For years Rosa ‘Sombreuil’ listed in Peter Beales – Classic Roses as a Tea Rose hybridized by Robert France in 1850 struggled in our garden. Teas are not to be confused with the later Hybrid Teas. Tea Roses were popular during the latter half of the 19^th century. Because Teas had Chinensis in them they were not all that hardy and some like this one not an easy one to grow in Vancouver. I was lucky to get three blooms in one season and the shrub never grew more than two feet high even though it was located in my sunny back lane.

In my Kitsilano garden it is thriving and by the end of May I have had 12 blooms already.

I could never find out exactly why this white rose had the name. In French the word suggests shade. But I finally found out why the name means shade in French.

It is at this point that accounts of what happened next vary. The legend goes that the jeering guards, who were seated upon a pile of corpses belonging to those that they had already slaughtered, then filled a glass with the blood of their victims and handed it to Mademoiselle de Sombreuil, telling her that her father would be spared if she drank the ghastly beverage.

‘One of the ruffians, touched by her resolution, called out that they should be allowed to pass if the girl would drink to the health of the nation. The whole court was swimming with blood, and the glass he held out to her was full of something red. Marie would not shudder. She drank, and with the applause of the assassins ringing in her ears, she passed with her father over the threshold of the fatal gates, into such freedom and safety as Paris could then afford. Never again could she see a glass of red wine without a shudder, and it was generally believed that it was actually a glass of blood that she had swallowed, though she always averred that this was an exaggeration, and that it had been only her impression before tasting it that so horrible a draught was offered to her.‘

Mademoiselle de Sombreuil herself always insisted that the bloodstained glass contained nothing more sinister than red wine and there is no reason to disbelieve her, although the story of an aristocratic young woman being forced to drink human blood in order to save her elderly parent is an enticing one. If you like that sort of thing.

Unfortunately for the heroic Mademoiselle de Sombreuil, her father and younger brother, Stanislas (1768-1794) were again arrested a year later and she would share their imprisonment at Port-Libre and Sainte-Pélagie before the Marquis and Stanislas were guillotined on the 17th June 1794.

For most of my photographic life there were two aspects that were constants. One was my love for the portrait and the other my insistence on controlling my lighting. I have always believed in taking portraits in a studio with my own chosen light.I still do even in my tiny Kitsilano studio.

The grab shots taken in the street have never been to my liking. There was first a Henri Cartier-Bresson then a legion of photographers that made the Cartier-Bresson’s shine in uniqueness.

Ever since I discovered Plato I have been obsessed with the idea of the essence and its terrestrial copy. I remember in the late 60s going to a concert of Jefferson Airplane in San Francisco and spotting a woman sitting in a corner staring at a little glass of crème the menthe. My guess is that under the influence of LSD she was contemplating the essence of green – a perfect green.

While teaching high school in Mexico City in the early 70s I used to tell my students that anyone of them could be in a room with a camera and a light pointing at them. Then one by one, their father, mother, sister, the loved one, the brother, a teacher would all take one snap without moving the setup. I told them that in each case once the pictures where printed and then mixed up one would be able to see which one was taken by the father or the lover. I further told them that if we fed the photographs into a computer and pushed enter the resulting photograph that would shoot out would be the essence of the person (a combination of all the facets that one is and that one reacts and becomes the person one thinks one is for each person one knows.) 

Not too long ago I proposed to actor Christopher Gaze (and Artistic Director of Bard on the Beach) to pose for me for tight head shots where he would think about being Romeo, Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth. There would be no makeup or costume, just the expression. Would we then be able to figure out each part? I believe we could as Gaze is a very good actor. But Gaze is a busy man and has never found the time to satisfy my curiosity.

In the last two weeks with my taking photographs of the dancers of Arts Umbrella in performance, in rehearsals and backstage my thoughts have been about dancers and the essence of a dancer.

It is fashionable these days to photograph dancers (particularly individual ones) up in the air in perfect form, frozen with a high speed light. I find that these photographs do convey dance but they do not show anything of the individual dancer photographed. It sort of reminds me of fashion shots where the model is the model and not a person.

On the other hand my blurs (at ¼ or 1/8 second) do convey the idea of dance and that the blurs are dancers. But the personality of the dancer is again not there.

It seems to me that the only way is through the portrait. It should be a dramatic portrait with a dark side to convey depth and curvature.

Ria Girard & Béatrice Larrivée - 2015

As an example of this I have placed here two portraits. One is of Ballet BC Albert Galindo which I took early this year. The other is of my granddaughter Lauren Stewart which I took in 2012. She is now 13 and is in her 7^th year with the Arts Umbrella Dance Company. I believe that both portraits convey something of that essence that a dancer is.

But in between that frozen in time picture of the dancer in the air, the dance blur and the portrait is this picture of Béatrice Larrivée and Justin Calvadores. I find it arresting and powerful. It is not completely sharp nor unrecognizably blurry.

When we listen to music we listen to predictable notes. But sometimes there are those odd notes in between that unsettle us. Thelonious Monk exploited well that idea. Could it be that this photograph of the duo conveys an in-between moment not quite at its graceful peak. The thigh muscles are in evidence. There is strain involved.

