Alberta Ballet
— which is currently staging an original production titled All of Us — is among the Calgary arts groups struggling to make ends meet. The ballet is inspired by The Tragically Hip’s music and is being performed in Calgary this weekend, and in Edmonton next weekend.
If you’re Canadian it’s hard not to be touched by the songs of The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie’s unmistakable voice.
When he left us, I think we all knew we’d never forget him and what The Hip has done for us and continues to do for all of us. The band’s music is so iconic and essential to the Canadian music scene.
And now, Alberta Ballet’s artistic director Jean Grand-Maître has enshrined The Hip with a new work, All of Us, set only in the strongest images ranging from pure beauty to darkest brutality, backed by 20 songs taken from the band’s notably varied creative history.
Grand-Maître has created a worthy tribute to Canada’s archetypal musicians, a powerful post-Apocalyptic story with tremendous kinetic, balletic power suitably matched to The Hip’s legendary energetic performances and uniquely powerful songs.
In sort, All of Us is the most elemental dance set to the most elemental music Canadians have ever known.
This is by far Grand-Maitre’s best popular ballet and his trusty production team has outdone itself on a variety of levels. All of Us is not only an excellent narrative ballet with a transparent and lucid story, even if you do not read the program notes, it contains far and away my favourite lighting design by Pierre Lavoie and projection design by Adam Larsen for any Alberta Ballet show I have ever seen.
With a set that looks like a flattened map of Western Canada cast in futuristic distortion (Mark Eugster) and splendid costume designs to match (Anne- Séguin Poirier) there is so much well-considered, good art jammed into this production that you need to go more than once to appreciate it all.
Add to all of that seven designers, including weapons, props, martial arts and fight consultants (Dan Plumtree, Frank Gallant, Laryssa Yanchek) and four indispensable production, costume and stagecraft partners (Marco Simonelli, Andrea Brussa, Carol Adamson, Gerard McInnis), plus individual song sponsors and the ballet we saw was exactly the one envisioned by the production team from the beginning — a remarkable show of community arts support to pull off this oneof-a-kind production.
All of Us tells the story of a post-nuclear holocaust wilderness confrontation between two rival gangs, partially cast in the Mad Max mode but without the rat rods, in a classic good-and-evil mould. One gang is internecine and self-indulgent (Clan of Hannibal) and the other benevolent and life-affirming (Clan of Hadrien).
The ballet matches music and words to dance with unerring artistic accuracy throughout the performance. Even in this destroyed world, the best elements of humanity, such as love and group bonding, shine through in beautiful duets, rhapsodic solos, symmetrical passage work and stamina-defying energy — all to show that even in the worst of times, we overcome our worst tendencies.
It doesn’t take long to settle in after the opening ’s shrieking destruction of the world (Man Machine Poem) with a lyrical back-and-forth between young lovers John Canfield (Abraham) and Luna Sasaki (Cordelia) against The Hip’s acoustically warm Scared. A second duet immediately follows in different technique to As I Wind Down the Pines, danced eloquently by Hayna Gutierrez (Anna) and Garrett Groat (Hadrien).
But as the ballet develops, darkness invades and the clan of Hannibal is shown in its depraved rawness (So Hard Done By, Little Bones, Vapour Trails) and the broadly drawn oppositions between the two groups are masterful at all levels of the production, hewing to clear oppositions of good versus evil, acoustic versus electric, light versus dark.
The dancing is often overwhelmingly powerful and so abundantly energetic, it makes one wonder where they are getting their stamina. This is one of the most demanding, technically difficult, detailed choreography in company history. It expects so much of the ensembles, I was often in awe and disbelief at their technical proficiency and abilities, whether in solo work such as Yoshiya Sakurai’s beautiful Wheat Kings or the second act’s It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken with Heather Thomas and Luna Sasaki. There are literally a dozen other fabulous moments to mention.
Grand-Maître has created the ideal sweeping dance epic to match The Hip’s epochal music that truly represents All of Us.
All of Us will be performed at the Jubilee Auditorium today at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.