With this third programme, Echo Chamber Toronto has clearly arrived as a significant, innovative presenter of spectacular dance and beautiful music in the city. It's the interplay and fusion of music with dance in these shows which makes Echo Chamber so different from almost any other programmer of either genre.
For financial reasons, most modern dance utilizes recorded sound, even in musical repertoire which could be presented by live artists. Echo Chamber Toronto's Artistic Director, Aaron Schwebel, has refused to accept that this is an economic necessity. And I say, more power to him!
This new programme featured a company of five dancers and seven musicians in an intriguing musical tribute to France in the first half of the twentieth century. The hall of the 918 Bathurst Centre had a sizable dance floor area outlined in the form of a "T", with the crossbar across the front of the raised stage and the vertical shaft extending down the middle to the back of the hall; audience seats were arranged in short, angled rows on either side of the vertical shaft of the "T". The musicians sat on the small raised stage.
The first half was presented musically by the Rosebud String Quartet and soprano Lauren Eberwein. Three famous songs by Edith Piaf, including the iconic La vie en rose, were interspersed between the four movements of Ravel's 1904 String Quartet in F Major. Some music lovers might cavil at the "interruptions" in Ravel's work, but when the choreography was married to the music the resulting ebb and flow proved to be just right.
Eberwein's voice, while undoubtedly a soprano, has a rich, dark, almost mezzo-soprano quality which accentuated the latent sadness in all of the Piaf songs. Steadiness of tone and a lack of overt vibrato highlighted the nightclub quality of the music. Clearly we were not listening to Edith Piaf herself, but the sensibility informing Eberwein's singing fitted the music hand in glove.
At the end of her second song, Eberwein sang the final lines as she walked down the side stairs and down the centre of the hall to the rear. As the musicians launched into the second movement of the Quartet, two dancers shot forward from the rear down the centre of the hall as if fired from a cannon.
This spectacular entrance definitely fitted the mood of Ravel's music, marked Assez vif -- très rhythmé. Joe Chapman and Skylar Campbell flew up and down the middle, back and forth across the front of the hall, twisted around and lifted each other, all with immense energy. At the end of the hectic first part, they flew up onto the stage with a great leap just as Miyoko Koyasu appeared from behind the musicians for her more lyrical solo in the slower central section. The moment when she slowly and pensively sat down on the front edge of the stage and as slowly lowered herself onto the dance floor changed the mood even more decisively than the music alone could do. As the original scherzo resumed, Chapman and Campbell appeared again in a shortened version of their previous energetic dance, with Koyasu now joining them.
At the first show, I was seated halfway down the left side of the floor, and at one point in that energetic pas de deux a flying foot swept by my right ear so closely that I felt the wind ruffling the hair on that side of my head. It isn't only the musicians and dancers who get integrated into an Echo Chamber show!
At the first show, I was seated halfway down the left side of the floor, and at one point in that energetic pas de deux a flying foot swept by my right ear so closely that I felt the wind ruffling the hair on that side of my head. It isn't only the musicians and dancers who get integrated into an Echo Chamber show!
The third movement, Très lent, brought Koyasu and Campbell back for a slow, lyrical pas de deux whose classical lineage was as unmistakable as the modernity in the combinations of movements and positions. The choreography of Alysa Pires served all of this music very well, with her signature fusion of classical line and flow with modern position and movement possibilities.
The first half ended with Eberwein and the quartet joining in a heartfelt reprise of La vie en rose before the quartet ripped into the fiery, high-speed finale of Ravel's masterpiece.
At a polar opposite in the world of mood, the second half of the evening began with Debussy's haunting, evocative flute solo Syrinx. Meghan Pugh danced in a heartfelt solo, with flautist Shelley Brown facing her on the dance floor. In a subtle but visually striking way, the ensuing duet took on an air of enchantment, with the dancer apparently falling under the spell of the musician. Pugh's limpid execution belied the angular strangeness of some of the positions, as her arms and legs flowed easily in and out of the various intriguing poses. In the final moments, the dance seemed to express a yearning for the dancer to be at one with the music -- which, come to think of it, represents exactly the purpose of the Echo Chamber Toronto performance series.
