Grace Symmetry - Swirls Of Excitement
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
 |
| Centre, Darren Devaney |
Many of us who live in Vancouver do not understand that in spite of
pitiful funding of the arts we somehow manage to have a most exciting city full
of stuff that bigger cities only dream of.
My birthplace of Buenos Aires features lots of theatre,
ballet, opera, art and music. But in a recent perusal of BA newspapers while there this past September I saw lots
of 19th century ballet and symphonic music. There was nothing new, nothing 20th or 21st century. And worse of all they
have few libraries where you can check out a book and take it home!
My guess is that it has been some years
since porteños last heard Olivier Messiaen’s exquisite Quartet for the End of
Time . Vancouver’s
Turning Point Ensemble played it three years ago and they keep presenting
concerts with music that is rarely heard on the radio or in concert halls. And
consider that Vancouver’s Microcosmos String Quartet has been playing
in 2013 and in this year all three Benjamin Britten Quartets, and Bella Bartok’s
6 String Quartets.
And if you think that our VSO is somehow
stuck in the 19th century you are wrong. Only recently they had a
four day extravaganza, a first ever New Music Festival.
These evenings of modern dance will feature
three living composers, Lera Auerbach, John King and our very own Owen (sorry
about that alliteration) Underhill who is also the director of the Turning
Point Ensemble.
Vancouver’s choreographer Wen Wei Wang's piece In Motion has as music Underhill’s
Geometry of Motion. The piece does feature pointe shoes if you think it might
be a barefoot kind of evening. The musical group here is a smaller one and
there is a wonderful section Brenda Fedoruk on stage playing her flute while a
solo dancer (on Tuesday at the rehearsal it was Alexis Fletcher) whirls around her.
Kevin O’Day’s Here & There (from Detroit via Germany
so he told me) will be danced to John King’s time-vectors/still points features
most of Ballet BC’s dancers and a large segment of Turning
Point Ensemble’s musicians.
Lastly choreographer/dancer (a most exciting one) Medhi
Walerski’s piece, Prelude is unusual and the music for violin and piano by Lera
Auerbach features sweet music which might sit well after the ballistics of John
King (Turning Point pianist Jane Hayes came as close to demolishing the
Steinway in the first rehearsal this Tuesday).
If you didn’t know, one of the most innovative dance groups in the world is the Netherlands Dance Theatre. That Emily Molnar has the connections to lure Walerski from his post there says a lot of the quality and direction of Ballet BC and a growing standing in the world of dance, Vancouver style. I will not reveal more but say that a very long black string is attached in this work.
If you didn’t know, one of the most innovative dance groups in the world is the Netherlands Dance Theatre. That Emily Molnar has the connections to lure Walerski from his post there says a lot of the quality and direction of Ballet BC and a growing standing in the world of dance, Vancouver style. I will not reveal more but say that a very long black string is attached in this work.
If by now you are wondering how I know some
of the stuff mentioned above I have to boast that I was lucky enough to have my
request to take pictures of the first rehearsal accepted by Emily Molnar’s
Ballet BC and Jeremy Berkman, trombonist and co-Artistic Director had no
objections which he conveyed to me with a warm smile.
This means I spent a whole day walking
around musicians, standing a mere two feet behind Owen Underhill while he was
directing, watching Hayes’s piano shake the foundations of the hall (the Arts
Umbrella Studio on 7th Avenue) but best of all watching Ballet BC
dancers warm up. Some used odd artifacts. One dancer rolled her upper thighs
and legs on a tennis ball while another on a small red rubber ball. Most of the
dancers with imposing leg muscles even managed to look cute in their special
foot cozies.
I wondered why these dancers were so silent
and serious looking. One dancer informed me that they were thinking about what
they had to do and that kept them very busy.
There was one quiet spoken man, Sylvain
Senez (Ballet BC's rehearsal director) who seemed to be the WD-40 of the day. He smoothed out the
differences between the dancers and the musicians, proving that the French
indeed are still masters of diplomacy.
As it was explained to me, dancers count
steps and those steps that they count don’t always have anything to do with the
music. Of this I know a bit as in Argentine Tango, the man can stop on the
dance floor whenever he likes for whatever reason he might have or feel. In
Argentine Tango the man not the music is in charge.
It would seem then that when a musical
group accompanies a dance troupe, the dancers are in charge and the musical
director has to adapt. I was there when Underhill pointed out to his orchestra
that there were triplets on several pages of the music in which the musicians
(with the exception of the violins, so I heard) had to play them staccato as
the dances would appreciate them as cues.
During the rehearsal some very young Arts
Umbrella dancers, accompanied by their teacher, Margaret Reader-Martin sat down
at the edge of the dance floor to watch. As soon as Emily Molnar noticed she
went up to them and went on her knees (she can be intimidating as she is about
6ft tall) and introduced herself to them. Molnar knows that sooner or later
quite a few of those young girls and boys will find their way to Ballet BC
in their late teens. In fact Ballet
BC has five dancers that are Arts
Umbrella alumni and three of their apprentices are from there, too.
I noticed that the students (Ballet 3A)
were not in the least intimidated by the music that while not in the least like
Tchaikovsky was not Bella Bartok either. When you listen to modern and new
music danced somehow what you think is chaos is not in the least that. If you
have a good ear watch for the sound of an unusual instrument not seen too
often, this is Caroline Gauthiere’s bass clarinet. Another unusual instrument
in Underhill’s Geometry of Harmony as you will hear a vibraphone, played by percussionist Martin Fiks. Underhill’s
choice is to have the vibraphone not plugged into the wall for less of a tremolo
effect.
While it is exciting to be present at an
opening performance of a brand new work of dance (three of them! Strictly speaking
two as Wen Wei Wang’s was first premiered by Ballet BC in April 2011) it cannot
compare to being so close that you can hear the dancers breathe and the
whispering of the choreographers when they gently nudge dancers to try it again
in a different way.
Not usually known is that dance like film
(of the moving picture kind) has a ritual and a set of rules. One of them is
awfully expensive. When you commission a new work or obtain permission to
perform it, it is clear that you have to pay the choreographer and the
composer. You have to pay royalties. Even lesser known is that the choreographer
(or a representative) must be present at rehearsals and at performances. This
means, if the choreographer is from abroad, airplane tickets, hotel accommodations,
etc.
It is my guess that Emily Molnar, Ballet BC,
Turning Point Ensemble must be most careful on how money is spent. This sort of
dance performance is not run of the mill stuff danced with recorded music.
There is only one way to support this sort
of thing in our really fun city. And that is to go to these performances and
nurture an exciting dance company and a little musical group that could and certainly
can.
Together Ballet BC
and Turning Point Ensemble will dazzle you with Grace Symmetry.
But I cannot quit here without telling you
that I am a fan of a dancer who wowed me in Medhi Walerski’s Prelude. This is Edmonton born Darren
Devaney whose spare body seems to soar while injecting a peculiar style of
lively humour that made me want to watch him all the time. And if that were not enough, Devaney's partner in this work is the superb Rachel Meyer (she of the little red ball).
The pictures you see here I call dance
swirls. I used a Fuji X-E1 rated at 3200 ISO b+w and the bulk of them were
taken with shutters speeds that fluctuated around 1/15th, 1/8 and 14
of a second.
