Transforming a dance troupe
Le Ballet Jazz de Montréal celebrates how it has infused a do-or-die spirit over its 40 years
Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal launched a 40th anniversary hometown season at Place des Arts over the weekend, not with a nostalgic look back but with a bold statement about the kind of company it is today.
The nostalgia part was already taken care of earlier in September with the opening of a retrospective exhibition of photos and videos, and the release of a coffee-table book celebrating the troupe’s first four decades. Many contemporary dance troupes nowadays showcase a single choreographer/director, often in programs of single, evening-length works. BJM, as it’s known, has with only a couple of disastrous exceptions stuck to presenting mixed programs of shorter works by different choreographers.
Thus, the company’s varied anniversary program at the Thèâtre Maisonneuve included works by Spain’s Cayetano Soto and IsraeliAmerican choreographer Barak Marshall, plus the Canadian premiere of a physically dynamic pas de deux to Philip Glass music by French-born Benjamin Millepied, known for his work in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and for marrying its star, Natalie Portman. When BJM co-founders Eva Von Gencsy, Geneviève Salbaing and Eddy Toussaint launched the company in 1972, ballet was booming. Audiences flocked to see their favourite stars. Folk signed up for recreational ballet or “dancercize” classes. Dancewear became fashion wear.
The fledgling troupe, from1976 under Salbaing’s sole direction, rode this popular wave with a distinctive and sensually appealing style of jazz-ballet, largely imported from New York and, logically enough, accompanied by jazz music. Audiences responded enthusiastically. Within a decade, BJM was Canada’s most internationally travelled danced company. Ironically, Toronto was among its less frequent stops. It’s something Jay Rankin, former general manager of Toronto Dance Theatre and recently installed BJM executive director, is determined to remedy. This transformation has largely occurred under the almost 15-year leadership of former ballet star Louis Robitaille. Gone is the rigid adherence to jazz music, along with BJM’s tendency to avoid anything artistically provoking or risky. What’s remained is a do-or-die spirit that infuses the dancing with visceral excitement.