The show will go on — in silence — says dance icon
Montreal dance icon Margie Gillis has been performing to Leonard Cohen songs for 40 years, but on Wednesday she abruptly learned that her show, Legacy Project, to be held at Place des Arts in less than two weeks cannot legally include Cohen’s song Blue, the music to one of her best-known solos.
Gillis was shocked to hear that Montreal’s globe-trotting troupe BJM (Ballets Jazz de Montréal) had bought the exclusive rights to Cohen’s music for all dance and circus performances for the next five years. It was a blow not only to Gillis but to dancer Susan Paulson, slated to perform Blue in the Legacy show after rehearsing for many months.
Gillis came up with a typically creative solution.
“I called Suzie last night and asked would she do it in silence,” Gillis said Friday.
The silent piece, which retains the choreography to Blue, will be renamed Presence of Absence for the performances on March 6 and 7 in the Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts. The seven dancers in Legacy will be performing other solos from Gillis’s repertory. They will do a short group piece that will shift straight into Paulson’s silent solo. Gillis is still deciding where to place the piece in the show. There will be no explanation for the music’s absence.
“We want the artistic work to stand on its own. Whether you know it or don’t know it, it doesn’t matter.”
Gillis said she harbours no grudges against BJM and that her use of the silent solo is not a protest. She fully intends to be at the première of an 80-minute Cohen homage, Dance Me, that BJM will present at Place des Arts in December.
In fact, Gillis praised BJM’s executive director, Ginette Gaulin, for lending a sympathetic ear, and going out of her way to see what could be done in the case of Legacy.
“I know she sympathizes and feels badly and cares, and it’s not her desire to stop anybody’s artistry,” Gillis said. “Theatres want exclusivity. Nobody’s out to get anybody.”
BJM began negotiating with rights holders Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Sonic Music Entertainment Canada and Old Ideas LLC in 2015, after its application for a Cohen show was accepted as an affiliated project as part of Montreal’s 375th birthday celebrations. The rights cover use of Cohen’s name and image, his visual and literary works and the original master recordings of his voice for five years. “The show is based on Mr. Cohen’s artistic vision, the circle of life in five seasons,” Gaulin
said when asked about the deal. “To do that, we needed to have all the songs available.”
With three choreographers creating the evening-length work, multimedia effects and even some circus elements, Gaulin estimated that costs would be double or triple the cost of the troupe’s usual shows.
“It costs a lot to produce so we
need financial and theatre partners. It’s a huge risk for BJM, so we needed to be sure that nobody else makes a show for the same market. It’s really unfortunate for Margie that we are at the same place in the same year.” Gaulin said, however, that rights might be granted to dance companies if there are no booking conflicts.
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, for example, recently announced its own Cohen homage for June 2018. Although Cohen songs will be sung by a choir and dances will be performed only to non-Cohen music as part of the ballet, Gaulin cautioned that Les Grands might still run into legal challenges.