Thrilling movement at festival
Special to The Telegram The Festival of New Dance has shifted to the Resource Centre for the Arts, and its second and third nights presented “Solitudes Duo,” choreographed by Daniel Léveillé, and “Yellow Towel,” from Dana Michel. Both are based in Montreal.
In 2014 Léveillé Danse debuted “Solitudes Solo,” a series of works featuring five dancers.
“Solitudes Duo” is composed of, you guessed it, duets, including male and female dancers in every possible mix of pairings. “Duo,” like “Solo,” is set to music from Johann Sebastian Bach, with some rock from The Doors and The Beatles, on a bare, white-floor stage, with the dancers in spare athletic clothing.
“The costumes are minimal — really it’s minimal everything,” said Justin Gionet, one of the dancers.
Having “Solitudes Duo” appearing after “Solitudes Solo” underscores Léveillé’s process as “a very linear choreographer,” he said with a smile. A previous cycle of works included “Amour, acide et noix,” performed by four nude dancers, which was on the festival’s program a few years ago. After the most basic choreographic building block — one dancer, alone — duets are a structure that allows lifts, counterbalancing and oppositional force.
In “Duo,” their connections and alignments are strikingly muscular, and startlingly fluid. They push against and pour over each other. Sometimes they drape one over the other like clothing, or hang like an albatross.
Any such work of course requires a lot of training on the dancer’s part. Gionet said those in Montreal are lucky to have access to governmentsponsored classes, which cost as little as $5. A lot of dancers like boxing, too, although he prefers cycling; no impact and great cardio, “especially the Montreal hills. The downside is you’re cycling in the Montreal traffic. And you can only do that for eight months of the year at the most.”
Such regimens keep the dancer’s instrument of their body tuned and strong.
“In contemporary dance it’s possible to have a longer life span than ballet,” Gionet said. “To see a dancer in their 50s is not rare.”
Michel’s “Yellow Towel” is a solo. Opening with a spoken word salad that will undulate through dextrous vocabularies, and a kind of broken movement that configures an abrupt, urban poetic, she incorporates props such as white sheets, institutional glass bottles and household items. There’s a legerdemain fluidity, as befits her theme of identity politics.
There’s a pretty good turnout for this festival, but audiences for contemporary dance are not huge. People are afraid they’ll be bored, or just not get it. Even other dancers might start out watching a show with a few moments of bemused reflection.
“But after that five minutes of questioning, sometimes you’ll come to some sort of realization and that can be really thrilling,” said Gionet.
In any case, Gionet said, the dancers “love performing in St. John’s. No one is ever saying, ‘Oh no, not St. John’s!’ Everyone is friendly, it’s beautiful, and whoever’s curating this festival brings together solid work.”
Mainstage shows are at the RCA at 8 p.m. For more information about ticket sales and the festival overall, visit festivalofnewdance.ca.