The Men/Boys Of The Arts Umbrella Dance Company
Friday, June 20, 2014
I am a Buenos Aires born Latin and although I have been in Vancouver since 1975 I still sense inside all those terrible macho attitudes of the 20th century Latin man.
Slowly but surely Vancouver style live-and-let-live with a
slight dosage of political correctness has made me a tad gentler in those male
beliefs.
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| Paxton Ricketts - 2010 |
For many years I lived in Mexico City. Few men carried umbrellas and
preferred to be drenched by the city’s summer downpours. You see carrying such
a useful contraption made one’s masculinity doubtful. In the late 60s when I
had long hair and I had a purse many made jokes.
Such was this idea of extreme masculinity
that the ranchera women (who sang ranchero songs) manifested extreme masculinity.
Lola Beltrán, the most famous of
them had a deep voice. No Mexican male would have ever questioned her sexuality
and indeed she would have been allowed to use an umbrella.
 |
| Alex Andison - 2010 |
When I first arrived
in Vancouver
the whole macho thing sort of dissipated. I no longer had to drive aggressively.
This was a blessing. In Mexico
unless you took your chances you would have never entered a freeway. Driving on the street
we machos upon seeing a pedestrian, we would honk our horn and then accelerate.
In Vancouver I
even stop my car before a pedestrian hits the pavement.
In the early 90s I
fell in love with ballet when I was given the chance to spend a couple of days
taking pictures of Evelyn Hart and witnessing long interviews by the then Straight
dance critic Shannon Rupp.
 |
| Christoph Von Riedemann - 2010 |
I noticed when I went
to performances of Ballet BC a cadre of handsome older men wearing
black clothing and in some cases black leather pants. Who were they? Why where
they there? I soon found out that they were there to see the boys.
That seemed alien and
extremely stupid to me. Why would they want to look at ineffectual young men
whose only job was to lift gorgeous and graceful women?
It took one male Ballet BC
dancer to change my mind and it was all for the better. He was Miroslav Zydowicz. When
I watched him dance I noticed that I stopped noticing the women he was dancing
with. In a short span of time I began to appreciate male dancers. With Zydowicz
I understood the role of passion in dance.
By the time I had
photographed Ballet BC dancer Edmond Kilpatrick I was a believer
and more so when I learned of his pioneering dance program for boys at Arts
Umbrella.
In my memory I also
remember seeing Crystal Pite dancing when she was in Ballet BC
with Jay Gower (her present partner and father of their child). Gower (they danced Pite's Moving day) was a
gentle and kind man but danced with such elegance and so well with Pite that my
reasons for not watching men dance evaporated. Contact in my studio
with Ballet BC’s Donald Sales put the final blow in my
race to appreciate the men in dance. Sales, in particular, is also a
choreographer with a dazzling and elegant style rife with humour.
It was my contact with
Art Gordon, Artistic Director of the Arts Umbrella Dance Program that finally
set me straight. Until I met Gordon I felt a tad guilty about watching men and
boys dance. Gordon has a most un-politically correct and direct stance on
dance. She told me something like this, “You watch beautiful boys, men, girls
and women who are graceful and athletic show off their bodies in motion. There
is nothing wrong in liking that.”
When I watch dance now,
I watch the whole spectrum. But I have to admit that of late it has been the
boys. This was in particular the situation on June 15 2014 when I attended the
last day of the three-day performance of the Arts Umbrella Dance Recital at the
Vancouver Playhouse. I was principally there to watch my granddaughter Lauren
Stewart, 11, dance. I sat with my other granddaughter Rebecca, 16 on the front
row centre, close enough to hear the dancers breathe.
I was absolutely charmed
by all the men (at age 16 and 17 they are really men) of the Senior Dance
Company. One in particular was Paxton Ricketts. I knew him as a little boy and
later as a helper in my Lauren’s class. She was carrying a torch for him and we
kidded her for a long time. Ricketts (a very long feather in Arty Gordon’s cap)
has been hired by Nederlands Dans Theatre II. The Dutch dance companies are
pretty well the best in the world.
But all the other
men/boys were fantastic, too. One, Christoph Von Riedemann, with wonderful red
hair will be soon seen and appreciated as an apprentice in Ballet BC.
The program I saw that
Sunday the 15 was excellent but I particularly liked all the performances of
the Senior Dance Company, Andante Sostenuto by choreographer Francisco
Martinez, Mushrooms by Choreographer Artemis Gordon, Enchanted (Revealed) by
the always fantastic Roberto Campanella, Rose Garden (Klavietta) by the extremely
elegant Simone Orlando and finally James Kudelka’s (with music by our very own Rodney Sharman) Alice’s Polka.
I cannot stress how my
love of dance at this late age (I am 71) has given me such pleasure. I owe lots
to Ballet BC
and Arty Gordon’s Arts Umbrella.
Good luck to all those
men/boys and I cannot wait for the next batch. But I am not ready to wear black leather pants at dance performances quite yet!
The day of the performance we were not allowed to take any photographs. I decided that curtain call photos were fine so I took these. I used 1/15 of a second shutter speed to convey the motion and excitement of the evening.
