GET READY FOR BALLETLUJAH!
Songbird k.d. lang becomes newest muse for Alberta Ballet
Alberta Ballet’s Jean Grand-maitre wants a huge splash to celebrate his 10th season as company artistic director, so he’s pulling out the stops to make sure he gets it.
Did someone say “k.d. lang?” You heard right.
Lang, Alberta’s claim to fame on the world music circuit, will be guest muse for Balletlujah!, a brandnew Grand-maitre ballet set to bear fruit next May.
The news was announced at the season launch on Thursday. The renowned singer from Consort follows in the footsteps (so to speak) of three previous Grand-maitre big-time collaborators: Joni Mitchell, Sir Elton John and last season, Sarah Mclachlan.
Grand-maitre recalls lang’s performance at the Alberta’s own k.d. lang, seen here at last summer’s Calgary Folk Music Festival, is partnering with Alberta Ballet. Vancouver Winter Olympics opening ceremonies — which he choreographed — as spectacular.
“K.d. waltzed in that morning and blew the roof off the stadium, because she’s just that extraordinary,” he says, laughing. “I said to her, ‘We worked two years on that show and you stole it.’ ”
After sending lang’s manager the media and video kits for The Fiddle & The Drum, Love Lies Bleeding and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy ballets, Grand-maitre flew down to L.A. to confer with the singer-songwriter about her music and her life’s journey.
The choreographer sees lang’s degree of involvement in the project as closer to that of Mclachlan than to either of the other musical artists.
“We talked a lot about how her artistic and spiritual vision of life (lang is a practising Buddhist) was very much inspired by the Canadian Prairies — about how her music and her voice seem to have been shaped by the landscape here,” Grand-maitre says.
“She agreed with that — and so I decided to set the ballet in the Prairies.”
The work is taking shape as a series of “probably surrealistic plays and sketches — some funny, and some, I hope, emotionally beautiful and romantic,” the choreographer adds.
It’s not the first time the Angel with a Lariat’s work has inspired Alberta Ballet. In October 1994, the company premiered Lifted by Love, a 25-minute ballet it commissioned from New York choreographer Peter Pucci that featured seven of lang’s songs.
The rest of the 2012/2013 Alberta Ballet lineup is a real blockbuster, too, featuring a dance card that ranges from reprises of GrandMaitre’s very popular Mozart Requiem and Kirk Peterson’s critically praised Othello, to works by Balanchine and Twyla Tharp, and a Diary of Anne Frank-inspired dance drama by Laura Gorenstein Miller and her Los Angeles-based Helios Dance Theater.
Of particular note is the engagement of the Calgary Philharmonic for three performance runs, as well as creating a 47-week season of employment for the Alberta Ballet dancers, “which is the longest in the history of the company,” Grand-maitre says. Here’s how the season unfolds: Great Masterpieces of the 20th Century, consisting of Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15 and The Four Temperaments — to music by Mozart and Paul Hindemith, respectively, played live by the Calgary Philharmonic. The program concludes with living American dance legend Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, with a commissioned score by Philip Glass (Sept. 13 to 15). Says Grand-maitre, “In the Upper Room is an amazing work. A big romp and one helluva stamina challenge for the dancers.”
Othello by Kirk Peterson, who choreographed The Sleeping Beauty and last week’s wonderful Swan Lake for Alberta Ballet. Othello was nominated for a Benois de la Danse in Moscow (Oct. 18 to 20).
The Nutcracker (Dec. 20 to 24). The perennial favourite is so popular, Grand-maitre says, “that we’re going back to the National Arts Centre for the second time with it.”
About Anne: A Diary in Dance, inspired by Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl; and The Lotus Eaters, both choreographed by the L.a.-based creator of multimedia dance, Laura Gorenstein Miller, and performed by her company, Helios Dance Theater (Feb. 21 to 23, 2013).
Grand-maitre’s popular Mozart Requiem, revisited. “I wanted to connect it to events that are happening now,” the choreographer says. Joining it on the program is a new work, Pomp Without Circumstance, by principal Alberta Ballet dancer, Yukichi Hattori (March 21 to 23, 2013).
Balletlujah!, the k.d. lang-jean Grand-maitre collaboration (May 9 to 11, 2013).