An Early Christmas Gift From Gauthier Dance

After seeing several shows by the modern dance company Gauthier Dance, I felt that I was by way of being an expert, able to "define" the company's style. 

I would have described this as a company that brings immense energy and intense concentration to modern dance works which are seriously thought-provoking when they aren't completely off the wall.

And, as Noel Coward said, in the film version of his classic comedy Blithe Spirit, "We are quite, quite wrong."

With the holiday season at hand, Artistic Director Eric Gauthier decided to mount a show which falls somewhere in between "Gauthier Dance's Greatest Hits" and "Let's Have a Laugh."  In all, there were six dance works on this programme from five different choreographers.  Three I had seen before, while three were new to me.

What was most striking about this show, though, was the number of pieces in which the audience were invited to laugh, to enjoy, to appreciate that dance (often so serious) is perfectly capable of being downright funny when the creators so choose.  Very right and proper with the joyful season -- Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa or what you will -- so close at hand.

The show opened with Virginie Brunelle's Beating, a work which I saw staged just over a year ago in Montreal.  At that time I was more focused on the technical aspect of the piece.  Now, I found myself caught up in the emotional life of this dance work.  The title refers to the beating of the heart, and particularly to the times in life when two hearts beat as one.  This emotional aspect of the piece is steadily heightened through the three distinct movements of what I still think of as a "dance symphony."  The climactic moment when all the other dancers exit the stage, leaving a single couple to embrace as the lights went down, really tugged my heartstrings in just the right way.  Brunelle is a choreographer whose sensibility and emotional openness is both refreshing and engaging, as is her mastery of so many aspects of human movement.

The second work was the one truly serious note in the programme: For D, a co-creation of the wife-husband team of Roni Haver and Guy Weizman.  It's a duet for two men.  The setting is a kind of "tunnel of light," created in a smoke haze by a single strong light at the rear and side lights which create an effect of stripes or ribs on either side.  As the two dancers circle around each other in the narrow slot of bright light available to them, we get an intense picture of a close-knit relationship.  But then we reach the point where one of the men tries to leave, while the other tries to prevent him, to stop him, to keep him close.  In the end, he does exit along that lighted tunnel to the rear, leaving the other in a state of anguish as the ballet ends.  The portrayal of ultimate loss could hardly be clearer or more heart-rending, and this piece would (I'm sure) have a profound effect on anyone who had suffered the loss of a parent, a child, a sibling, or any other person they truly loved.  

Conflict of Interest Alert

As it happens, my nephew, Robert Stephen, was one of the two dancers in this piece.  Very unusually for me, I was not particularly aware of his presence as one of the characters, so strongly was I caught up in the intense emotional world of this unusually deep and thought-provoking dance drama in miniature.

The third piece up was plainly meant as a perfectly-timed bit of slapstick comic relief, The Sofa, by Itzik Galili.  In this three-hander, a man tries to seduce a younger woman, only to have the tables turned and go through the exact same choreography with a younger man trying to seduce him.  The choreography is marked by numerous intentional and neatly-timed pratfalls, flipflops, and rapid repetitions of movements.  The song, Nobody, by Tom Waits, provides a neat polar-opposite counterpoint to the duel of desire and lust (but not love) unfolding in all its comic mayhem on the stage.  One aspect of this piece which gave me a strong cringe moment: the all-too-graphic move when one dancer's face got mashed into another dancer's crotch.  It happened twice, and both times it got on my nerves in a big way.  Artistic Director Eric Gauthier appeared here as the man, with Anneleen Droog and Jonathan Dos Santos as the younger woman and man.

Next came a comic solo choreographed by Gauthier for Danish dance star Johan Kobborg.  ABC was accompanied, not by music, but by a speaking voice reciting "the ABC's of ballet."  As each word was spoken, the dancer had to strike a pose representing that word.  The easy ones, I suppose, were the ones rooted in the classic French technical language of ballet.  The more emotional words involved freer choices of posture and movement.  As the piece went on, the pace of the recitation got faster -- so of course the dancer had to move faster too.  The biggest laugh came under the letter "I" when the voice said "Intermission," and the dancer sauntered offstage, waving his hand, as the house lights came up.  But of course the piece continued right on, the laughs getting bigger every step of the way.  This solo was danced by Theophilus Vesely at the first performance I attended, and by Luca Pannacci at the second show.

The last number before the real intermission was  Gauthier's Orchestra of Wolves, another piece which I had seen before on my October visit to Stuttgart.  The sheer absurdity of this, another slapstick comedy, was on display at full force, with the wolves chasing the unfortunate conductor around the stage and finally dispatching him in a shower of shredded paper -- because he was, after all, only a stuffed bunny.  Equally absurd was the vision of six wolves making violin motions while spinning and rolling about the stage on wheeled office chairs.

