Toronto Star Referrer

Stopping to consider what we survived

In new performance art piece, Feist reflects on if we’re ready for the return to normalcy

JONATHAN DEKEL SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Midway through her performance Friday night, Leslie Feist offered a measured metaphor for the onset of the pandemic: a cockroach suddenly captured under a glass. Instantly we were all left to deal with ourselves, she mused, locked down with only what and who we had.

In Feist’s case, that meant a ponderance of duality as she decamped from Los Angeles to her farm outside Toronto: raising a brand new daughter and, last May, dealing with the sudden death of her father.

For many a live music lover and, indeed, those of us who rely on it to make a living, the cessation of an ability to gather offered more than just a strug- gle to make sense of ourselves, but a threat to our very livelihood.

Eighteen months later, with the pandemic ceding long enough to offer a partial return of live music, we’re left to wonder how to come to terms with our anxiety in finding pathos where we expect pleasure.

These subjects and more all come to a head in “Multitudes,” Feist’s new performance art piece masquerading as concert, which is in the midst of a 10night, 20-performance run backstage at Toronto’s Meridian Hall, following similar engagements in Ottawa and Hamburg, Germany.

In putting together “Multitudes,” Feist has said she hoped to create an egalitarian feel to the intimate performances, each with a limited capacity of 200.

Yet, in experiencing the work — which features in-development songs and production by designer Rob Sinclair (Byrne on Broadway) — there is no doubt that the show is meant to evoke from and emote to, rather than immerse and engage, an audience.

Running just over an hour, “Multitudes” begins with Feist alone onstage, MTV “Unplugged” style, before gradually expanding to reveal accompanying musicians and real-time projections.

Throughout, Feist employs a series of tactics to force the audience to deal with their discomfort.

From the schlockey — an unceasing dot-matrix printer sketch, encouraging interaction while fully masked, un-libated and immovable — to the subconscious — unrecognizable material, manipulated iPhone videography — Multitudes hammers home that it is a production by and of this moment.

In doing so, it reminds us that we are physically together, but we wear masks because we can’t trust our own bodies; we want a return to normalcy but we don’t yet know how to be normal.

In Feist, we also have a perfect host. The new songs feel brazen, probing and penetrating. At their best, they create an atmosphere of soft power intensity, especially when highlighting the 45-year-old’s achingly intimate vocal style, as if she’s singing directly into your ear.

Ultimately, however, they serve as a MacGuffin. Her intent is to appear improvised, vulnerable and imperfect — to, as she’s said in interviews, strip away the performer. Yet by the time the final reveal happens (which I won’t spoil here), she has returned to her performative persona, literally running away from the masked crowd.

It’s in that space that “Multitudes” pulls off its greatest trick. We come attempting to relish a return to concerts, but are left to reflect if we’re ready for such an audacious commitment.

It’s easy to dismiss such intent as pretentious, but it’s a work of genius. As we face a broad return to live music, “Multitudes” makes the case that it is incumbent on us to consider what we have all lived through for just a little bit longer. To imprint to memory the feeling of wanting to live outside the glass once more.

ENTERTAINMENT

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2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestarepaper.pressreader.com/article/281758452494232

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