Ballet BC, Program 3

Ballet BC, Program 3 was by far the best ballet of the season. All three pieces were spectacular.
 "Beginning After” , Choreographed by Cayetano Soto, with music of Handel  was physically inconceivable.  The dancers seemed otherworldly in their movements. The parts and the whole in harmony with the music. Soto’s dance is Daliesque in motion. I love Cayetano Soto’s choreography. It’s the most original and inspirational I’ve seen in recent times.  It’s authenticity and unique interpretation of the human spirit through dance is so uplifting.
“when you left’ choreographed by Emily Molnar was so utterly different from all that has gone before.  The music of Peteris Vasks: Plainscape was performed by the Phoenix Chamber Choir under the direction of Grame Langager. When we stood to cheer and applaud at the end of this remarkable piece we saw all the smiling happy faces of this gifted choir in the orchestra pit .  This piece amazed me for it’s modernity and abstract birdlike flocking flow so reminiscent of classical with it’s  elegance of form.  But where Soto brings to mind Salvador Dali, this Molnar piece was reminiscent of Klimt.
I loved Bill.  Bill was the choreography of Sharon Eyal and Gai Bhear, first performed in 2010 by the Batsheva Dance Company .Music by Ori Lichtik. I’d seen Bill once before and loved it.  Reminiscent of Paul Gauguin I thought it the most amazing tribal post apocalypse interpretation. The drums and white bodies  and that Monty Python funny walk  was all so chorus like in the song of creation.  I found myself outside trying but failing to repeat that inconceivably simple looking impossible walk  such a  complex rhythmic repetition around which the whole community of dance and song revolved. Outside others were doing the same. I don’t recall seeing this before, though of course,  some of it had to do with this being Spring.  There were just so many of the audience dancing and imitating different bits they’d loved from the show in front of the old Queen E. It was wonderful.
The Ballet BC dancers are all the best.I’ve loved Alexis Fletcher for ever, even bidding  this night on a silent auction black and white photograph of her captured  in leaping flight  Livona Ellis and Rachel Meyer and Rachel Prince, , Christoph Von Riedemann and Peter Smida all stood out for me tonight.  But I love them all and a different one just shines a little brighter in different performances, all so professional.  Professional remains a designation of meritocracy. In contrast to the values of mediocrity, the professional is not uniform but unique in that the skills consistently rise above an impossible level which an amateur might only attain on rare occasion.   Even the apprentices tonight were memorable with Justin Calvadores and  Parker Finley’s dance being noteworthy to me.  I find myself watching an individual then looking to see who they were.  I noticed these delightful new folk whereas Nicole Ward , Kirsten Wicklund, Gilbert Small, and Patrick Kilbane are names I’ve come to know and faces I’ve come to recognise.  But they’re all superb.  If this were hockey we'd speak of Brandon Alley and Andrew Bartee as the Sabines or Emily Chess and Kiera Hill as ‘all stars’.  Zander Constant and Shanna Wolfe have joined the big leagues
But its dance and the audience didn’t dress like Walmart. Intermission was a feast for the eyes in terms of haute coiffure.  The shoes, the shoes, the shoes! the ladies exclaimed.  I loved the men in gold lame jackets and the lithe and sensuous ladies in long  spring gowns. So many of the young had perfect dancer bodies whereas some of us who danced compared out girth and reminisced nostalgically about times when we moved liked cats and leaped liked lions.  it was a great night.  Laura and I shared it with our friends Lorne and Justine.  After all the standing ovations we ourselves couldn’t stop singing the praises of the dancers and choreographers..  Ballet BC is just so vital.

Ballet BC Program 2, 30th Anniversary Season.