After the intermission, the programme concluded with Minus 16 by Ohad Naharin.  The company performed this one when I saw them in Chicago in April, and it definitely bore repeat viewing.  I also have to say that, for my money, this was a far more successful compendium work than Naharin's lengthy, tedious Decadance which the Gauthier team performed in October.  

I've always sensed the existence of some kind of unifying factor in Minus 16.  This time around, I felt sure that the theme, conscious or unconscious for the choreographer, is a fatalistic belief in living in the moment because you can't change what is going to happen next.  Each of the work's multiple segments, I felt, cast some light on that thematic concept.  I don't know if that was Naharin's intent, but I certainly felt that the work as whole was speaking to me on that level.

As for the performance, the company was stunning as always in the sheer dynamic athleticism of the Passover song, Echad Mi Yodea.  The slow duet, danced to an aria from Nisi Dominus by Vivaldi, added a sense of heartache to the other qualities I'd noticed earlier.  There was an air of desperation about the joyful dancing of the party scene, and the final slow epilogue echoed the heartbreak of the duet again.  It's a strange work, with its juxtaposition of such wildly different dance styles and moods, yet it feels to me as if it couldn't be any other way than what it is.  Since Naharin always varies the content of these dance works whenever he sets them on a new company, I'd be intrigued if the versions danced elsewhere also echo that underlying theme that I sensed in this version.

If all that sounds a bit heavy-weight, be assured that the party scene is still fun all the way.  Even the high energy of Echad Mi Yodea becomes entertaining, as I welcomed the return of each move added to the song when it came around again in subsequent verses.

National Ballet 2019-2020 # 3: Modern Classics

The third show of the National Ballet's November season consisted of three more-or-less modern works -- "more-or-less" because one of them has a distinctly classical flavour within the more contemporary approach of abstract dance, unsupported by a story line, while another made use of a style of movement which was modern but firmly rooted in classicism.  All three were created since the end of World War 2.

This programme in fact underlined the increasingly obvious truth that the lines between "modern" and "classical" dance are being blurred by many of the current generation of choreographers.  As well, the idea that modern dance occurred after a particular era or date is also itself becoming dated as the so-called "modern" era's beginning recedes farther into the past.

Also significant is that this programme is very much a company performance.  There are certain featured solos in the various works, but in the end it's the performance of the entire cast that counts.  More on that point later.

Alexei Ratmansky's Piano Concerto No. 1 opened the show, giving us in a capsule form much of the essence of this choreographer's art.  Using Shostakovich's sardonic, ironic music as a base, Ratmansky's work embraces a style of movement distinctly modern, but steeped in classicism.  The dance is abstract, but the subtextual reference to the Soviet era when the music was composed is unmistakable -- even more so in the choreography than with the giant red Soviet symbols suspended above the stage.

Insofar as this ballet may be said to have a story, it shows us the mood and emotions of life as a creative artist (i.e., the composer) under the oppression of the Stalinist regime.  This emotional subtext demands sequences of the dancers moving with drooping shoulders and heads dropped forward, a complete antithesis to the classical line.

Ratmansky's often-complex patterns of fast-moving dancers were as neatly executed by the company as the sharply-etched playing of the concerto by Zhenya Vitort on piano and Richard Sandals on trumpet.

An interesting innovation was the short instrumental interlude between the first two ballets.  The orchestra performed the adagio movement from Janacek's Idyll for strings.  This avoided the necessity for a second intermission which would stretch the length of the performance.

Jiri Kylian's Petite Mort followed, opening with a fascinating tableau of dancers flourishing fencing foils -- something normally seen only in Romeo and Juliet.  Those foils became an ongoing feature of this short ballet for 12 dancers, an obvious if subtle reference to a penis, given the title which is an old euphemism for an orgasm.  While some sections of this work displayed Kylian's trademark kinetic energy, others were more moderately paced.  This work was set to slow movements from two of Mozart's piano concertos, KV488 and KV467, played here by Andrei Streliaev.  Although Kylian was plainly working within the framework of the score, I was left with a feeling that some parts of the work were more at home with this music than others.  A fascinating encounter, though, especially considering that Kylian's work has been rare in recent years at the National.

After the intermission, Harald Lander's Etudes took the stage.  This ballet is the purest possible examination of classical technique you can imagine, especially considering that it begins with dancers at the barre, doing the exercises which are part of the discipline of daily class.  After the first few etudes, the barres disappear and the stage widens to allow for larger movement patterns which involve more dancers.  But the structure of the daily class remains to guide the work.

