Dasha Ptitsyna Van Celst, aka Dasha Rush, is a Russian expat who spends her days drifting between Paris, London, and Japan while constructing a rather wide assortment of electronic music. A majority of her work is released at the reigns of her techno label Fullpanda Records and some on the experimental sublabel Hunger to Create. Her current project, Antarctic Takt, in collaboration with the videographer Stanislav Glaszov, is a monochromatic audio/video performance that sends the audience on an imaginative journey to an abstract Antarctica. Although it was originally developed exclusively for the Berlin-based Atonal Festival, it was recently showcased at Montreal's Mutek—sending a few of the festival's patrons to the frigid landscapes of the untouched continent along with it.
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The show was formed in the wake of Rush's most recent studio album, Sleepstep, where she confronted a wide array of different personal emotions. "The album is more about love, sensations, time, memories, idols—the palette of things that you accumulate in a lifetime," says Rush. "The track 'Abandoned Beauties & Beasts' is about the sensation of time in abandoned buildings and the beauty of decay. The album as a whole is about dreams, the half-awakeness you feel when you confront everything around you in a semi-conscious way." The image paired with the album shows Rush running through the forest sporting antlers, producing a fantastical, dream-like narrative.
Photo by Trung Dung Nguyen.
The visual performance begins with Rush adorned with a black veil, as a flood of holocaust images pour over the screen behind her. She performs a monologue as they play behind her, touching on the atrocities of humanity and how she's searching for an escape. "Sometimes you feel heavy reflecting on how many painful horrors have been done within humanity, this idea came to me while thinking of that," explains Rush. "I was thinking about where I could possibly go [to escape]. I thought, perhaps a desert or forest, and then I found Antarctica."It's quite a broad and storied subject to tackle by any means, but Rush is well aware of the cyclical nature of artistic expression and the subjects of which she chooses to confront. "I think in all art, literature, cinema, and music, we talk about the same things in a way. Despair, love, hate—as we reflect, we are continuously speaking about the same things, what changes is the form not the subject. The details are changing, but the basic things are still there. It is life and how you experience this existence."
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Rush's show at MUTEK opened with a microscopic display of a single shifting globe, which gradually evolved into the remote retreat of a frozen landscape. That landscape being her chosen destination: Antarctica. "It is the only continent where nothing happens, by that I mean there are few humans, no industries. It is a pure spot," says Rush. Her choices are a reflection not only on the atrocities of war, but globalization. And their combination with an ambient, expressive live show roused immense contemplation throughout its performance and a thunderous applause at its conclusion.As the live act was in its formative stages, Rush initially intended to include an arrangement of architectural elements. Her initial plan was to include water and ice structures that would grow on the structure of the surrounding building but ended up becoming a heavy burden while touring. "We are still planning to do one with architectural elements, perhaps a dome version while we use spaces in Moscow. That is also for the future," she clarifies.
Though it would undoubtedly benefit from the architectural addition, the production is already as flawless as it gets. The whole show in conjunction with the dark and barren space provided by Montreal's Musée d'art contemporain well suited both the sounds of Rush and visuals of Stanislav. It enabled a clear connection between the performers and the audience, disseminating Rush's reflection on the destructive side of human nature. And ultimately, sending shivers throughout the audience.
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