Greg Oh said playing NHL ‘94 and watching Halo YouTube videos inspired him to create a classical ballet.
“There would be a crowd of people watching [a video game] and the act of watching was just as exciting, if not more exciting, than watching a game of hockey on TV,” Oh said in a phone interview from Toronto.
Oh said he combined his skills as a “video game addict” with his training as a classical pianist and conductor to produce the Halo Ballet, which will be performed Aug. 4 at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival.
After watching Halo YouTube videos, Oh said he wanted to take it to a whole new level. The video game art form lent itself to video projections of Halo characters performing minimalist choreography to a classical score, he said.
“In some games, there is an amazing wealth of care that’s being put in so that the experience is less of bad Saturday morning cartoons and more of one of epic sweeping drama,” Oh said.
The Toronto-based artist said the ballet has a sense of danger to it.
“You fire a rocket launcher the wrong way and a jeep would come crashing down . . . suddenly we’re short a dancer,” he said. “You don’t see that at the [National Ballet of Canada].”
“Do you see a video game or do you see dancers?” asked Oh.
The Halo Ballet is one of several contemporary performances at Chamberfest, raising questions about its art form and challenging conventional notions of chamber music.
“Some people look at contemporary music as unfamiliar and anything that is unfamiliar can be challenging to some listeners,” said Chamberfest’s artistic director Roman Borys.
Despite new concepts, like that of the Halo Ballet, contemporary music is still chamber music, he said.
Carleton music professor Jesse Stewart said he will be building a large cube with percussion instruments he made out of recycled materials mounted on to it for a July 30 performance at Chamberfest.
Audience members are invited to use plastic tubs, pots and pans. The sound cube project challenges classical conventions by creating audience interaction, Stewart said.
Chamber music means music performed without a conductor and in a small room where the audience sits quietly, Stewart said.
“I’m interested in breaking . . . those kinds of hierarchies down,” Stewart said. “If not break down, at least let’s say make that binary between performer and audience at least more porous.”
— with files from Juanita Bawagan