The striking choreography of Syrinx, and of the other dances in the second half, was created by the team of Liana Bellissimo and Tara Pillon.
In another shift of tone, Lauren Eberwein joined the pianist, Renee Rosnes, in a song by Erik Satie, La statue de bronze. I totally wished to have a copy of the text, as I felt quite sure from the tone of the march-like music and the presentation of Eberwein that some sort of joke was involved -- however, from a rear seat, I was unable to pick up enough of the text to catch it. Impressively clear tone on the ridiculously low final notes of the last vocal phrase.
The next work on the programme was the one which clearly signalled Echo Chamber Toronto's new significance as a musical and dance force in the city. This four-movement suite for piano, strings, and flute, Of Mind and Body by Renee Rosnes, was commissioned by Echo Chamber Toronto with financial support from patrons John and Claudine Bailey.
It's a significant work in four movements, lasting for 20 minutes in total. The first and third movements are predominantly slow, with the first evoking the orchestral music of Satie and the third similarly nodding towards Debussy (no more than a nod, in either case -- Rosnes definitely displayed her own individual voice as a composer). The second and fourth, by contrast, deployed faster tempi and jazzy cross-rhythms to exhilarating effect.
Although the work as a whole was not danced, key sections of the two slower movements were choreographed (one of these, a pas de deux, we saw only in the second performance on Sunday). One portion of a fast movement was also danced. In these numbers we saw Meghan Pugh, Ben Rudisin, Liana Bellissimo, and Joe Chapman. All danced with the same fascinating blend of liquid motion and angular precision which characterized Syrinx.
The programme concluded with another Erik Satie song, Je te veux. Eberwein again sang, plainly enjoying the rolling waltz tempo and the borderline naughtiness of the lyrics. It made for a lighter end to the evening. It seemed to be a bit of a comedown after the dynamic climax of the closing pages in Of Mind and Body -- which really felt more like the natural endpoint of the performance.
Despite a major issue explained below, this was for my money the most accomplished and artistically successful Echo Chamber presentation yet. Plainly, Aaron Schwebel and his team of artists continue to innovate, to explore, and to refine the possibilities within the mandate of the series.
It will definitely be fascinating to see in what direction the next show will take us all.
A final note:
In every programme there are always a few last-minute changes. This is especially true of the classical/modern dance world, where injuries lurk in waiting at every corner. One of the four dancers originally slated to appear in this performance was Jack Bertinshaw. I was looking forward to seeing him perform; his dancing is always a delight. Sadly, he suffered an injury the day before the show was to open.
This sort of thing is bad enough in a major ballet company, where the understudies and backups have been given these assignments and have at least had the benefit of working on the piece in studio.
Here, though, no such backup had been built in. Two of Bertinshaw's National Ballet colleagues, Ben Rudisin and Joe Chapman, stepped in and divided Bertinshaw's considerable assignment between them. This forced both of these dancers to learn a sizable chunk of complex, intricate choreography from scratch -- and a lot of it was learned on the day of the first performance. One number had to be omitted in that show (the final pas de deux) but Chapman was able to learn it on the day of the second show, and dance it with Liana Bellissimo in that performance.
Chapman spoke of the generosity of a number of people in helping him. But I want to turn that compliment around and highlight the generosity of Chapman and Rudisin in helping some colleagues out of a very difficult situation, almost at the literal last moment. All in a day's work? Perhaps -- but it takes an artist who is very much a class act to put himself into a situation like this. Kudos, gentlemen -- not least on the fact that your dancing was so accomplished and polished that we wouldn't have known about the last-minute nature of your participation if we hadn't been told.