The real fascination of Lander's work lies in the fact that it is rooted in the distinctive style of August Bournonville, a style relatively unfamiliar to audiences outside his homeland of Denmark.  As the dancers get farther into the piece, the airy grand jete makes its first appearance, as does the rapid and intricate foot work so characteristic of the Bournonville tradition.

And this is precisely where Etudes also becomes the ultimate showpiece for the company.  Lander's work departs significantly from the classical tradition by showing us whole groups of dancers performing complex sequences, lifts, and leaps that are normally reserved on stage for the lead roles.

An intriguing contrast comes from a group of variations danced by several women wearing the flowing, gauzy tutus of the Sylph in Bournonville's best-known ballet, La Sylphide.  This choice of costume demands a softer-edged style of dance to match it.

Towards the end of the ballet, the sheer energy and elan demanded by the large group sequences clearly displays the depth and strength of the National Ballet.   The total cast of Etudes requires 42 dancers in all, and if they're never all on stage at once, there are several sequences where the number of hurtling bodies seems even greater.  This is one of a select group of ballets in which the National's ebullient dancing leaves me feeling exhausted and breathless.

Overall, then, an unusual but fascinating contrast of different dance works which kept the audience involved and intrigued throughout the performance.

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony 2019-2020 # 1: Powerful Brahms and Two Romantic Rarities

Having missed the season opener during my European culture-fest, I had to wait until the end of November to hear my first concert of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra's season. When the time came, the concert was well worth the wait.

The centrepiece of the concert was a stunning performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77.  Violinist Blake Pouliot and conductor Andrei Feher between them certainly made this long-time Brahms fan sit up and listen to the music with new and attentive ears.

Gone was any suggestion of the patrician coolness and poise which has so often been thought appropriate for this composer's work by other interpreters.  Pouliot tore into his opening bars with fierce energy, and kept on very much as he began.  His performance was marked by its edge and attack throughout the first and last movements.  Not to say that his playing lacked refinement by any means -- that quality was also fully present in the quieter, more meditative moments, and particularly in his contrasting dreamy treatment of the violin's first entrance in the beautiful slow movement.   But overall, this was a revelation of the more impassioned side of Brahms, a side that too many interpreters have ignored.  

Feher matched Pouliot's near-aggressive approach with orchestral playing similarly marked by clean attack and sharp staccato.  One noteworthy feature of the joint approach of these two artists was a reduction in the amount of rubato.  Other performances in my experience have pushed and pulled the music all over the map with unnecessary pauses and hastenings of tempo.  Pouliot and Feher instead presented a reading in which the through line of the music remained clear and present at all times, without excessive distortions.  Combined with the immense energy generated, this led to a Brahms concerto performance of power and passion.

The beauty of the situation is that the Brahms concerto is such a masterpiece that it can not only endure, but thrive on varying interpretations such as this.  

The Brahms was framed in this programme by two rarities.  The concert opened with the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale by Robert Schumann.  I've written about it in more detail in my companion blog on rare music, Off the Beaten Staff.  Here's the link:  Schumann's Not-Quite-A-Symphony

The piece is essentially a symphony in 3 movements, but it's much more lightly orchestrated than Schumann's four numbered symphonies -- and much more rarely played.  Feher and the orchestra truly captured the essential lightness and joy of the score, treating it to a performance that bounced along with Mendelssohnian grace in the livelier moments and sang with the morning stars in the more lyrical pages.  Textures remained absolutely clear even in the more robust fugal textures of the finale, and the concluding apotheosis of the theme as a grand chorale resounded magnificently through the hall.  An absolute delight.

The concert concluded with a major work from a composer totally unknown to me, Friedrich Gernsheim.  I was so taken with the music that I immediately sat down to write a blog post about this one as well.  You can read it here:  Gernsheim Symphony # 2

In this work, the orchestra produced beautiful tone and blend in the complex textures of the first movement.  The winds in particular shone in the multiple passages of the first movement that separated them off and highlighted them.  The second movement Tarentella rolled along with unstoppable momentum combined with crisp articulation in the rapid passagework.  Feher and the orchestra avoided cloying sweetness in the slow movement, and managed the somewhat abrupt transition into the finale very neatly.  The brief stretto leading to the final climax and closing cadence was also done very neatly, with no rough edges during the acceleration.  A very rewarding performance of a work that few, if any, in the audience had ever heard before.

I'm sure many people went home talking about Blake Pouliot's powerhouse performance in the Brahms concerto, and rightly so, but for me it was the chance to hear two beautiful rarities of the Romantic era that really made this concert a worthwhile experience.  And the performance was delightful, from first to last.