DJD presents star-crossed lovers with a twist
It’s become a handy tag line.
“Shakespeare like you’ve never seen before,” or some variation of the idea, has almost become a genre unto itself.
In reality, there’s not much we haven’t seen before. So how does a company go about reimagining the Bard’s most famous tragedy?
“I always looked at this as the same way someone would do a concept album about a story, where there is fragments and style differences,” says Cory Bowles, the actor, choreographer and dancer who took on the daunting task of rewriting Romeo and Juliet for Decidedly Jazz Danceworks’ new production. “It’s flipping it on its head, sampling things, using stuff from the original play. It’s trying to make a completely different adaptation. We are sampling, we are keeping some things, we are playing with what-ifs in the show as well.”
For its second production in its new home at the DJD Dance Centre on 12th Avenue S.W., the dance company has rechristened Shakespeare’s play as Juliet & Romeo. The twist should give some idea of the direction this adaptation will take. Bowles — yep, it’s the same guy who plays dopey Cory on Trailer Park Boys — will narrate as DJD’s nine dancers tell a variation of the Bard’s tale of feuding families and doomed young love.
“I flipped the names of the title just because I wanted people to come expecting something different,” says Kimberley Cooper, DJD’s artistic director who choreographed the production. “Also, both Cory and I felt that Juliet was the more interesting character. So we wanted to explore her journey a little bit more than other people do. She’s the only character that really changes.”
“She’s a character that really makes things happen,” Bowles adds. “She forces a lot of change. A lot of times people look this character and say ‘Oh, she’s blinded with love’ or ‘She made these choices because she is sick with love.’ She is actually quite defiant and stood up against a pretty domineering system. It’s pretty inspiring and it’s really interesting.”
Bowles danced with Cooper when both were part of DJD back in the early 2000s, which has resulted in a comfortable, long-standing artistic partnership between the two.
“We’re both not very precious about things,” Cooper says. “We’ll be like ‘ Yeah, we can pitch that in the river, I don’t care about that.’ Sometimes Cory will surprise me and say: ‘I really love that part and I don’t want to talk. It doesn’t need anything.’”
Bowles has rewritten most of the Bard’s dialogue — a speech by Queen Mab is among the only bits that remains intact — and the nine dancers embody different roles throughout the piece.
It’s all set to original music written by Toronto drummer and composer Nick Fraser and per-
formed by a jazz quartet that includes bass, violin and trombone.
What results is a lively performance of dance that is physical and at times aggressive but tells a cohesive story through movement that is both contemporary and timeless.
“Everybody is in love with love and everyone loves when love conquers and everyone loves heartbreak and everyone relates to the idea of dreaming and a perfect love,” Bowles says. “Everyone is driven by some sort of love, or some sort of need that is like a love or is mistaken for love and held up against what true love can be. It’s always a romantic story. Most romances end happy, but this one never ends happy. For some reason, it’s the beauty within the tragedy that people get drawn back to time and time again.” Questions about your subscription? Phone 403-235READ (7323) or email mysubscription @calgaryherald. com.