At a polar opposite in the world of mood, the second half of the evening began with Debussy's haunting, evocative flute solo Syrinx. Meghan Pugh danced in a heartfelt solo, with flautist Shelley Brown facing her on the dance floor. In a subtle but visually striking way, the ensuing duet took on an air of enchantment, with the dancer apparently falling under the spell of the musician. Pugh's limpid execution belied the angular strangeness of some of the positions, as her arms and legs flowed easily in and out of the various intriguing poses. In the final moments, the dance seemed to express a yearning for the dancer to be at one with the music -- which, come to think of it, represents exactly the purpose of the Echo Chamber Toronto performance series.
The striking choreography of Syrinx, and of the other dances in the second half, was created by the team of Liana Bellissimo and Tara Pillon.
In another shift of tone, Lauren Eberwein joined the pianist, Renee Rosnes, in a song by Erik Satie, La statue de bronze. I totally wished to have a copy of the text, as I felt quite sure from the tone of the march-like music and the presentation of Eberwein that some sort of joke was involved -- however, from a rear seat, I was unable to pick up enough of the text to catch it. Impressively clear tone on the ridiculously low final notes of the last vocal phrase.
The next work on the programme was the one which clearly signalled Echo Chamber Toronto's new significance as a musical and dance force in the city. This four-movement suite for piano, strings, and flute, Of Mind and Body by Renee Rosnes, was commissioned by Echo Chamber Toronto with financial support from patrons John and Claudine Bailey.
It's a significant work in four movements, lasting for 20 minutes in total. The first and third movements are predominantly slow, with the first evoking the orchestral music of Satie and the third similarly nodding towards Debussy (no more than a nod, in either case -- Rosnes definitely displayed her own individual voice as a composer). The second and fourth, by contrast, deployed faster tempi and jazzy cross-rhythms to exhilarating effect.
Although the work as a whole was not danced, key sections of the two slower movements were choreographed (one of these, a pas de deux, we saw only in the second performance on Sunday). One portion of a fast movement was also danced. In these numbers we saw Meghan Pugh, Ben Rudisin, Liana Bellissimo, and Joe Chapman. All danced with the same fascinating blend of liquid motion and angular precision which characterized Syrinx.
The programme concluded with another Erik Satie song, Je te veux. Eberwein again sang, plainly enjoying the rolling waltz tempo and the borderline naughtiness of the lyrics. It made for a lighter end to the evening. It seemed to be a bit of a comedown after the dynamic climax of the closing pages in Of Mind and Body -- which really felt more like the natural endpoint of the performance.
Despite a major issue explained below, this was for my money the most accomplished and artistically successful Echo Chamber presentation yet. Plainly, Aaron Schwebel and his team of artists continue to innovate, to explore, and to refine the possibilities within the mandate of the series.
It will definitely be fascinating to see in what direction the next show will take us all.
A final note:
In every programme there are always a few last-minute changes. This is especially true of the classical/modern dance world, where injuries lurk in waiting at every corner. One of the four dancers originally slated to appear in this performance was Jack Bertinshaw. I was looking forward to seeing him perform; his dancing is always a delight. Sadly, he suffered an injury the day before the show was to open.
This sort of thing is bad enough in a major ballet company, where the understudies and backups have been given these assignments and have at least had the benefit of working on the piece in studio.
Here, though, no such backup had been built in. Two of Bertinshaw's National Ballet colleagues, Ben Rudisin and Joe Chapman, stepped in and divided Bertinshaw's considerable assignment between them. This forced both of these dancers to learn a sizable chunk of complex, intricate choreography from scratch -- and a lot of it was learned on the day of the first performance. One number had to be omitted in that show (the final pas de deux) but Chapman was able to learn it on the day of the second show, and dance it with Liana Bellissimo in that performance.
Chapman spoke of the generosity of a number of people in helping him. But I want to turn that compliment around and highlight the generosity of Chapman and Rudisin in helping some colleagues out of a very difficult situation, almost at the literal last moment. All in a day's work? Perhaps -- but it takes an artist who is very much a class act to put himself into a situation like this. Kudos, gentlemen -- not least on the fact that your dancing was so accomplished and polished that we wouldn't have known about the last-minute nature of your participation if we hadn't been told.
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