EN STUDIO | IN THE STUDIO: Marc Boivin

May 2009 mai
Photos (Marc Boivin et/and Sophie Corriveau) de/by Robert Etcheverry
Traduction de/translation by
Megan Andrews and Marie Claire Forté


« Longtemps, la simple satisfaction de danser a dépassé mon désir de créer. De l’interprétation à l’enseignement et plus récemment à la chorégraphie, la recherche et le plaisir de la pratique dans ses différentes formes ont tracé mon chemin. | “For a long time, the simple satisfaction of dancing has overridden my desire to create. From interpretation to teaching and more recently choreographing, research and the pleasure of practicing different forms has marked my path.

More...« Longtemps, la simple satisfaction de danser a dépassé mon désir de créer. De l’interprétation à l’enseignement et plus récemment à la chorégraphie, la recherche et le plaisir de la pratique dans ses différentes formes ont tracé mon chemin. Les approches multiples ont été plus cumulatives que consécutives. Et, depuis 1992, l’improvisation a pris notamment plus de place et, avec elle, le goût de créer.

« La sensibilité des êtres est une chose privée et fragile. Elle définit nos manières de percevoir le monde et d’y participer. La scène étant le miroir partiel d’expériences humaines, dans le travail, la confrontation des propositions artistiques atteste le désir de communication propre à chacun et les divers rapports que nous entretenons avec l’abstraction.

« Dans un studio, la chose la plus déterminante pour moi a toujours été la confrontation des univers poétiques, et l’écoute de ce qui émerge de là. Les choix qui mènent à la création d’une œuvre sont porteurs de sens ; ils portent un état dynamique qui précède la définition des choses, qui interpelle la conscience : « cela me fait penser à … c’est comme si … cela se réfère à … ». L’abstraction est une manière de dégager l’essence vitale d’une perception et de la revêtir d’une forme sensible, nouvelle, de lui donner chair.



« Pour emprunter les mots de rédactrice Kaija Pepper (Dance International, 1995) : « L'abstrait est un lieu dynamique qui, loin de l’ignorer, dialogue avec l’essence humaine ». Cette phrase est tirée d’une critique de Pepper sur mon travail d’interprète. Je l’ai toujours conservée en début de ma biographie. Elle me semblait alors, et encore, nommer, au-delà de la liste biographique, ce qui définit un parcours.

« Parallèlement, un parcours biographique est prétexte à cibler l’idée du parcours au-delà de celle de la biographie. Le corps reçoit les impacts qui l’informent. La perméabilité n’est pas innocente. L’autre est en moi et je suis les autres. Toute situation cause une chimie particulière, une mise en état du corps dans un espace-temps. La parole et l’écoute se jouent toujours, l’une en gage de l’autre.

« L’isolement complet n’est jamais atteint et pourtant l’impression de solitude existe vraiment. Le solo Impact et le projet connexe I13(au carré) sont issus de cette réflexion. Pour leurs conceptions j’ai cherché à juxtaposer ma sensibilité à celle des collaborateurs, Sophie Corriveau, Diane Labrosse, Yan Lee Chan et tout particulièrement Jonathan Inksetter. Je voulais refléter mon abstraction dans la leur, déposer ma poésie dans leur équivoque, laisser être la collaboration, la communication. »



“For a long time, the simple satisfaction of dancing has overridden my desire to create. From interpretation to teaching and more recently choreographing, research and the pleasure of practicing different forms has marked my path. Multiple approaches have been more cumulative than consecutive. And, since 1992, improvisation has taken a more prominent place, and with it, the desire to create.

“The sensibility of beings is a private and fragile thing. It defines our way of perceiving and participating in the world. Taking performance as a partial mirror of human experience, in the work the raising of artistic propositions attests to a desire for our own unique communication and for our diverse relationships to abstraction.

“In a studio, the most significant thing for me has always been the confrontation with the poetic realm, and listening to what emerges from there. Choices that lead toward the creation of a work bear meaning; they carry a dynamic state that precedes the definition of things, that calls upon consciousness: “that makes me think of … that’s as if … that refers to ….” Abstraction is a manner of extending the vital essence of a perception and turning it into a meaningful form, anew, to give it flesh.



“Borrowing the words of writer Kaija Pepper (Dance International, 1995): “The abstract is a dynamic place that speaks about and doesn’t ignore human essence.” This phrase is taken from a review by Pepper of my work as an interpreter. I have kept it at the beginning of my biography. This seemed to me then and still, to name, beyond the biographical facts, that which defines a path.

“Similarly, a biographical path is a chance to focus on the idea of a path outside or beyond the idea of biography. The body receives impacts that inform it. Its permeability is not innocent. The other is in me and I am others. Every situation creates a particular chemistry, a state of being in the body in a space-time. Speech and listening always interplay, one presupposes the other.

