DANSE DANSE PROGRAM SHINES
Series bringing in African troupe
Montreal dance fans who have come to expect high quality from Danse Danse will find much to savour in the 10- show series’ 2015- 2016 season at Place des Arts. For the first time in its 17- year history, the series is bringing in a troupe from Africa, Dance Factory Johannesburg. As well, there’s the long- anticipated new work by Montrealer Édouard Lock created for Brazil’s Sao Paulo Companhia de Dança.
Lock’s piece for 12 dancers, The Seasons, i mmediately created a buzz at its sold- out Sao Paulo première last April. Mysteriously absent from Montreal for the past couple of years, Lock was busy creating for Sweden’s Cullberg Ballet before heading south. The Seasons has Lock’s typically rapid duets and trios and strobe lighting effects. The full 24- member Brazilian troupe also performs Gnawa, a 2008 piece about Africans and Islam by Spain’s Nacho Duato, and Mamihlapina, a languorous piece by Brazil’s Jomar Mesquita. The trio surfaces here in April 2016.
In January 2016, Dance Factory Johannesburg performs Dada Masilo’s reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in which the Prince falls in love with the Black Swan performed by a man.
“We liked the way Dada integrated classical and African tribal dance,” said Danse Danse’s director, Pierre Des Marais, in announcing the new season.
BJM Danse’s triple bill in December includes two exuberantly energetic works — Kosmos by Andonis Foniadakis, and Rouge by Rodrigo Pederneiras. Both blew the audience’s socks off in previews at the company’s fundraising event last November. The troupe’s vigour and precision in two highly physical works was extraordinary. Itzik Galili contributes the third piece, Mona Lisa, a push- pull malefemale duet that in the limbs of the original Stuttgart Ballet cast, Alicia Amatriain and Jason Reilly, once lit up the stage of the defunct Gala des Étoiles.
Three years after Montreal saw Hofesh Shechter’s look at authoritarian conduct, Political Mother, the Israeli choreographer is returning to Montreal with his company in November in an energetic group piece, Sun.
Separately, two veteran Montreal choreographers will present very different versions of Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps. José Navas performs his 2014 solo version that he first interpreted in Bruges, Belgium, as part of the score’s centenary celebrations. Compagnie Marie Chouinard brings back her group version from 1993, notably accompanied by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on stage. Also from Chouinard’s repertory is her 1987 group piece, Afternoon of a Faun.
“Our big achievement next year is arranging an association with the Montreal Symphony,” Des Marais said. “In addition to Compagnie Marie Chouinard in March next year, the MSO and the grand Pierre Béique organ in April 2016 will accompany Danièle Desnoyers’ work for Carré des Lombes called Anatomie d’un souffle in the Maison Symphonique.”
In late October, Jeff Hall and Pierre- Paul Savoie restage a quartet from the 1990s, Bagne, and in January, the free- minded Montreal flamenco troupe, La Otra Orilla, performs Moi et les autres by choreographer Myriam Allard and singer Hedi Graja.
Danse Danse’s 2015 fall season opens on October 1 with the National Ballet of Canada in a triple bill of boundary- breaking works by three outstanding contemporary choreographers: William Forsythe ( The Second Detail), Wayne McGregor ( Chroma) and Marco Goecke ( Le Spectre de la rose). The Goecke piece provides a juicy role for NBC’s Quebec- born star principal, Guillaume Côté.
Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, was in town Wednesday afternoon for the unveiling of Danse Danse’s lineup at a press conference at Place des Arts.
Despite the decline of the Canadian dollar and the huge expense of bringing in a major foreign troupe last year ( Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch), Danse Danse remains solvent and without debts, Des Marais said.
“We have between 1,900 and 2,000 subscribers. We expect they’ll be back next year.”
For more information, go to dansedanse. ca.
Our big achievement next year is arranging an association with the Montreal Symphony