LES GRANDS BALLETS STEPS BACK INTO LIVE PERFORMANCE AT LAST
Echoes features duets, large-scale creation in first indoor show since pandemic hit
Dance — that most full-bodycontact of art forms — launches back into live in-person performance mode this month as Les Grands Ballets presents Echoes (Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts, April 21 to 25), a mixed 70-minute program curated by artistic director Ivan Cavallari.
The vast size of the auditorium — almost 1,500 seats — means 250 spectators can be safely distanced per show, while the reactivated 8 p.m. curfew means evening performance times have been shifted to 5:30 p.m. from Wednesday to Friday, with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday.
The pieces range from duets to a large-scale creation featuring 32 dancers. This last, Requiem (excerpt — 6th movement), has been choreographed by Andrew Skeels and is part of a larger piece Skeels created during the pandemic; it is slated for a full performance, with live orchestra and 45 dancers, next year. It's based on A German Requiem, the achingly emotional work Brahms composed while reeling from the death of his mother. Skeels was drawn to it, he tells the Montreal Gazette by phone, after losing a close friend and mentor of 25 years to the pandemic.
Yet despite the shared pain of the last year, which the piece will no doubt evoke, the excerpt chosen for Echoes is more attuned to the promise of brighter days ahead.
“The sixth movement is really the climax of the piece,” says Skeels. “It's really where we see the shift in mood. We go from a sense of mourning and grief to a sense of exultation and of hope.”
Skeels, an increasingly in-demand choreographer, was about to make his Grands Ballets debut last year with Vessel, one of the pieces that made up the triptych Luna. Of course, the pandemic stopped that show, but there are plans for its première in 2022. (Skeels is also keeping his fingers crossed for Cirque du Soleil's postponed Disney collaboration Drawn to Life, which he co-choreographed. The opening date for its Orlando residency has yet to be confirmed.)
Echoes will be Les Grands Ballets' first live indoor show since Dancing Beethoven in February 2020, but the company has remained busy within the limits set by the pandemic. During the brief hiatus in the lockdown last June, Les Grands reopened their studios for the dancers' daily classes and, once forced back into isolation, shared their training sessions on social media.
Other ways in which they've kept in contact with the public included regular Zoom classes; a Christmas screening of a previous production of The Nutcracker on ICI Radio-canada Télé; a regular weekly broadcast called At Home With Les Grands Ballets featuring several new works; and a surprise open-air performance on the Esplanade of Place des Arts in August, which included some of the pieces making up Echoes.
ECHOES: THE FULL PROGRAM
Requiem (excerpt — 6th movement) by Andrew Skeels (see above)
Fête Sauvage, Volume 1, a new experimental piece from Cas Public's Hélène Blackburn, featuring four couples and set to the music of her frequent collaborators, the Montreal-based group Dear Criminals.
Also featuring four couples is Majísimo, a celebratory piece from Cuban choreographer Jorge García that draws on Spanish classical dance.
The famous Talisman Pas de Deux as developed by Pyotr Gusev from Le Talisman, Marius Petipa's ballet about ancient India.
Blushing, by Peter Quanz, director of Winnipeg 's Q Dance. This delicate duet about first love was featured in Les Grands Ballets' Soirée des Étoiles in 2019.
Solace, which was originally created for Bolshoi prima ballerina Olga Smirnova by Garrett Smith, one of the two choreographers behind last year's Dancing Beethoven.
An excerpt from Marcia Haydée's groundbreaking Sleeping Beauty, which sees the wicked fairy godmother played by a man.
Asaf Messerer's two-minute pas de deux Spring Waters, which was originally created to showcase the acrobatic superiority of Soviet ballet and is now a gala favourite.
As Les Grands Ballets open up their doors, the city's dance scene is gathering apace with a mix of in-person and online events.
At La Chapelle (3700 St-dominique St.), Bright Worms plays live from April 26 to 30. The show sees Louise Michel Jackson performing to Magali Babin's sound installation, conjuring a sci-fi world of luminescent creatures.
From April 21 to 23, there's another chance to catch The Bakery's livestream show Skin, a vivid mix of dance, theatre and cinema first co-presented by La Chapelle and Centaur Theatre during January's Wildside Festival.
Call 514-843-7738 or visit lachapelle.org.
Over at the Wilder Building (1435 Bleury St.), Agora de la Danse is presenting several shows for in-person audiences. Jacques Poulin-denis's Punch Line, playing live to April 30 (and webcast from April 23 to 30), combines mostly French spoken word and dance in an explosive mix of the kitsch and the confessional.
Estelle Clareton's Bouleversement, playing live from April 28 to May 1 (and webcast May 7 to 14), is a last-chance dance in the face of impending disaster performed by Esther Rousseau-morin.
On the Matter of Flowers, playing in person from May 4 to 8 (webcast May 14 to 21), sees reallife couple Daphnée Laurendeau and Danny Morissette fusing four styles into one whole.
Catherine Gaudet's Se Dissoudre, playing from May 11 to 15, explores what remains when everything is on hold.
Call 514-525-1500 or visit agoradanse.com.
Also playing live at the Wilder Building is a Tangente Danse double bill (to April 18) consisting of Étude sur la pénombre, in which Hugo Dalphond teases audiences with the barely seen, and Soie, a solo piece from Hélène Messier that draws on art modelling and butoh dance theatre.
Tangente is presenting two virtual shows: Polymorphic Microbe Bodies (webcast April 24 to May 2), which uses greenscreen techniques to people the human form with choreographed invaders; and Bones & Wires (webcast May 8 to 16), which has two simultaneous solos exploring family, memory and overreliance on technology. Call 514-525-1500 or visit tangentedanse.ca.
Finally, Van Grimde Corps Secrets presents the virtual exhibition Embodiment 2, which draws on the company's ambitious project Eve 2050, a combination of dance, cinematography and scientific research. It continues through May 8.
Visit vangrimdecorpssecrets. com.