“Isolation is never complete and nevertheless the impression of solitude really does exist. The solo Impact and the related project I 13(square) are born from this reflection. For their conceptions, I aimed to juxtapose my sensibility with those of my collaborators, Sophie Corriveau, Diane Labrosse, Yan Lee Chan and particularly Jonathan Inksetter. I wanted to reflect my abstraction in theirs, release my poetry within theirs, allow the collaboration, the communication.”


Depuis ses débuts en 1982 au Groupe de la Place Royale à Ottawa, sous la direction de Peter Boneham, Marc Boivin a travaillé comme interprète pour de nombreux chorégraphes dont Ginette Laurin (O Vertigo), Louise Bédard, Sylvain Émard, Jean-Pierre Perreault,Tedd Robinson, Felix Ruckert et Catherine Tardif. Il participe aussi à plusieurs projets d’improvisation principalement avec Peter Bingham et Andrew Harwood. Boivin entame dès 1987 une carrière d’enseignant à LADMMI, L’École de danse contemporaine. Président de la Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault depuis 2005, il a longuement siégé au conseil d’administration du Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD). Le solo Impact, la première pièce qu’il chorégraphie pour lui-même, arrive dans son parcours telle une synthèse de plusieurs années de métier.

Marc Boivin began his career in 1982 with Ottawa’s Groupe de la Place Royale, under the direction of Peter Boneham, and has since worked with many choreographers including Ginette Laurin (O Vertigo), Louise Bédard, Sylvain Émard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Tedd Robinson, Felix Ruckert and Catherine Tardif. He has also taken part in numerous improvisation projects mainly with Peter Bingham and Andrew Harwood. Boivin has pursued a teaching career since 1987 at LADMMI – L’École de danse contemporaine. He is president of Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault, and was a longtime member of the board of the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD). The solo Impact, the first piece that he has choreographed for himself, is a synthesis of many years of craft and artistic practice.

*A shorter version of this article appears in the May 2009 issue of The Dance Current.

Marc Boivin présente Impact sur le programme Impulsions du 7 à 10 mai à Tangente, Montréal. | Marc Boivin presents Impact on the Impulsions program from May 7th through 10th at Tangente, Montréal.

Pour en savoir plus | Learn more >>
www.tangente.qc.ca

UNDERCURRENTS | COURANT CONTINU: Lynda Gaudreau

May 2009 mai
Entrevue avec Lynda Gaudreau/Interview with Lynda Gaudreau
by/de Megan Andrews, traduction de/translation by Marie Claire Forté



Photo de/of Lynda Gaudreau

Lynda Gaudreau est chorégraphe et directrice artistique de la Compagnie de Brune à Montréal. Au cours des trois dernières années, elle a produit le projet de recherche chorégraphique Clash, qui se termine ce mois-ci. | Lynda Gaudreau is a choreographer and artistic director of Compagnie de Brune in Montréal. Over the last three years, she has produced the choreographic development project Clash, which culminates this month.

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Vous avez longtemps travaillé en Europe avant le lancement de Clash en 2006. Qu’est-ce qui vous a incité à réaliser ce projet ? | You spent significant time working in Europe before launching the Clash events in 2006. What motivated you to develop this project?

En fait, les motivations de Clash sont basées a priori sur un sentiment d’isolation que je sentais chez les artistes. Il y a ici un nombre formidable d’artistes en danse, mais si l’on y regarde de plus près, il y a vraiment peu d’événements qui permettent de les rassembler.

La danse est un art encore trop axé sur le matériel physique. Notre rapport à la critique vient le plus souvent de nos pairs sur des jurys ou de textes de journalistes ; c’est assez maigre. Les artistes font un travail intellectuel, ça va de soi pour moi, mais il n’y a pas vraiment d’espace qui permet véritablement de développer les fondements de cette pratique.

Clash permet aux chorégraphes d’échanger, entre autres, des méthodologies de travail et de participer à un lexique agrandi, si je puis dire. Le projet ne cherche pas à développer chez l’artiste un discours détaché de la pratique. Clash met l’emphase autant sur l’analytique que la pratique.

Je viens de passer plus de quinze ans en Europe. Il est évident que les possibilités de diffusion et d’échange, et que l’approche analytique de la création sont vraiment plus développées là-bas ; cela n’a rien à voir avec ici. Et puis évidemment, avec tout ce qui se passe en ce moment ici, je sens encore plus la nécessité d’un tel projet. L’art est en train totalement de devenir de la culture. J’aime la culture, mais la culture c’est de l’art devenu cultivé. La culture c’est un phénomène social en ce sens, il y a du consensus, du marché, de l’échange. Pour sa part, l’art est précieux parce qu’il génère de la différence dans le monde. Peut-être qu’avec Clash, j’essaie de trouver comment ce qui est différent peut arriver à communiquer.

In fact, the motivation for Clash was based first of all on a feeling of isolation that I sensed among artists. Here, there are many fantastic dance artists, but if one looks closely, there are truly few events that bring them together.

