A TRIUMPH IN DANCE
IDR program thrills in Banff
The past weekend’s Indigenous Dance Residency (IDR) scored yet another triumph at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Transformations, the latest brainchild recital program from artistic director Sandra Laronde and especially internationally acclaimed choreographer Taane Mete, grabbed its audience and wouldn’t let go through two sold-out performances at the Margaret Greenham Theatre.
Indigenous Dance is a rare program, a one-of-a-kind in the world. Where else can you find a well-rounded training program that offers a three-week intensive to young indigenous dancers from all over the world? And for nearly all of the participant dancers, this was their first time here, but they all danced fearlessly, showing themselves to be the epitome of selfless artistic expression, giving to rapt audiences eager to learn of the many indigenous dance traditions the world has to offer.
Last year’s spectacular Backbone, an epic cultural tour of the Rocky Mountain transcontinental range stretching down the Americas, was a stunning success. This year’s show was different in nature but, as always, IDR offered a tight, cohesive series of metaphors on the theme of personal transformation, spun into loosely fitted, lucid narrative dance in 10 mostly exquisite panels for seven superb dancers.
The collaborative efforts included those of versatile lead choreographer Taane Mete, whose four choreographies included a stunning panel titled Marsupial — my favourite — and also Jera Wolfe, a remarkable dancer who contributed two fine choreographies. The program was rounded out by works from newcomers Nancy Jo Wijohn, Nadia Martich and David BiondiOdo, all of whom stamped their individual experiences describing personal metamorphosis into their flowing movements. Each dance bore its unique imprimatur of embryonic emergence — a subtle statement at once indigenous as it was individual and, as a result, entirely original in artistic expression.
But never did the remarkable stories of personal transformation, unique to each culture — whether Maori, Metis or Tjapukai (Australian) — seem conflated or contrived. The 10-chapter story formed a seamless narrative, flowing from birth, when the ensemble disgorged via a lighted vent upstage centre, to various stages of emergence and, of course, transformation.
There were so many highlights in both presentations. Jera Wolfe’s and Bianca Hyslop’s mutually influential love duet Hireath was revealing and poetic — Wolfe’s choreographic masterpiece set in the intimate miniature genre blended spontaneity with unending rhythmic flow.
For purest storytelling power, look no further than David Biondi-Odo’s Unspoken, a great piece of considerable rhythmic, subtle power. Making use of projection, first of Biondi-Odo’s arm then of his upper body, the smallest micromovements of hand and figure took on expressive, almost shamanistic power to transform being into many emotive states. Eloquent and experienced, it was a shockingly mature piece from someone who has been dancing for only two years. What a promising, creative future he has.
But it was Nancy Jo Wijohn’s tear-inducing Friday night performance of her own choreography Letters of the Land that struck most decisively. Watching her as she simulated giving birth, using emblematic imagery of Western cultural oppression endured by indigenous cultures throughout the world, was as much tragic as it was sublime. Entering with a piano bench perfectly balanced on her back to a maddening Philip Glass perpetuo mobile, Wijohn was spellbinding to watch, showing the birthing of individual, land and culture with a tremendous sense of personal conviction.
Wijohn’s dancing is constantly imbued with a divinely inspired grace we rarely get to see in a performer trained in multiple movement styles. In the paradoxically warlike, but mesmerizingly healing second panel, Waerea (Taane Mete’s first choreography of the program), Wijohn demonstrated her athletic side, a strong, Maori martial art patu movement of eloquent grace, the perfect embodiment of the feminine warrior wielding a purerehua — a hypnotically whirring, lasso-like wind instrument that could seemingly hurt or heal at the same time — a completely brilliant narrative and a total epiphany.
But the eighth panel Marsupial by Taane Mete said it all. Set to a perfect score by New Zealand composer Victoria Kelly and cast in enviably crafted lighting by Andy Moro, dancing pair Graham Kotowich and David Biondi-Odo offered perfect transformative image of the night — dependency of child on a parent.
As I watched one dancer hang underside the other entering from stage left, the striking visual movements of both dancers left a lasting impression.
The most socially transformative relationship that means the most to us is that of a culture lived by transmission from parent and elder to child and student, and subsequently, as shown here, art and dance transmitted from performer to audience. Taane Mete teaches us that all our best and most transformative relationships are like those of dependent marsupials, enpouched by our traditions that extend back into the hazy mists of beginningless time.