Watching
Amjad felt like an evening at the Night Safari: spying on the
curious lives of nocturnal creatures through shafts of moonlight and
shadow. They slip in and out of sight between every nook and cranny
of their man-made habitat. No matter how many times you read the concisely
detailed information panels, the animals remain inscrutable, alluringly
mysterious in behaviour and intention. (And admission is bloody expensive.)
In Amjad, the fauna on view are the Montreal-based dancers
of La La La Human Steps; their keeper is Édouard Lock, who set
up the group in 1980. This full-evening show, which the Moroccan-born
choreographer created last year, pays tribute to ballet’s iconic
past, particularly the 19th-century classics Swan Lake and
The Sleeping Beauty, both set to scores by Tchaikovsky. Lock
has no interest in classical homage, however; he takes apart and rearranges
familiar fragments, fracturing ballet’s basic geometry and revving
them up to punishing speeds – splinters of history flickering
by in a restless delirium.
The music, written for piano quartet by composers Gavin Bryars, Blake
Hargreaves and David Lang, murmurs with Tchaikovsky’s original
themes. Recognisable tunes change keys midway through and glide away
as soon as you put your finger on them; rumbling dissonance briefly
replaces this strangely beautiful sound world at one point, an eerie
interruption. As though inspired by American composer John Cage’s
vanguard collaborations with dance-maker Merce Cunningham, the score
and choreography, said Lock in the post-show dialogue, were made separately
and function apart from each other on stage. Sometimes both worlds coincide;
at others the dancers seem to be working against the rhythms of the
music.
Given how relentlessly demanding the steps are, it was a marvel to
see the intrepid cast of 10 – including guest performer Ginny
Gan, on loan from Singapore Dance Theatre – going full throttle.
In the duets, which make up a large part of Amjad, partnering
becomes a contact sport. There’s something unsettling, even violent,
about the curt urgency with which the men shoved and yanked the women;
expressions of love turning into contests. Established gender roles,
too, get subverted: Michigan-born dancer Dominic Santia rose on pointe
in an all-male duet, beating his arms swan-style and twirling in supported
pirouettes. Echoing Swan Lake’s attending corps of bird-maidens,
the duets are occasionally framed on one side by a group of women angling
themselves in profile on the floor.
At 100 minutes long, though, the production can be a challenge to sit
through, palling at times when the choreography looked routine. The
whiz-bang tricks blur into an indistinguishable jumble after a while.
Throughout the action, three disc-shaped screens hovering above the
stage project clips of tangled woods (a metaphor for the unconscious?),
men and women wrapped in branches, large pearls rotating alone or in
strings – one cryptic image replacing the other after a wipe of
rippling white silk. And there are five long panels that are lowered
and raised near each wing for no apparent reason. These effects may
not add up, but the dancers make up for it with their fearless commitment
to the moment. |
"Watching Amjad felt like an evening at the Night Safari:
spying on the curious lives of nocturnal creatures through shafts of
moonlight and
shadow."
Credits
Choreographer: Édouard Lock
Composers: Gavin Bryars, Blake Hargreaves, David Lang
Musical director: Njo Kong Kie
Set designer: Armand Vaillancourt
Lighting designer: John Munro
Assistant lighting designer: Marc Tétreault
Costume designer: Vandal
Sound director: Normand-Pierre Bilodeau
Musicians: Elisabeth Giroux (cellist), Njo Kong Kie (pianist), Jill
Van Gee (violist), Jennifer Thiessen (violist)
Dancers: Andrea Boardman, Xuan Cheng, Ginny Gan (guest dancer from Singapore
Dance Theatre), Talia Evtushenko, Mistaya Hemingway, Zofia Tujaka, Keir
Knight, Bernard Martin, Dominic Santia, Jason Shipley-Holmes
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