Dance series wants to deliver, right on time
You can expect ‘The Nutcracker,’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ when you want them
In a hard sell market it’s best to offer populist productions.
Just ask Tammy Fox, executive director of Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
“If you give people things that are accessible and familiar you’re on the right track,” she says. “It’s about offering a comfort zone. Last year, we tried a number of small dance companies in our smaller space. People were afraid to commit to them. We had better success with traditional ballet and contemporary dance shows. For many people it’s about having a strong story line.
“Because we’re still building an audience for dance here, it’s important we present the right thing at the right time. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for instance for Valentine’s Day. ‘The Nutcracker,’ at Christmas.”
Fox is right. This year, BPAC is offering a dream program of populist productions to satisfy dance connoisseurs and novices alike.
“And we’ve kept prices low. We want to get people into the theatre. We know if people come to dance once they’ll come back again.”
The season opens Friday with Citadel and Compagnie Dance Company’s salute to Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. “Looking for Elvis” and “The Man in Black” is a terrific double bill that pays tribute to two popular vocal icons.
Choreographer James Kudelka’s, “The Man in Black” is a stunning work, set to Johnny Cash recordings. Four dancers in western garb suggest the grit and seduction of Cash’s smokyvoice.
Kudelka’s choreography, reflects the energy, raunch and sexy nature of Cash’s husky voice. The movement is married brilliantly to the music, and offers rueful melancholy about it. The dance alternates between a bittersweet melancholy and strutting panache. The dancers click those handsome cowboy boots and as they stretch out into space they suggest a form of strutting panache that lifts your spirits, even as it breaks your heart.
Far from a Cash tribute piece, this dance cycle of songs strikes at the very essence of what makes Cash’s singing so heartfelt. Easily one of Kudelka’s best ballets, this work takes something elusively simple and makes it remarkably profound.
“The Man in Black” is better than any vocal tribute show because it uses Cash’s own voice and marries it with Kudelka’s evocative movement ethos to connect with the very essence of Johnny Cash’s slow-burning wail.
Paired with this Cash celebration is a moving look at the way another amazing celebrity affected our lives. Anyone who lived through those Elvis Presley “Hound Dog” days and the tender caress of “Love Me Tender” will find nostalgia in “Looking for Elvis.”
Choreographed by Laurence Lemieux, this work goes beyond Elvis Aaron Presley’s stage image to unlock the secrets of a man who sold millions of records, broke dozens of hearts and had more ants in his pants than a whole generation of less-libido conscious singers.
Elvis seduced an entire era with his sexy voice and physical image, yet he died an overweight, puffy husk of a man, a victim of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The Elvis mystique is captured perfectly in this raunchy dance piece that suggests the man’s towering fame contrasted with his ultimate self-destruction.
This is dance for everybody. It may be rooted in contemporary dance vocabulary and fused with a classical idiom, but it’s accessible and moving, unleashing nostalgia and offering contemporary insights into two excoriating performers.
Don’t miss it. It’s at BPAC Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. Tickets $49.50 Members $44.50. All in pricing.
Leonard Cohen, Canada’s poet, songwriter and evocative teller of romantic tales is lionized in “Dance Me,” Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal’s sellout tribute to an artist who found poetry in every note he sang.
Three choreographers, Andonis Fondiakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Ihsan Rusten, pay tribute to15 of Cohen’s passionate songs, from “Hallelujah” to “So Long, Marianne.” The dance style here is hot and physical, with legs splayed out, arms sawing the air, bodies melting against each other, then turning away to roam free in space.
This is athleticism set against the ravishing vocal imagery of Cohen’s greatest songs. It’s washed in painterly lighting, given depth from stunning video and shot out of the ordinary mould by the wild, free spirits of Ballets Jazz’s astounding dancers.
Let’s call it dance artistry that connects on a prime and primitive level.
“Dance Me “explodes onstage at BPAC for one night only, Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. $69.50. Members $64.50. All in pricing.
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre brings Santee Smith’s powerful story “The Mush Hole” about the lives of Mohawk Institute Residential School students to the BPAC stage. Following the lives of two generations of survivors, this dance drama is an emotional account that offers devastating truths about a shameful period in Canadian history. It plays BPAC Thursday March 5 at 7:30 p.m. $49.50, youth $35, and members $44.50.
If classical ballet is your thing there are two opportunities to celebrate tutus and toe-shoes when The National Ballet Theatre of Odessa presents the traditional Christmas ballet “The Nutcracker” Dec. 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. with a matinee Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. $69.50, youth $35, members $64.50.
Returning on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. the folks from Odessa bring their romantic version of “Romeo and Juliet,” set to music by Prokofiev. The pricing is the same as “The Nutcracker.” Be aware the Odessa Ballet performances are to recorded music, not a live orchestra.
Taken together, or separately, these traditional performances offer local audiences a chance to avoid trips to Toronto to see classical dance,” Tammy Fox says, “‘With these five dance performances we feel we have something for everyone.” Amen to that.
Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for 40 years.