A whole lot of dancing, a bit of death
Fleet feet aplenty on stage this week, alongside a chat with the world beyond
Strictly Ballroom the Musical Watch this if: You’re still dreaming of winning the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship.
A musical adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s debut feature film Strictly Ballroom (1992) is not such a drastic idea — the story was originally a play Luhrmann wrote in theatre school in Sydney, Australia, and the other two films in The Red Curtain Trilogy ( Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet) are heavily inspired by music, if not full-out musical extravaganzas. Mirvish presents the North American premiere of Strictly Ballroom the Musical, directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie and featuring music from the film (like “Love is in the Air” or “Time After Time”) and contemporary additions from artists like Sia and David Foster.
Wednesday to June 25, Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W. Endings Watch this if: You want a deeper trip down under.
Luhrmann isn’t the only Aussie name hitting Toronto stages this week. Nearing the end of its Spotlight Australia Festival, Canadian Stage presents Tamara Saulwick’s Endings, a hit on the international Endings festival circuit. It explores how we wish to talk with the dead, through a mix of live performance, recorded conversations played on ’60s turntables, and live music by Paddy Mann (a.k.a. the Australian folk artist Grand Salvo). Playing alongside Endings during Spotlight Australia is Meeting, by dance artist Antony Hamilton, which sees him and another dancer performing to the percussion of 64 robotic instruments.
Wednesday to Sunday, Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St. Too Loud a Solitude with Afshin Ghaffarian Watch this if: You need to know what it’s like when art is illegal.
Too Loud a Solitude is a story by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal about a man who uses his job as a “papercrusher” to collect banned books in Prague, and it makes sense that Afshin Ghaffarian, an Iranian dancer who created an illegal underground dance company in 2009 Tehran (inspiring the film Desert Dancer) would be inspired to create a solo performance based on it. Ghaffarian will perform that piece in his Canadian premiere at the Aga Khan Museum.
Saturday, Aga Khan Museum, 77 Wynford Dr.