TORONTO - Our economy may be in a tailspin, but there is certainly no crisis in creativity here in Canada, at least not in the world of classical ballet.
For proof, one need look no further than the National Ballet of Canada's sparkling Innovations program, an evening of mixed programming that opened on the stage of the Four Seasons on Wednesday night, offering a showcase for three exciting young Canadian choreographers.
And given access to not only some of the finest classical dancers in the nation, but to the resources of one of the continent's pre-eminent dance companies, these three young dancemakers certainly make the most of the opportunity.
The evening opens with the world premiere of a new work by Peter Quanz, who has already earned himself an impressive international reputation.
One look at In Colour and it is easy to understand why, as Quanz takes some of the company's finest dancers and, using a collection of essays on colour by the late Derek Jarman and an original score (seemingly still in search of an epic movie) by Anton Lubchenko as inspiration, pulls it all together to fill the stage with a kaleidoscope of movement. It is informed by the classical tradition at almost every turn but filtered through a vision that is uniquely Quanz's own.
In a work seemingly designed to showcase the entire corps -- elaborate multi-dancer lifts and a bordering-on-Balanchine devotion to dance geometry -- In Colour still manages to provide an impressive showcase for artists like Heather Ogden and a hyper-kinetic Zdenek Konvalina.
There's also a lovely, lingering pas de deux for Bridgett Zehr and Guillaume Cote, as Quanz and designers Michael Gianfrancesco and Christopher Dennis team up to take a compelling look at the dance etymology of colour.
Next up on the program, choreographer Crystal Pite moves the conversation from etymology to entomology with her oddly-compelling Emergence, which could have as easily been titled The Secret Life of Bees, if that title had not already been usurped for a popular movie.
Working with an original and hauntingly organic taped score by Owen Belton, Pite and designers Jay Gower Taylor and Linda Chow transform the stage into a literal beehive of activity.
Because, of course, the dance is informed and shaped by the behaviour of bees, an unusual inspiration that nonetheless strikes sympathetic resonances and echoes from throughout the animal kingdom, from bats to swallows and beyond.
Pite shapes her dance with a knife-like precision and an almost gymnastic discipline and draws stirring performances from Aleksander Antonijevic, Greta Hodgkinson, Etienne Lavigne, Stephanie Hutchinson and Konvalina, fusing music and movement so completely that in the end, it is often difficult to tell whether the score is driving the dance or the dancers driving the score.
The evening ends with Dextris, choreographer Sabrina Matthews' new exploration of Vivaldi's Dixit Dominus in a work that introduces a choral element to the evening, courtesy of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, massed on risers at the back of the stage.
Physically, the placement of the chorus forces the dancers, led by Ogden and Piotr Stanczyk into a narrow field at the front of the stage in a choreography based largely, it seems, on repetitive tension in a world where dancers come together only for the purpose of being driven apart.
Ultimately, and perhaps not surprisingly, Vivaldi's soaring music (with David Briskin conducting the NBOC Orchestra and solos from Kathleen Brett, Teiya Kasahara, Marion Newman, Michael Colvin and Alain Coulombe) conspires to overshadow the dance in what proves to be the most conventional offering in an evening of creative and compelling dance.
In a perfect world (and in a healthy economy) this is the kind of evening the NBOC should be programming at least once a year.
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