El Niño

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, Ane Mette Ruge, Jacob Schokking, and Jesper Gundersen—a performance trio that emerged from the Copenhagen-based workshop for experimental arts, Værkstedet Værst—staged a site-specific presentation of their performance El Niño in the Grand Luxe Hall. The title is derived from the climatological phenomenon El Niño, a naturally occurring yet unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, which can disrupt global weather patterns. When translated to English “niño” means “boy” or “child.” The artists invoke this double entendre as their thematic foundation, personifying El Niño as a grown-up man and a seafarer.

As Karen Henry writes in a review published in Issue 33 of High Performance (1986): 

“The performance begins in low light with changing bells and a lone figure on a pedestal with signal flags. Two toy ships sail in, situated on the heads of the other two performers. They are presumably guided by the signal flags and the codes of sea behaviour. They moor in the broad harbour of the room, and, as old seadogs will do, puff away out their smokestacks, wishing to communicate across a distance. It takes the audience awhile to loosen up and chuckle at this little scenario; after all, art is a serious business. But by the time they begin making rude noises on each other’s skin and pushing on each other’s chest to force sounds past the vocal controls, or playing on a taut cord strung between two cardboard speakers, it becomes apparent that these performers are willing to take chances, and we too can indulge our own response, like children at play. The work as whole makes delightfully resourceful use of improvised sound and light—as when one of the trio dances around carrying his own spotlight. The techniques are charming in their simplicity, challenging the prominence of extravagant special effects technology. In this way El Niño is both original and unpretentious, with varied layers of recorded and improvised sound and accessible, spontaneous visual and audio effects.”

Following this performance at Western Front, Mette Ruge, Schokking, and Gundersen toured El Niño to artist-run spaces in Victoria, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montréal.