I love Ballet BC.  Emily Molnar the artistic director brings a unique perspective to Vancouver. Ballet BC is  extraordinary  modern dance.  Every show I’m lifted out of the mundane into a different dimension where sound and movement mesh in specific and peculiar ways that expand my everyday seeing. Tonight’s two pieces by French choreographer Mehdi Walerski, Prelude and Natus, again did just that.  They were so different that were it not for the program I’d not have known they were by  the same choreographer. As ever the dancers were gifted and spectacular, hard half naked glistening contortionist bodies of elegance and discipline.
I loved the Prelude duet by Rachel Meyer and Scott Fowler.  Peter Smida playing the Man in Natus was everything from hilarious to hysterical.  “Where is the party?”  This line was  repeated through the dance in an almost Kafkesque way. The dancers moved rhythmically to a mixture of drums and words. The amazing set of distorted mirrors and burlesque lighting created a truly special space.
As the curtain closed, the audience burst forth in shouts of Bravo.  The cast bowed again and again as the standing ovation crescendoed.  What a truly culturally rich evening of unforgettable performances.  

Ballet BC No.29

Ballet BC has again out done itself in originality.   Choreographer Jacopo Godani’s A.U.R.A (Anarchist Unit Related to Art) was minimalist futuristic and almost birdlike inhuman. Movements and forms taken on by the dancers seemed nearly impossible as they flocked together then separated in pas de deux, retreat, primitive war like stances mixed with the elegant and otherworldly.  Truly explosive. The company of dancers were spectacular.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” my ballet loving friend John said during the intermission.   The music was 48nord.
White Act, a world premiere, choreographed by Fernando Hernando Magadan with music of Schubert arr. Mahler: 1st movement, Quartet #14 in d minor of Death and the Maiden, and Urmas Sisask was such a sweet work utterly different in style from the first.  Lovely white attired female dancers on point floated across the stage  while men dressed in what might have been prison grey writhed about them reaching out for the ephemeral. Sometimes they almost came together, the white clad ladies leaving the tradition for the modern.   This contrast of traditional and modern was incredible. The set design was a beautiful black and white photo of a wood land trail. A dancer  entered the art while mist poured across the stage.  It was magical. Gilbert Small, Perter Smida, Connor Gnam, Livona Ellis,Kirsten Wicklund,  Alexis Fletcher were for me, personally especially interpretative.  But the whole company was enchanting.
An Instant with choreography by Lesley Telford and music by Michael Gordon was again, so different and catching.  Rachel Meyer and Christopher von Riedeman held my eye.  Yet again the whole company was in the sync and flow of this unusually expressive surprising collective. The music and dance was hauntingly coupled with stark poetry.
I don’t know where the time went.  Emily Molnar, Artistic Director was announcing the evening’s ballets,  telling us of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet ’s Nutcracker at  Christmas , then it seemed we were all standing as the curtain rose after the final act.  The applause was resounding as the company took bow after bow and  and shouts of bravo rang out through the Queen E.
I had been a long day at the end of a very long week of clinic.  I’d feared I’d be too tired to stay awake.  Applauding, I felt alive in a way only the most finest  art can make one feel.  I was there with four friends.  We all were beaming.  Something special had transpired.  We’d been touched by the precious and magnificent. Such is the grace of dance.
outstanding and so rewarding evening.  

