Photo courtesy of the National Arts Centre.

Flamenco acquired an entirely new meaning with this Self-portrait choreographed by María Pagés. The evening was made up of various moments inspired by the development of her personal and artistic life, each moment emerged from one of several  Flamenco rhythms that defined the form, the  style and the atmosphere of her choreography so she was never at all removed from the Flamenco origins of her work which showed  all the traces of its Sephardic, Arabic and Moroccan origins . What was exceedingly beautiful to watch was Mme Pagés herself unfolding like some gracefully wild creature reconnecting with the earth.

Her whole body flows to one sweeping movement as her arms curl up in the air, and then wrap themselves around her body as it appears to sink into the ground or expand into the air and then swoop back to the stage as she takes her cuadra in hand and lovingly imposes her domination on the group.  Her solos took her  somewhere  between the natural elements of the earth, and an enchanting witch who dissolves into the shadows, bringing a highly sophisticated  rereading of a dance form that is both  graceful, wild,  magic and animalistic, almost as if a new species had come to life.

…

Read More Read More

Marie Antoinette (Melody Mennite). Photo: Pam Francis

The Houston Ballet has created Revolutionary fireworks! Using an enormous cast of colourful figures from the French and Austrian Court, they tell the story of the French Revolution as a theatrical dance narrative which fore grounds the life of Marie Antoinette , wife of Louis XVI. She evolves from the shy, innocent Austrian princess, to the bewildered wife of the young Dauphin de France, and then as both the childish and the mature pleasure loving wife of the King of France (Louis XVI) and finally as the Queen who accompanies her husband and two children to the guillotine.

This extremely talented company of highly energetic young dancers displayed magnificent artistic virtuosity with their effortless lifts, their strong leaps, their sensuously romantic pas de deux, their playful debauchery in the French court and even their Zombie like group effects that echoed ever so slightly Michael Jackson’s videos when the famished French population swarms around a lone Marie Antoinette in Act III, as she faces the revolutionary tribunal that will condemn her to death. Stanton Welch’s choreography based on pure balletic conventions of the genre using much mime and the coded gestures we see in all of Petitpas’ narrative ballet, (this one was created in 2009!!), set to the expressive , often majestic and melodically rich music of Shostakovich, turned this narrative ballet into a highly emotional performance with visually stunning costumes, and lighting effects that exploit all the drama of those violent historical moments. Kandis Cook’s sets in particular establish a real dialogue with the events performed on stage as the decorative styles, the architecture and the design details echo all the shifts in mood, and the shifting meanings of the ritualized behaviour of the French court. .

…

Read More Read More

The opening sequence of Crystal Pite’s latest work is a stunning multi-media tempest and shipwreck.

It immediately makes one forget the silly Brechtian opening of Prospero, clad in black-street clothes, sitting on the edge of the stage making paper boats, while audience members take their seats.

The Canadian premiere of Pite’s The Tempest Replica (first performed in Frankfurt, Germany, in October 2011) continues with white-bandaged, faceless dancers presenting Shakespeare’s storyline, with projections of scene numbers interjected.

Manipulated by Prospero, their early movements are puppet-like, bringing to mind similar movements by a faceless character in the television advertisements for an arthritis medication.

…

Read More Read More

Photo: Jurg Bauman

It begins almost as a game, as a man, who looks as though he just stepped out of the audience, pushes little paper boats downstage along a strip of blue. A young woman moves into his sight, there are some words exchanged, there are also words projected on the screen. Suddenly, in a highly dramatic gesture and a loud rough voice, the Magician comes to life and orders his young slave, (a fragile but powerful Ariel) to cause a shipwreck. Then all hell breaks loose!

Violent lighting effects, intensely evocative sound effects, human-like figures being tossed about in what looks like wind, rain, huge waves and the most terrible lashing out of natural elements. The storm becomes the psychic shock that will send us hurtling into the world of Crystal Pite and her creative team, and never let us go. From the very first moments, we see that this is going to be a visually exciting event where dance, images, sound, music, film, corporeal forms and costumes, intersect in the most unexpected way to create an intermedial artistic event that is extraordinarily original and highly charged with creative and physical energy.

…

Read More Read More

The opening of New Work/ Nouvelle création by Edouard Locke  and his Montreal Company La La La Human Steps, offered a  most beautiful corporeal landsacpe that  showed us  the space of memory in those invisible moments between the  sudden blackouts and the emerging of shimmering  bodies touched with  shining highlights.  The chiaroscuro effect came alive in a way I had never seen it before.

Memories of Louise Lecavalier ? whose blond mass illuminated his earlier works and whose gravity defying movement seemed to have left its permanent mark on Locke’s choreography. Perhaps. She was his creation but she also inspired his work. An interchange of energy that produced something memorable… This performance is triggered by two huge photographic portraits of women that unfurl from the top of the stage.

A younger woman…and an older woman:  daughter and mother? The younger woman as she will be in the future? All form of relationship is possible  but the essential thing is that they do not communicate openly. They do not speak, they barely look at each other. The have discrete gestures, adjusting the collar of a shirt, touching their own hair, placing their hands in a comfortable position.

…

Read More Read More