Justin Calvadores & Béatrice Larrivée

And yes it has been many years since I thought of dancers as swans. I know they are persons. I know that they are individuals.

After that first night of watching 11 individual pieces by 10 different choreographers of note I can assert that most were daring with just a few that featured “just ballet” to serve (a very useful purpose) to tell us, to show us where modern dance has come from. The strong pieces had few very happy moments. Most were bleak with an intensity that was heart wrenching. Perhaps from this old man’s view it was Simone Orlando’s whimsical Doppeling that featured both male and female dancers wearing Prince Valiant wigs that had some humour and vindication for humanity and individuality, once, when Maddy Gilbert removes her wig to show off very beautiful reddish and curly long hair.

I enjoyed Marie Chouinard’s bODY _rEMIX/les_vARIATIONS_gOLDBERG (In the beginning you think the sound system is going bad but that’s just the way it is) which forces dancers to figure out what happens when you wear one of your point shoes in your left hand so that it leaves the bare foot to act like a hand. The unbalanced result was beautifully clumsy!

 Lesley Telford's Only who is left

Béatrice Larrivé & Kyle Clarke

Zander Constant at left

But it was the choreography of Lesley Telford’s Only who is left (exceptionally assisted by Kyla Gardiner’s lighting) and Crystal Pite’s excerpts from her The Paris Sessions (to be premiered with the Paris Opera Ballet) that affected me the most. Both pieces showed what I call a collective virtuosity where dancers subvert and supress their penchant to show off while absorbing being part of a well-oiled crowd of dancers that acts as one. A third piece Crystal Pite’s Emergence (excerpts) went in the other direction. Here the individual performance of exceptional dancers left me breathless.

For the purpose of this blog I will have to refrain from showing all the pictures I took. That will happen at a later date.

The reason for this is that while talking to dance photographer Chris Randle I found out that I was not the only one to have been seduced, wowed and left gasping for air after watching Béatrice Larrivée dance the Pite duet in Emergence with Justin Calvadores.

I can only surmise that in today’s (Friday evening) performance of that  same duet, my other fave Ria Girard will show another facet of possibility. Can I go for a second night?

Crystal Pite's Emergence ( excerpts)

Béatrice Larrivé & Justin Calvadores

So, both Randle and I were all eyes on Béatrice. During the rehearsal of Emergence on Wednesday (as I explained here) I was not able to record with my camera that duet. The lighting was much too dim and my camera shot out a beam of very annoying light. I was told (justifiably so) to refrain.

And so on Thursday night, with my Fuji X-E1 hidden under my coat I passed without being noticed by the PFG (Playhouse Female Gestapo). I made sure to sit on the side far away from the storm troopers. I sat next to Vancouver composer Jocelyn Morlock. As soon as the duet was on I took my camera out and took as many pictures as I could with a camera that was certainly not designed for the lighting situation it was meeting up with. A bit later I attempted to take photographs of another dance. By then I was almost pleasantly asked by the PFG to refrain. And I refrained.

The pictures, seen here are what art directors of the 80s magazine industry used to call edgy. I always deprecated that term as it simply defined, for me, pictures that were badly exposed, unsharp and just plain nasty. I have always excelled in pictures that are not edgy.

But these pictures of Béatrice and of Justin do in a small way convey the rawness of emotion that I felt when I watched these two dance. To properly appreciate them (if that can indeed be the case) one has to see the performance and to live it as I did (twice!).

In Lesley Telford’s Only who is left my eyes were also glued on Larrivée. There are many very good male dancers in the company. All are exemplary and built for the part.  Curiously, after having noticed the previously ungainly (so many years ago!) Zander Constant I can now with pleasure state that he is my favourite boy of the lot while not deprecating that intensely emotional dancer Charlie Prince who so inspired me here.

Finally to end this meandering dare of this ignorant man let me write a bit about Pite’s The Paris Sessions.

Arty Gordon (the Artistic Director of the Arts Umbrella Dance Company) was able to muster at least 50 dancers on stage. This unprecented feat, according to Emily Molnar, the Artistic Director of Ballet BC could only have been replicated (perhaps?) by the National Ballet of Canada. This is an honour for the Arts Umbrella Dance Company to help Pite work on a piece that will see the light of day in Paris. On the other hand Pite must be aware of the wonderful opportunity those dancers helped in prepare her for her big day in France.

Someone a tad more ignorant than this writer could describe The Paris Sessions as a glorified American football, grandstand wave. This would be tantamount to stating that a lump of coal (the football wave) is much like a perfect diamond. The Paris Sessions is a virtuoso piece (a diamond) showing how 50 dancers can dance as one with a perfection that is uncanny. But then Pite in her past has choreographed dance moves for actors, theatrical curtain operators, etc. Her penchant for getting the best of anything and of anybody must be legendary. That she does this with a smile must be the reason dancers give her their best.



Crystal Pite's The Paris Sessions (excerpts)

Crystal Pite centre