. He revisits the look that whites have the Berdashe and cultures. As often with him, his comment is based on what we have inherited a large piece of romantic painting in North America.
Her Dance Berdashe originated from an oil eponymous George Catlin (1796-1872), preserved at the Smithsonian in Washington. The painter was certainly struck by the scene, but it had also inspired this note: "One of the most disgusting habits and most inexplicable that I have ever seen in Indian country ... and it would be desirable that it goes off before we can attest to that even more. "We only regret that the MBA has not borrowed the table.
Indian-white confrontation against a backdrop of homophobia is central to art criticism and cynical Kent Monkman. Work very fragmented (paintings, films, performances ...), based on the story and referring to the news, but loses the opportunity tone. In Salon Indien, a projection on a teepee that was part of the Biennale de Montréal in 2007, homo-eroticism is supported too.
Sacrifice
Dance Berdashe does not fall into this trap. Even the screens in the shape of buffalo skins, are subtle. While the Berdashe, waddling on the center screen, is gendered, with its transparent red dress and high heels. Unless he gives, and it is very clear in the show.
The mixture of genres, and references such, has meaning, more than ever. The warrior dance with an umbrella today or on Stravinsky's reality shows: it is both friendly tradition and soaked in the culture of others. By giving a new context, very current in its bill contemporary art, Berdashe, Monkman insinuates that the issues specific to the epoch of Catlin were not necessarily buried.
rhythms and choreography, the dislocation of Berdashe, the device of all screens and translucent texture, everything is done to get us into the dance. We will type only may not walk, there will be no excess, the museum imposing restraint, but somewhere, we are called to move. But we can remain impassive, passive spectator in the back of the room dark. And that's where is as simple as it is, the strength of the work. Or is this going to George Catlin, curious and loving witness of Ethnology, but refuses to pass the course of his first interpretation, or the central character is celebrated, almost more spiritual than carnal. The Sauk and Fox admired this travesty because it was a sign of respect for the female figure. The abandonment of masculinity as it became a sacrifice of the most honored.
There is a choice: to remain confined to our gaze from abroad or be seduced by the culture of the Other. If the colonized do, why not the settlers?
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