Category: Dance

The Fiddle and the Drum: the return of Joni Mitchell in this “portrait ballet” will bring joy to Mitchell fans.

The Fiddle and the Drum: the return of Joni Mitchell in this “portrait ballet” will bring joy to Mitchell fans.

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The Fiddle and the Drum   Photo courtesy of Alberta Ballet 2019

 The Fiddle and the Drum, the title of an  anti-war poem written by Canadian singer Joni Mitchell in 1969  is also  the title given to this remount of the first of Alberta ballet’s  “Portrait Ballets” created  by choreographer Jean  Grand-Maître in 2007.  The poem, composed the same year as Woodstock,  that ‘ Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” that had international consequences on the neo-romantic anti-war movement of that time and Mitchell was rooted deeply with that period.  There is no doubt that this production will fill Joni Mitchell fans with great joy and  much nostalgia hearing her voice and her music, all heightened by the excellent dancers, the  anti-war themes , the universal messages of saving the planet and visual dream-like additions to the staging. …

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Giselle – A world premiere reveals Ivan Cavallari’s contemporary vision of a 19th century ballet through the prism of ‘total art’.

Giselle – A world premiere reveals Ivan Cavallari’s contemporary vision of a 19th century ballet through the prism of ‘total art’.

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The Willis featuring Yui Segawara. Photo, courtesy of the NAC.

The NAC  dance programme emphasized the fact that  this version of Giselle, the first for the Grands Ballets Canadiens  in 20 years, respects the original choreography by Petipa based on the original narrative by French writer Théophile Gauthier who was himself an exceptional dance critic.

The opening night performance in Ottawa  emphasized the narrative by foregrounding the stylish  encounter of delicate and impeccably trained balletic bodies  open  to unexpected influences of  light, and sound, of spatial transformations, of technical innovations as well as the sensuality of soft material, , swishing skirts transformed into feathery weightless objects that seemed to remove themselves from apparent romanticism bringing them closer to  an exacerbated form of nightmarish symbolism. Giselle fits perfectly into this model!   …

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Alonzo King Lines Ballet Sutra – a total performance language that unites the world.

Alonzo King Lines Ballet Sutra – a total performance language that unites the world.

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Alonzo King Lines Ballet
Photo thanks to the National Arts Centre

What we grasp from this hypnotic evening presented by the Alonzo King Lines Ballet performing a piece called Sutra, is the sense that this group is essentially a laboratory where references from the entire world of dance are beautifully melded together to enhance an intense dialogue of smoothly orchestrated corporeal performance. …

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Solo 70: Dance as a Mechanism for Letting Go

Solo 70: Dance as a Mechanism for Letting Go

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Paul André Fortier  Photo: Le Devoir Sandrick Mathurin

By Hannah Skrypnyk

In Solo 70, acclaimed dancer and choreographer Paul-André Fortier performs his final piece with Fortier Danse-Création: a riveting and often bewildering meditation on old age and the trials and tribulations of an artist coming to grips with retirement. However, and to the audience’s surprise, Fortier is not the only one to grace the stage. …

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The Capitalcriticscircle 2018-19 season begins

The Capitalcriticscircle 2018-19 season begins

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Photo Clay Stange. Coriolanus with  André Sills at Stratford:

The 2018-19 theatre season is now  beginning and the Capital Critics Circle hopes to bring you a wide variety of reviews  touching all the theatres in Ottawa (professional and community), as well as performances from elsewhere in Canada and around  the world.

We will also focus on the dance programme  at the National Arts Centre,  on French language theatre in Ottawa and the area, on  the student theatre at the University of Ottawa theatre programme, we hope to be reviewing work in Montreal, in Toronto, in Paris France and wherever else we might be. …

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Dracula: Past representations of this story weigh too heavily on this performance

Dracula: Past representations of this story weigh too heavily on this performance

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Dracula Photo WayneGlowacki Winnipeg Free Press. Sarah Davey

Dracula,   choreographed by Mark Godden, a production of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

Created in 1999 and performed for the first time at the opening of the  2005/06 Season of the Company,   it also came to the NAC  for the first time in 2006.

This was a ballet waiting to be staged with its luscious reputation of Gothic horror, based on Bram Stoker’s book (1897) that fueled so many exciting movies such as  the Horror of Dracula which  gave us the suave seductive count played by Christopher Lee, the first of a  series of British films  (1958 etc..)  where we also met Peter Cushing as Ven Helsing.  Also in the tradition  was  Murnau’s  silent film Nosferatu in 1922   (starring Max Shreck) a later  adaptation from Stoker’s character that caused years of court cases because  the script was not officially authorized  by Stoker. And since then, the  legend has  been recreated and  reimagined  by so many artists of the screen.   …

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Betroffenheit: An emotional spectacle which transforms the power of dance

Betroffenheit: An emotional spectacle which transforms the power of dance

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Betroffenheit   Photo Mike Burton

 Reviewed by Natasha Lomonossoff on Saturday April 7, 2018

Betroffenheit, a creation by renowned Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young, is at once a powerful visual and emotional spectacle. A well-executed combination of dance and theatre, the production explores the difficult subjects of trauma and addiction through searing and imaginative physical manifestations of one’s inner demons. A co-production between Pite’s (also the director) Kidd Pivot group and Young’s Electric Company Theatre, Betroffenheit has received critical acclaim since it premiered at Panamia in Toronto three years ago. Indeed, it’s a pity that it played at the Babs Asper Theatre in the NAC for only two nights (April 6 and 7 respectively), since this production is easily one of the more unique offerings in the organization’s dance program. …

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