"Made in Canada." In the world of the arts, we've long since gotten past believing that anything made in Canada has to be second-rate. Popular culture, sadly, still suffers from this delusion.
At the risk of possibly giving offence, I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that there are two particular areas of the arts in which Canada has a deserved reputation for developing international stars in great numbers. One is in the realm of classical singing, especially in opera. The other is in the world of dance, and especially with choreographers.
As one of the leading ballet companies in Canada, the National Ballet has a lengthy track record of commissioning and performing new work by leading Canadian choreographers -- not surprising. This week's mixed programme in the March ballet season was entitled Made in Canada. The programme consisted of revivals of three very different works, from three different Canadian choreographers, all originally created for and set on the National Ballet of Canada.
The first work on the programme was also the newest one: Robert Binet's The Dreamers Ever Leave You. This work had an unusual genesis, being originally developed as part of a project in tribute to the famed Canadian painter Lawren Harris, and thus being first staged (in 2016) at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In the transition from a gallery to a theatre, inevitably there would have been significant alterations in the overall feeling of the work. I didn't see the original staging so I'm not in a position to comment on just what changes in the actual performance might have taken place.
But I have taken due note of Binet's comment that he wished to recapture something of the mystical spirit that informed the painting style of Lawren Harris. In my opinion, he succeeded magnificently in that objective. This success is due most of all to the aspiring feeling of the movement throughout the work, a clear parallel to the similar heaven-storming quality of the artist's mountain scenes.
Binet's vision sets up a fascinating and dynamic tension by contrasting stillness and motion, and by contrasting slow and fast speeds. Although thirteen dancers take part, only a few of them are on stage at any one time during the performance. Yet -- among those few -- there is almost always one who has to give random bursts of high energy dancing (perhaps only for a few seconds at a time) and one or more others who move very slowly and deliberately, or even remain still.
The point here is that the extreme tension of the very slow motions is not so much the antithesis as it is the non-identical twin of the sudden explosions of energy in the fast moments. Also true is the way in which even a dancer lying still on the floor can draw your focus of attention as you wonder when he/she will begin to move again.
The underpinning of all this truly thoughtful movement is the purpose-composed score, created and played on the piano by Lubomyr Melnyk. The music is composed in his own style called Continuous Music, and consists of slowly shifting harmonies expressed through unending, high-speed chains of rolling arpeggios. This unique soundworld brings together an almost Chopinesque harmonic palette with an occasionally thunderous "orchestration" -- if that's the right word. The ceaseless ebb and flow of Melnyk's musical waves complemented Binet's unusual choreography to near perfection -- for here we find, in the arpeggios and slowly shifting chordal patterns, a perfect musical equivalent of the choreographer's tension between fast motion and near or total stillness.
This is definitely an ensemble work, and the performance captured the ensemble nature of the dance to a very high degree.
This is definitely an ensemble work, and the performance captured the ensemble nature of the dance to a very high degree.
The second work was also the oldest: James Kudelka's The Four Seasons, originally performed by the National Ballet in 1997. Kudelka has a well-deserved reputation as a very musical choreographer, a dance maker who respects the music as a source of the dance. His interpretation of the famous Four Seasons violin concerti by Vivaldi completely accords with every note of the music from first to last.
In doing so, though, Kudelka applies his own layer of interpretation by transforming the seasons of the calendar into the seasons of a man's life, in the manner of Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" from As You Like It. The central dancer of the ballet thus becomes Everyman and the work as a whole evolves into an allegory of the human condition.
I've seen The Four Seasons staged several times before, but never has the full impact of the work's psychological and emotional import struck me as forcefully. More than any other factor, I put that down to the performance of the central role of the Man by Brendan Saye (a role debut). I'm not in a position to comment of how technically accurate his assumption of this challenging part might be, but I do know that his dancing socked me in the gut, and tugged my heartstrings, over and over again.
In the opening Spring, I've never been so aware of the possibility of self-admiring swagger built into Kudelka's intriguing arm movements. Nor have I previously caught such a strong whiff of the mastery of experience from the Man in the Summer concerto. And in the concluding Winter portion, I suffered real heartbreak when Saye tried to reproduce the swaggering arm movements of his youth and managed only a pale, broken echo. The depth and truth of this performance were both equally undeniable.
In each portion, he's partnered by a different woman. Jordana Daumec in Spring, Emma Hawes in Summer, and Hannah Fischer in Autumn were all making role debuts as well, and all achieved great effects within their varied roles. Alejandra Perez-Gomez was also effective in the smaller role allotted to her for Winter.
Aside from these key figures, Kudelka's choreography assigns great importance to the varying cast of supporting dancers in each segment. It's with these corps de ballet numbers that the true musicality of his work really shines through -- with the light-weight and light-hearted prancing of the men in Spring, or the stooping, scything motions in Autumn, to give only two examples. Movements at all times are exactly in sync with the music. Throughout the entire work, the constantly-shifting ensemble of dancers constructed a superb frame in which the Man's story could unfold.
The music in this work is of utmost importance, since the dance depends so heavily upon it. The critical solo role was taken with great aplomb and musicality by violinist Aaron Schwebel, the National Ballet Orchestra's concertmaster. David Briskin's conducting kept the music appropriately light and sprightly while still creating a firm foundation for the dancers.
Was there ever a mixed programme of dance in which everyone went away equally satisfied by everything they saw? Do I need to answer that?
The last work was Crystal Pite's Emergence, originally staged on the company in 2009. I saw that original production, and a subsequent re-staging, so this marks my third encounter with the piece. I know I'm in a minority here, among the ballet's fans, but this piece has never worked for me.
Emergence is accompanied by a fascinating original score by Owen Belton, a score which is more soundscape than anything else. The basic concept is a group of dancers portraying insects in a nest as a metaphor of human life.
All of this I get intellectually. I absolutely admire the skill and persistence with which the dancers go about presenting Pite's extraordinary -- even exorbitant -- demands on their bodies.
(Exorbitant is the perfect word for the opening sequence of a woman enacting the emergence of the adult insect from its cocoon. I was picturing the entire therapy team waiting to unkink her offstage.)
But when push comes to shove, I want to be engaged on more than just an intellectual level. As the work continues for thirty nonstop minutes, it needs a little more meat on the bones for my liking. It takes me about five minutes to clue into the concept that we are creatures of a hive mentality as much as insects are, albeit in different ways. After that, what is there left to hold me? Just more of the same. By the end, the unanimous movements, the monotonous score, the quiet chanting of numbers by the dancers, all become tedious. I've seen it all before; is this all there is?
As wildly different as it looks, Pite's work reminds me of nothing so much as some of the dance works of the nineteenth century. Virtuosity, gigantic; content, minimal.
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