Tag: NAC Dance 2015

Trisha Brown Dance Company: as fresh and contemporary as ever.

Trisha Brown Dance Company: as fresh and contemporary as ever.

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Photo: NAC    Set and Reset from the Trisha Brown Dance Company

Ottawa audiences were treated to an exclusive Canadian engagement by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, presenting some of choreographer Trisha Brown’s seminal experiments in postmodern dance performance. Trisha Brown began creating work in 1960 and she formed her Dance Company in 1970 so the four short works we saw, ranging over a period of 28 years, from 1983 to 2011, actually represented important moments of most of her creative career. What stood out was the way they all spoke to each other, all echoing elements that appeared in each of the other performances, each one appearing so fresh, and contemporary, without the slightest hint that anything was dated or past its time. This form of dance-performance gives one the impression that her work represents  a constant process of intense research as it tries to position itself in relation to that which already exists but that is somehow insufficient and even stifling and has to be overcome.

. Take If You Couldn’t See Me, featuring a single dancer who faces upstage the whole time. Dressed in a flimsy orange dress that glowed in those strong lights, she kept finding positions that foregrounded her arms, her legs, her hips, her shoulders until one suddenly realized that this performance was in the process of changing the spectators gaze. We are watching a body with no face, no eyes, no expression, no emotion and no psychological points of reference. It erases the narrative totally, covers the head in brown hair and deflects our gaze to the back of the body. What dancer has ever had to dance from that perspective before? We watch the creation of a new dancing body, .one that performs from the back using its shoulders, its feet, its heels, its buttocks and the fluttering skirt, …and Robert Rauschenberg’s lighting and costumes helped transform this flittering bit of sparkling orange light into a new moving being… Enchanting!

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Pontus Lidberg brings grace, beauty and new visions of the dance to the NAC

Pontus Lidberg brings grace, beauty and new visions of the dance to the NAC

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Photo: Bunraku puppetry…

Pontus Lidberg Dance – Written on Water and Snow

The exciting Swedish dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, Pontus Lidberg has a long list of impressive accomplishments in all the above-mentioned fields , working with theatres and companies around the world.  He gives us beautiful as well as challenging creative moves with the human body. A magician who molds and choreographs his lithe corporeal instruments, most of whom appear to have serious balletic training which produces an extraordinary sense of discipline and breathtakingly supple interaction and a multitude of possibilities to be somatised on stage.

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Photo: Petrus  Sjovik.  Snow. with dancer and puppeteer.

Written on Water was originally conceived as a pas de deux for the American Ballet Theatre. The plucking , sounds coming from Stefan Levin’s music, that seem to emanate  from industrial material working overtime in an urban setting, form a powerful soundscape that accompanies the two movements of this first piece. The two male dancers, Barton Cowperhwaite and Pontus Lidberg flow together in liquid harmony as they communicate competition, domination, eroticism, submission, disdain and various emotions and competitive stances, always entwined in abstract movements where the ballet base is redefined by modern steps, gestures, and corporeal choices, all conforming to the music, much in the style of Balanchine’s work. The second part of this show brings us back to a pas de deux with a man and woman where the classical balletic style conforms to a more traditional even lyrical vision of that dance form, in keeping with the traditional vision of the mixed gender couple . Nevertheless, there was always a flowing, sweeping grace that accompanied their work that gave one the sense it was all something new.

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Pontus Lidberg Dance at the NAC. Snow and a Canadian Premiere – This Was Written on Water. .

Pontus Lidberg Dance at the NAC. Snow and a Canadian Premiere – This Was Written on Water. .

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Photo from the NAC

April 10, 2015 – OTTAWA (Canada) Sweden’s rising star choreographer Pontus Lidberg makes his NAC debut with a new creation, the breathtakingly poetic Written on Water, as well as his 2013 masterwork, Snow. This is a Canadian premiere and an exclusive Canadian engagement. Pontus Lidberg Dance performs in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Tuesday April 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Set to an original score by Stefan Levin, Written on Water was originally conceived as a Pas de Deux for American Ballet Theatre principal ballerina Isabella Boylston and premiered at New York City Center’s Fall For Dance Festival. This beautiful work has now been expanded to include three dancers.

In Snow, choreographer Pontus Lidberg performs with three other world-class dancers and a lifelike, highly expressive Japanese Bunraku puppet, for this turbulent composition set in a ceaseless snowfall. Snow contrasts the fleeting and fragile human reality of existence with the enduring character of nature. The work was commissioned by NorrlandsOperan, the opera house of northern Sweden, for its 2013 centenary presentation of Stravinsky’s score The Rite of Spring. With influence from this famous classical work, Snow currently features an original score by Ryan Francis.

WRITTEN ON WATER (2014)
ChoreographY Pontus Lidberg

MUSIC Stefan Levin

COSTUME DESIGN Reid Bartelme

LIGHTING DESIGN Carolyn Wong

ABOUT SNOW (2013)

Choreography and SET AND VISUAL DESIGN Pontus Lidberg

COMPOSER Ryan Francis

COSTUME DESIGN Reid Bartelme

LIGHTING DESIGN Carolyn Wong, after the original design by Patrik Bogårdh

PUPPET DESIGN and DIRECTION Kevin Augustine, The Lone Wolf Tribe

WORLD PREMIERE September 21, 2013

 

ABOUT PONTUS LIDBERG

Internationally acclaimed Swedish choreographer-dancer Pontus Lidberg was trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. He has danced with The Royal Swedish Ballet, The Norwegian National Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, and The Göteberg Ballet, among others. Pontus Lidberg has been making dances for stage and film since 2000. Most recently, he produced WITHIN (Labyrinth Within), during his tenure as Resident Artistic Director of Christopher Wheeldon’s company, Morphoses. Mr. Lidberg has been commissioned to create over 30 new works for such companies as The Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Swedish Ballet, The Beijing Dance Theater, and Vanemuine Ballet of Estonia, as well as for his own company, Pontus Lidberg Dance (founded in 2003). Pontus Lidberg was awarded New York City Center’s prestigious Choreography Fellowship in 2012-13.

TICKETS AND PERFORMANCES

Sweden’s Pontus Lidberg Dance perform Written on Water and Snow in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Tuesday April 14 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $40, $45, $53, and $61 for adults and $22, $24.50, $28.50, and $32.50 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card).

 

Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices; to reserve your seats, call

613 947-7000 x634, or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.

Tickets are available for purchase:

· in person at the NAC Box Office

· at all Ticketmaster outlets *

· by telephone from Ticketmaster, 1-888-991-2787 (ARTS)

· online through the Ticketmaster link on the NAC’s website (www.nac-cna.ca) *