by Alain Wong

Two weekends ago I attended the fourth and final edition of the Quebec Swing Rendez-Vous. The demanding careers of the organizers precipitated the end of this popular northeastern event promoting Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston, Shag and other authentic jazz dances. I’m saddened because it was my one excuse every year to travel to Quebec City, the provincial capital.

This is a two part series covering this year’s event highlight, an hour-and-a-half long musical comedy directed by Geneviève Kérouac, and the QSRV itself over the years.

Swing Station

Directed by Genevieve Kerouac, Swing Station is described as a clownesque-musical-comedy. Here’s the introduction:

“Swing station, 1925 – Dans une gare vit un musicien. Dans son placard, lui faisant office de chambre, il se lève tous les matins. La station “ SWING ” lui servant de scène, il y joue tous les jours son refrain pour son public de voyageurs. Pourtant chaque soir, il rêve à sa belle, partie dans la grande ville y gagner son pain.”

Non-literal translation: In a station lives a musician. He wakes up daily in a closet doubling as his sleeping room. Using the station as a backdrop for his music, every day he plays his choruses for travelers and passerbys. And each night, he dreams of his love, lost to the riches of the big city.

Mixing circus performance and mime as a theatrical medium, live musicians and dancers, the show brought us back to the era of silent black and white films - where live musicians played the soundtrack. The show ingeniously blended live performance art and recorded film footage to make us believe we were actually in a train station, complete with the commotion of busy traffic and noisy train wagons.

The drinking scene (photo Marc-Antoine Jean)

Backstage (photo Alexandra Furminger)

Benjamin Ricard and Thomas Blacharz blew me away in their roles, often leaving their orchestrated scripts to dance in the moment (as retold by other performers of the show who had seen the rehearsals). These performers lead a great supporting cast of local dancers, but multi-talented main actor/clown/drummer Olivier Forest simply stole the show whenever he was on stage. A trained musician and performance artist, he was exquisite in his demeanour, magnetic in his facial expressions, and brilliant in his impromptu drum solo, which drew roaring cheers from the crowd in the middle of the show.

Other highlights include: fabulous vintage costumes, a drinking scene with huge amounts of liquid spilled on stage, too many people playing musical chair on a bench, and Dominique Morin as the big bad policeman with the big bad mustache.

Benjamin Ricard, Olivier Forest and Geneviève Kérouac

I had a chance to interview Genevieve about this project, which was two years in the making.

1. C’est quoi l’histoire derrière le show (le quand comment et pourquoi)?

Swing station, c’est l’histoire d’un musicien qui vit un placard, dans une gare, et qui souhaite voyager, mais qui pour plusieurs raisons, reste inconditionnellement dans ce lieu. C’est un rêveur, et il est très sensible. Il se retrouve témoin de plusieurs situations qui arrivent dans la gare.

English: What’s the story behind the show? It’s the story of a musician living in a closet in a train station. He dreams of traveling and seeing the world, but is confined to his state. He’s a sensitive dreamer, and he witnesses many things during his days at the station.

2. Ta réaction par rapport au produit final (as tu vu le video, les réactions de l’audience)? Es-tu satisfaite?

Je suis plus que satisfaite de la réaction du public. à la base, j,ai vraiment conçu ce show pour un public qui n’est pas danseur, je voulais donc rendre accessible la danse (swing et autre) à des spectateurs néo-fîtes. J’ai eu les meilleurs commentaires de la part de ce public cible, donc je suis vraiment contente et je crois avoir rempli mon objectif. par contre, le fait d’être dans le show, ca ne m’a pas permis de tout voir de l’extérieur, je n’ai pas encore vu les vidéos mais j,ai vraiment hâte! Ça été vraiment pas évident d,avoir une double tâche de metteur en scène et de danseuse à la fois.

How do you feel about the result? I’m more than satisfied with the audience’s reaction to the show. I initially put together the show for a non-dancing public, and I wanted to make the dance accessible to an untrained audience. I think I reached my goal because the best comments came from this target market. However, being a performer in the show, I wasn’t able to experience everything from the audience’s perspective, so I’m really looking forward to the video footage. It wasn’t an easy task being both director and performer.

Final group number (photo Marc-Antoine Jean)

3. Est-ce que c’est la fin du projet, ou vous essayer d’amener le show sur la route?
Ce n’est certainement pas la fin du projet! j’ai attendu 2 ans afin d’avoir enfin la subvention du CALQ qui me permettrait de réaliser le show. L’objectif, c’est de revendre le show dans les différents réseaux de diffusion (théâtre, festivals, etc) Nous entrons d’ailleurs dans une phase de promotion en passant par le réseau de RIDEAU qui se tiendra dans 2 semaines à québec. c’est la marché des spectacles (genre d’expo des spectacles, c’est le plus important au Québec). Plusieurs diffuseurs étaient dans la salle les soirs de spectacle et se sont montrés très intéressés par le spectacle. Donc je suis bien confiante de pouvoir le présenter à nouveau dans un avenir rapproché.

Is this the end of the road? Or what’s next with Swing Station? It’s certainly not the end of the project. I waited two years to get the funding necessary to produce the show. The current goal is to find a distributor or promoter who can get us into theatres or festivals. We’re entering our promotional phase, and we’re trying to sell the show. Many promoters were in the audience during our two nights at the Imperial Theatre, and have shown interest in our product. I’m confident we’ll be able to perform it again soon.

Thank you Genevieve for taking the time to answer. I thoroughly enjoyed Swing Station and am currently looking for contacts to produce the show in other cities. If you know anyone who can help, drop me a line at alain@lindybloggers.com

Stay tuned next week for Part two of QSRV: Revisiting the four years of the Quebec Swing Rendez-Vous.

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