HUMAN STEPS’ DANCE IS OVER
Édouard Lock ends troupe’s run
When it came down to it, the end of La La La Human Steps arrived not with the explosive bang that characterized the works of this world-famous Montreal dance company since its founding in 1980, but in a slow fade.
Grim-faced but stoic, founder and choreographer Édouard Lock announced the company’s closing at a Montreal news conference on Wednesday and in a touching letter of gratitude on the company’s website. If La La La Human Steps’ demise is not comparable to the gap left by the Expos in local sports — there are other major dance companies in town, after all — it nonetheless means the loss of an organism that for decades helped define Montreal’s cultural identity, particularly abroad.
The reason for the end, Lock explained, was mainly financial. Although for a long time he would successfully create and tour a single work for some two years, it proved unsustainable in his latest venture.
“Our budget framework ran into a perfect storm,” he told reporters at the Phi Centre in Old Montreal, with former company members in attendance. “The most expensive item was paying 11 dancers’ salaries over 52 weeks for three years. The fall of the euro made less profit for European theatres. We couldn’t get producers to commit to dates two years from now. Our debt became too much to support the company’s (creation and touring) structure. Finally, I reached a point of no return.”
Cathy Levy, dance programming director at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, which has helped coproduce La La La Human Steps’ works, noted in a phone interview that most of the company’s co-production money came from Europe.
Lock was adamant that he didn’t want to get into a “holding pattern” where there was not enough money to move forward.
“Our mandate as an arts organization is not simply to survive, but to create. Its function in society is to create. The only thing that justifies the money that we get is putting out work that counts.”
According to Hélène Blackburn, a veteran Montreal choreographer who lobbied on Lock’s behalf during the past two years before various government arts funding organizations, the company was unable to raise about half of its $1.5-million budget. To raise funds, Lock repeatedly mortgaged his house before finally selling it. Refusing to go into bankruptcy protection, he has preferred to deal directly with creditors.
There were signs of trouble after La La La Human Steps’ last creation, New Work, was shown here in 2013. Nothing was created for the company since then, veteran Human Steps dancers were left in limbo, the company’s studio above the Rialto Theatre became a tango dance hall, and Lock himself began working as guest choreographer abroad. Nonetheless, as recently as two months ago, a company notice went out seeking dancers.
“There were dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet who were interested to join,” said Lock, who has choreographed more than once for the celebrated French company.
So Wednesday’s announcement caught the dance world by surprise.
“Here Goes My Heart — it was the opening song of our (1985) show Human Sex. It says what I feel now,” said Louise Lecavalier, Lock’s longtime muse and star dancer, whose vibrant, energetic stage persona helped the company radically change the perception of the female dancer in the 1980s.
“I’m sad for Édouard, and I’m sadder now than I was when I left the company, because the company still continued and did new things. That’s why I feel my heart breaking in a strange way.”
With Lecavalier and his troupe, Lock blazed trails, touring with David Bowie in 1990, working with Frank Zappa, and staging the choreography for Rameau’s 18thcentury opera Les Boréades at the Palais Garnier in Paris in 2003. Along the way, Lock garnered a slew of major cultural awards, including the Benois de la Danse and the Order of Canada.
“I found out about the closing from Édouard last Sunday. My reaction was sadness,” said Zofia Tujaka, who danced with the company for 15 years. “It’s such a big part of Montreal’s cultural history.”
Lock is now pondering the future, which may not involve living in Montreal.
“I’m there to create. Many companies
Our debt became too much to support the company’s (creation and touring) structure. ÉDOUARD LOCK
have asked me to create for them in the past two years. In the past year alone, I made five new creations out of frustration, just to keep active.”
One of those creations, The Seasons, for Brazil’s São Paulo Companhia de Dança, will be seen at Place des Arts in April under the Danse-Danse series. But for someone who worked with performers for years to dance his uniquely quicksilver style, Lock does not savour the fly-in-and-out approach to creation.
“The choreographer comes in as a guest, leaves, and what happens to the work after, who knows? You can’t do in two months what you do in six.”
Whatever Lock does or wherever he goes, it is virtually certain that his faster-than-the-eye choreography will never again have the sheen that La La La Human Steps brought to it through months of rehearsals and tours.
“We’ve heard from lots of audience members saddened because they won’t be seeing Lock’s company again,” said Levy. “It’s a huge loss. He really put Montreal and Canada on the international scene.”