Dance giant still has fire in his belly
Danny Grossman presents an evening of his esteemed work
If anyone imagined celebrated choreographer Danny Grossman at age 75 was content to fade into the sunset, they underestimate the man.
As proof, he’s presenting a full evening of his work, all of it made since 2004 and much of it brand new, in a program titled Labour of Love. It’s a testament to the respect and affection Grossman still commands that all the artists involved are working without pay, relying on donations and whatever is earned at the box office to compensate them for their efforts.
At the peak of his career, Grossman was one of the best-known names in Canadian modern dance. His company toured throughout Canada and abroad. His dancers, generally about a dozen of them, enjoyed 52-week contracts, now unheard of in modern/contemporary dance. Grossman also made works for other companies such as the National Ballet of Canada and Paris Opera Ballet.
His choreography was truly distinctive, physically founded in the angular quirkiness of his own dancing body and fired by his passionately held social and political beliefs. They sometimes got Grossman into trouble, such as when he was run out of Dade County, Fla., when his company performed Grossman’s sly but forceful 1976 send-up of blind patriotism, National Spirit.
Often behind the surface humour — Grossman has always wanted to entertain as well as engage an audience — there were angry messages protesting the obscenity of war, the despoiling of the natural environment and the corrosive illiberalism of most organized religions. Grossman has forcefully championed the human right to sexual freedom and self-expression. No wonder Labour of Love carries the subtitle: Its Innate Proclivities and Myriad Variations.
Grossman’s heyday in the 1970s and 80s were hard to sustain. A combination of factors, not least a lessening of Grossman’s own choreographic output and shifts in audience tastes, led to the company’s gradual decline. It finally folded in 2008, and for many observers it was as if Grossman had simply disappeared; but he hadn’t.
“People think I have not been choreographing,” Grossman says. “Believe me, I’ve been grabbing every opportunity I can get.”
Many of those opportunities have come from dance training institutions south of the border. There, the San Francisco-born Grossman is still remembered from his decade performing under the stage name Danny Williams as a standout member of the renowned Paul Taylor Dance Company. Then, in 1973, he and his life partner Germain Pierce, with their miniature dachshund Lola hidden under a coat, arrived in Toronto.
It was a professional and personal watershed for Grossman. He taught at York University, appeared as a guest with Toronto Dance Theatre and, after the success in 1975 of his first choreography, a ladder duet called Higher, founded his own troupe.
“I love this country,” Grossman says. “Canada gave me the opportunity to achieve.” Both Grossman and Pierce became Canadian citizens early on.
Pierce, six years Grossman’s senior, died almost three years ago.
“I’d never lived alone,” Grossman says. “I was not emotionally prepared. It hit me very hard.”
He retreated into his grief, but finally emerged to produce a tribute program in memory of Pierce last fall. It rekindled Grossman’s creative juices.
“I felt three new works were coming out of me,” he explains.
“There was no point in applying for grants. I might be dead before I even got one. So I asked various dancers if they’d be interested, although I told them I had no money.”
With only limited studio rehearsal time, Grossman worked out a lot of the choreography and lighting in a scaleddown stage he keeps in his living room.
“It has wings and little lights and dancers on wires,” Grossman describes.
Some of the choreography he has made for students, such as 2016’s Beguiled, set to three Nina Simone songs, is revived with the upcoming show’s professional cast. Among the new works, there’s a powerful solo for Mateo Galindo Torres called Miss Thing set to music of Brahms.
“It’s a very strenuous solo,” Grossman explains. “It’s the sort of thing I could only have danced early in my career.”
Grossman, who still travels around town from his Riverdale home by bike, will appear with Eddie Kastrau in a new duet, dancing to the songs of Billie Holiday, a favourite since Grossman’s teens.
In March, Danny Grossman was inducted into heritage organization Dance Collection’s Encore! Hall of Fame. It’s the most recent recognition of his important place in Canadian dance and a honour of which he is particularly proud.
“I do think I’m unique in my way,” Grossman says with no immodesty.
According to Grossman, Labour of Love will be his swan song, certainly as a performer. But don’t count on it. There’s still fire in his belly. Grossman’s beliefs are as strong as ever. He still shouts at the TV when the news sets him off.
“The world is in big trouble,” Grossman says. “The only thing that keeps me sane is the art.”
“The world is in big trouble ... The only thing that keeps me sane is the art.”
DANNY GROSSMAN CHOREOGRAPHER
Labour of Love is at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance, 304 Parliament St., June 19-21; citadelcie.com or 416-364-8011.