With its fourth and, in some ways, greatest performance yet, Echo Chamber Toronto took its audience on a fantastic journey into the vivid and eclectic worlds of Eastern European music and modern dance.
The title of this spectacular performance, Zingara, and the associated cover graphic of a dancing gypsy woman, set up certain expectations -- but the matter is a good deal more complicated, even if "zingara" is the Italian word for a gypsy woman.
The entire region of Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans, has given birth to a fertile and sometimes wild cross-breeding of different musical and cultural traditions. Slavic nationalism, the Romana music of the Roma people known in the English-speaking world as gypsies, the haunting strains of traditional Jewish and Arabic music, all got thrown into the melting pot at different periods.
The result is that the music in almost every country has its own distinctive national flavour, but with a strong dose of common elements found running across borders all over the region. This is the region which Echo Chamber's artistic director, Aaron Schwebel, decided to visit in this performance.
It would be possible to try to choreograph dance to this music as a pastiche of dance from the same areas of the melting pot. Possible, but hardly wise. The choreographers for this show instead decided to let the music guide them, without overtly incorporating other cultural influences.
As in every Echo Chamber show, the results married music and dance more intimately and intensely than more conventional dance performances. The performance was given in the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, and the high-vaulted room added considerable resonance to the playing of the music, which was all written for strings. The audience seating around three sides of the space gave viewers a maximum sense of involvement in the performance.
The first half of the programme was choreographed by Brendan Saye, and danced by Hannah Galway, Donald Thom, and Naoya Ebe, all members of the National Ballet of Canada. The lights came up and discovered a lone violinist seated at a table. As Sheila Jaffé began playing the Red Violin Caprices by John Corigliano, Hannah Galway slowly entered behind her. The two exchanged places, and the performance was under way. It's these little moments of interaction between dancers and musicians that are the hallmark of the Echo Chamber Toronto programmes.
The Caprices were followed by a selection of traditional klezmer songs, a musical tradition rooted in the Ashkenazim Jewish communities of eastern Europe. Jaffé was joined in these by violinist Aaron Schwebel and violist Catherine Gray. This trio then continued into Kodály's Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, a work firmly rooted in the rich folk music tradition of Hungary.
Throughout the Caprices and the Serenade, the dancers performed in a style which, while not lacking energy, was highlighted by moments of stillness -- and the tension that such stillness can bring in a movement-centred art. Brendan Saye's choreography used that tension to highlight the relationships among the three dancers. One of the key points of stasis was achieved each of the several times that the dancers returned to sit at the table in the centre.
Partnered with the deep-rooted intensity of Corigliano and Kodály, the resulting dance was vigorous and gentle by turns, but with an overall grace of movement. Saye's choreographic vision was filled with emotional possibilities, but in a totally open-ended fashion that left each viewer free to construct a personal interpretation. This kind of artistic creation requires that an audience give their full concentration and let themselves be swept up and drawn in. Those of us who went with the flow were richly rewarded.
After the intermission, more musicians and dancers joined the performance. Violinists Emily Kruspe, Jamie Kruspe, and Csaba Koczó, and cellists Leana Rutt and Carmen Bruno joined forces with Schwebel, Jaffé, and Gray, with Jaffé switching to viola. Thus, we had the traditional string octet to perform the String Octet, Op. 7 by Enescu, another vividly-coloured, folk-inspired piece.
The choreography for two movements of this work was created by Hanna Kiel in collaboration with her three dancers: Hannah Galway, Kelly Shaw, and Ryan Lee.
If Kiel's work apparently lacked the deep emotional subtext of the first half, it lacked for nothing in energy. Bursts of high-speed movement alternated with more flowing passages, with frequent lifts a particular stylistic mark. At two or three points, the hurtling dancers came close to creating total audience involvement with the front rows (another signature effect of Echo Chamber performances).
There were moments when I felt that the edgy character of the dance seemed a bit at odds with more reflective passages in the music, but the choreography was unfailingly musical in matching big movements to strong beats. And there was no denying the sheer fun of watching these three dancers flinging themselves into their movement with such abandon.
Throughout the evening, the musicians drew out the maximum contrasts in style within and among the various works. Despite the amplifying effect of the resonant hall, the music remained clear at all times, with crisp articulation in faster passages and beautifully-turned phrasing. Special kudos to Sheila Jaffé for the intensity of her performance in the solo Red Violin Caprices.
Echo Chamber Toronto's Zingara repeats tonight, February 23, at 7:30 pm.
The first half of the programme was choreographed by Brendan Saye, and danced by Hannah Galway, Donald Thom, and Naoya Ebe, all members of the National Ballet of Canada. The lights came up and discovered a lone violinist seated at a table. As Sheila Jaffé began playing the Red Violin Caprices by John Corigliano, Hannah Galway slowly entered behind her. The two exchanged places, and the performance was under way. It's these little moments of interaction between dancers and musicians that are the hallmark of the Echo Chamber Toronto programmes.
The Caprices were followed by a selection of traditional klezmer songs, a musical tradition rooted in the Ashkenazim Jewish communities of eastern Europe. Jaffé was joined in these by violinist Aaron Schwebel and violist Catherine Gray. This trio then continued into Kodály's Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, a work firmly rooted in the rich folk music tradition of Hungary.
Throughout the Caprices and the Serenade, the dancers performed in a style which, while not lacking energy, was highlighted by moments of stillness -- and the tension that such stillness can bring in a movement-centred art. Brendan Saye's choreography used that tension to highlight the relationships among the three dancers. One of the key points of stasis was achieved each of the several times that the dancers returned to sit at the table in the centre.
Partnered with the deep-rooted intensity of Corigliano and Kodály, the resulting dance was vigorous and gentle by turns, but with an overall grace of movement. Saye's choreographic vision was filled with emotional possibilities, but in a totally open-ended fashion that left each viewer free to construct a personal interpretation. This kind of artistic creation requires that an audience give their full concentration and let themselves be swept up and drawn in. Those of us who went with the flow were richly rewarded.
After the intermission, more musicians and dancers joined the performance. Violinists Emily Kruspe, Jamie Kruspe, and Csaba Koczó, and cellists Leana Rutt and Carmen Bruno joined forces with Schwebel, Jaffé, and Gray, with Jaffé switching to viola. Thus, we had the traditional string octet to perform the String Octet, Op. 7 by Enescu, another vividly-coloured, folk-inspired piece.
The choreography for two movements of this work was created by Hanna Kiel in collaboration with her three dancers: Hannah Galway, Kelly Shaw, and Ryan Lee.
If Kiel's work apparently lacked the deep emotional subtext of the first half, it lacked for nothing in energy. Bursts of high-speed movement alternated with more flowing passages, with frequent lifts a particular stylistic mark. At two or three points, the hurtling dancers came close to creating total audience involvement with the front rows (another signature effect of Echo Chamber performances).
There were moments when I felt that the edgy character of the dance seemed a bit at odds with more reflective passages in the music, but the choreography was unfailingly musical in matching big movements to strong beats. And there was no denying the sheer fun of watching these three dancers flinging themselves into their movement with such abandon.
Throughout the evening, the musicians drew out the maximum contrasts in style within and among the various works. Despite the amplifying effect of the resonant hall, the music remained clear at all times, with crisp articulation in faster passages and beautifully-turned phrasing. Special kudos to Sheila Jaffé for the intensity of her performance in the solo Red Violin Caprices.
Echo Chamber Toronto's Zingara repeats tonight, February 23, at 7:30 pm.
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