A Letraset face released in 1980, Cabaret features curvy edges with “engraved details and shaded embellishments” according to Dawson’s Essential Type Directory (Running Press, 2019). As choreographed by Beaulieu, these letterforms align like the dancers their name evokes, putting on a floor show in which those embellishments catch the light, a trompe-l’oeuil moiré created where the reader’s eye fills in the space between figures as we scan the page. The dancers on the periphery of the arrangement stand out momentarily from the group, drawing the gaze to ampersands, Ys, eszetts, and upper case Ws. These soloists pivot into view for a moment before being subsumed into the chorus line where they once again align. Beaulieu keeps our eyes in motion, rotating the letters to frustrate semantic reading and favor a visual approach with a field of shapes in tightly mirrored formation: a Busby Berkeley review. These letters are engaged in a multi-directional transfer: from their polyethylene dry-transfer carrier to the surface of Beaulieu’s page, from one side of the page to the other, and between their curved forms, as juxtaposition and negative space create movement in stasis.
A Letraset face released in 1980, Cabaret features curvy edges with “engraved details and shaded embellishments” according to Dawson’s Essential Type Directory (Running Press, 2019). As choreographed by Beaulieu, these letterforms align like the dancers their name evokes, putting on a floor show in which those embellishments catch the light, a trompe-l’oeuil moiré created where the reader’s eye fills in the space between figures as we scan the page. The dancers on the periphery of the arrangement stand out momentarily from the group, drawing the gaze to ampersands, Ys, eszetts, and upper case Ws. These soloists pivot into view for a moment before being subsumed into the chorus line where they once again align. Beaulieu keeps our eyes in motion, rotating the letters to frustrate semantic reading and favor a visual approach with a field of shapes in tightly mirrored formation: a Busby Berkeley review. These letters are engaged in a multi-directional transfer: from their polyethylene dry-transfer carrier to the surface of Beaulieu’s page, from one side of the page to the other, and between their curved forms, as juxtaposition and negative space create movement in stasis.