“Thanks to Shakespeare, the coarse and the sacred, high and low, sky and shit are entwined according to the laws of an alternative current that resists to a single-plane standstill.”

— Georges Banu, Foreword to Avec Shakespeare by Peter Brook, 1998 [our translation]

Out of Joint is an essay in sound hybridization on Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the various silver screen adaptations, stagings and rewrites it inspired through time. This is not musical theatre nor is it opera or audio documentary. What I am trying to do instead is to develop a form that operates through grafts of time, interpretations, meanings, and references.

By doing so, I am stepping away from the single individual point of view to overlay the voices that, through history, had to come to terms with the moral and ethical issues raised by Shakespeare and found different answers in different eras. “Shakespeare never stays on a single plane,” says Peter Brook, and it is this circularity of multiple viewpoints and the continuous shift from the sacred to the coarse that drives this work.

— Monique Jean [English translation: François Couture, vi-18]

Out of Joint was realized in 2009 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and premiered on May 20, 2009 during the concert Je me souviens (2.3) — Hommage à Pierre Mercure curated by Éric Mattson at La Sala Rossa in Montréal (Québec). The work was revised in 2011 and the definitive version premiered on March 10, 2011 during the concert Travaux électroniques féminins in the Studio multimédia of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. Thanks to Christian Bouchard for the sound of a ride at La Ronde, and to Mario Gauthier for the sound of ice on frozen lake. Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA).

Premiere

• May 20, 2009, Je me souviens (2.3) — Hommage à Pierre Mercure, La Sala Rossa, Montréal (Québec)
• March 10, 2011, Premiere of the final version: 20 Years of empreintes DIGITALes, Électrochocs 2010-11: Électrochocs 4: Travaux électroniques féminins, Studio multimédia — Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)