Ballet BC and Turning Point Ensemble -Grace Symmetry

There is something truly special about “live” dance and “live” music performed together. Tonight’s evening of Ballet BC and Turning Point Ensemble went even further, composing pieces together as a lyricist and melody writer might work; the resulting accomplishment a thing of complexity and beauty beyond imaginable.  So strange yet familiar.
This was truly avante garde. I lost track of where I was geographically. At times the work and dancers seemed even alien. It was as if I was watching and listening to a culture somehow different and distant from my own. Then there would be the recognition. The music and dance would  seem vaguely New York,  Chicago, LA, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong or London. But then a rift and a special motion of bodies  would definitely  anchor the work spiritually  here on the west coast.
Some phrase of Turning Point Ensemble music and of course the exquisite dancers of the Ballet BC would bring me back from the ethereal to the familiar space of the elegant Queen Elizabeth.
At intermission the awestruck audience funnelled out into the foyer.  Ballet goers are the most fashionable of folk. People watching is always platinum.  Tonight the Turning Point Ensemble following added a studied, perhaps cerebral,  look  to the normal relaxed sensual sophistication of ballet goers.
We returned to our seats and the performance continued with all the familiar faces of Ballet BC. The  I know them. I enjoyed them, individual interpretations of the highly different but similar bodies, amidst the rifts and crescendos of Turning Point Ensemble music.  For moments an individual dancer would flails about in  chaotic impossible patterns of neurological disconnection then suddenly be joined by the synchronistic pattern of the whole troupe flocking as if one, like human birds connected subliminally.   The constant theme of separation and togetherness over and over repeating like an old time preacher’s, I was lost and  I was found.  The Grace of symmetry, the discordant becoming harmonious.  Individuals finding each other, groups forming and parting, all to  the celebration of Turning Point Ensembles chamber orchestral music..
What a wonderful night. I felt my mind stretched and my senses broadened.  In Motion was composed by Wen Wei Wang, music by Owen Underhil, with stunning duet by Rachel Meyer and Alexander Burton.  Alexia Fletcher’s solo was a piece de resistance. The later duet by Gilbert Small and Peter Smida was so revealingly sensitive.  I loved the dance of these two powerful men.  The troupe together were fabulous.
Prelude was choreographed by Medhi Walerski with music by Lera Auerbach with a special duet by Rachel Meyer and Daren Devaney.  Rachel Meyer is so utterly versatile. Each time I see her I love her dance that much more. Again the troupe was fabulous.  Medhi Wallerski said, “Prelude is an echo of what the idea of time provokes in my imagination."
Here on End, a world premiere by Kevin O’Day, music, “time vectors/still points’” by John King, was perhaps my favourite. It needs to be experienced to be understood. The dancers were amazing.
It was all great. The dancers and musicians deserved the standing ovation. The collaboration with Turning Point Ensemble was truly inspired. Thank you Emily Molnar for another magnificent evening.
 

Ballet BC - Walking Mad

Another night at the Ballet BC! Three works: Walking Mad, a Canadian Premiere, by Johan Inger; Vitulaire, a World Premiere by Aszure Barton and 'between disappearing and becoming' a world premiere by Emily Molnar.  Emily Molnar, the Artistic Director of Ballet BC opened the night at Queen Elizabeth Theatre with enthusiasm and welcome.
"between disappearing and becoming'  was stark in blacks, whites and greys. The music was Hildur Gudnadottir. . The female dancers in black body suits and  ballet slippers on point moved like Swan Lake classics  in contrast to bare chested  men in suits powerfully striding.   The dance was an astonishing repetoire of unique moves, flowing and cascading across the stage.  The dance of the women captivated me most as they wove their bodies  in intricate tales of relational beauty.  The applause at curtain fall filled the theatre.
Vitulaire  show cased the music of Socalled, Stephen Hatfield, Brooklyn Rider, Dachev, Topferova and Tsvetkova. This was primal dance with folk roots and colourful gypsy costume.  What a joy to see Makailla Wallace and Alexis Fletcher dancing on stage together, two extraordinarily accomplished dancers whose every movement evokes music and rythmn! I loved the uplifting beat of this dance as the whole troop became tribal with irony. Guest artist Darren Devaney's gymnastic dance set a breakneck pace.   At intermission the audience seemed ready themselves to break out.  The applause was resounding.
Walking Mad with music from Ravel's  Bolero and Fur Alina was a thorough delight. Using a four doored folding wall as prop the dancers passed in and out of doors in party hats and bowlers careening  and carousing,  Gilbert Small,  Rachel Meyer,  Alyson Fretz and Maggie Forgerson individually danced with charm and grace amidst the departures and admissions.  So moved was the audience that the curtains fall brought the house to a standing ovation with calls of celebration as dancers bowed again and again and again.
The house was all but sold out.   Revitalized we left the theatre glad we'd braved the dark and cold rain.  Bliss,by Jose Navas,  the last Ballet BC performance of the season is May 10 to 12, when Vancouver's weather is made for a night on the town.