Dance is an art still too focussed on the physical material. Our experience with criticism comes mostly from our peers on juries or from journalists’ writing; this is rather meagre. An artist’s work is intellectual – this is a given for me – but there is really no space that truly allows us to develop the fundamentals of the practice.

Clash enables choreographers to, among other things, exchange working methods and to participate in a larger lexicon, if I can say that. The project doesn’t seek to develop an artistic discourse detached from practice. Clash emphasizes equally the analytical and the practical.

I recently spent over fifteen years in Europe. It’s clear that possibilities for dissemination and exchange and the critical approach to creation are more developed there; it is entirely different from here. And even more so, with all that is happening today, I feel even more need for a project like this. Right now, art is being subsumed into culture. I like culture but culture is cultivated art. In this sense, culture is a social phenomenon; it is a consensus of the market, of exchange. On its own, art is precious because it generates difference in the world. Perhaps with Clash, I am trying to find how this difference can communicate.


Quelle expérience souhaitez-vous au participant de Clash au cours de sa résidence d’une ou de deux semaines ? | Over the one- or two-week Clash residency, what is the focus of the experience for participants?

Les deux premières années, chaque artiste a bénéficié de deux résidences de deux semaines. Cette année, le projet est sur deux semaines. Le projet invite chaque artiste à venir faire une recherche précise et pas seulement à venir expérimenter librement. Le but est de travailler sur quelque chose de nouveau au lieu de continuer à faire la même chose dans son coin. Également – mine de rien – savoir ce qui nous intéresse, ce qu’on veut, ce qu’on cherche et si l’on ne le sait pas, être patient et développer de bonnes questions. Les artistes développent ainsi du matériel chorégraphique en même temps qu’ils développent des outils d’analyse pertinents : l’un ne va pas sans l’autre.

In the first two years, each artist benefited from two two-week residencies. This year, the project is only two weeks. Each artist is invited to undertake specific research and not simply to experiment freely. The goal is to work on something new instead of continuing to work on the same old thing. Incidentally, as well, to know what interests you, what you want, what you seek and if you don’t know, to be patient and develop some good questions. This way, artists develop material at the same time as they develop analytical tools that come with it: one doesn’t happen without the other.


Maintenant que Clash tire à sa fin à Montréal, quels sont les effets, selon vous, sur la culture de création dans la ville ou au Canada ? | Now that Clash has run its course in Montréal, what effects do you think it has had on the culture of creation in the city or country?

Il est trop tôt pour le dire et… comment le savoir ? L’impact se fait par ricochet, des gens qui n’ont jamais participé au projet en reçoivent une influence, ça, je le sens. Et puis l’effet varie d’une personne à l’autre ; pour certains ça fait son chemin sur plusieurs années. Je n’ai pas la prétention, de toute façon, de vouloir changer quoi que ce soit. Je crois que l’idée du projet est de nature qualitative et quantitative, et donc d’une certaine façon, c’est de tenter de donner aux artistes plus de moyens d’action qui rendent leurs pratiques plus vivantes et plus singulières.

Là où je suis plus critique, c’est à l’égard de ce que je disais avant : culture versus art. Je trouve déplorables le manque d’imagination de nos politiciens et le manque de politiques culturelles que nous avons ici. Est-ce qu’on va tous devenir de bons artistes efficaces qui font de beaux spectacles avec de beaux éclairages ? Il n’y a qu’à regarder autour de soi, le phénomène cirque fait son chemin. On a besoin de tout, pas juste de cela.

It’s too soon to say or how to know. The impact has a ricochet effect; people who have never participated in the project experience its influence that I can tell. And further, the effect varies from one person to another. For some, it informs their path over several years. I do not pretend in any way to want to change what will be. I believe that the idea of the project is both qualitative and quantitative and so, to a certain degree, capable of giving artists more options that will make their practices more vibrant and more unique.

I’m most critical with respect to what I said earlier: culture versus art. I find the lack of imagination of our politicians and the lack of cultural policy that we have here deplorable. Must we all become good, productive artists who make beautiful shows with beautiful lighting? Just look around; the circus phenomenon is popular. We need everything, not just that.


Autour du projet Clash, vous avez discuté avec des artistes, des critiques, des théoriciens et des diffuseurs. Qu’est-ce que vous tirez de ces activités connexes ? | Around the Clash project, you also held discussions with artists, critics, theorists, presenters, producers and curators. What has been the outcome of these additional activities?

J’ai tenu un projet Clash au Brésil en 2006, à l’Université du Salvador, à Bahia. Le projet regroupait une vingtaine d’étudiants de la maîtrise en danse. Avec le groupe, il y avait également un physicien, une sémiologue et quelqu’un qui connaît la théorie des systèmes. C’est drôle, on croyait s’intéresser à l’idée de cohérence et puis au bout de quelques jours on s’est dit « mais ce n’est pas du tout ce qui nous intéresse ici, une œuvre peut être totalement cohérente mais dénuée d’intérêt ». Voilà un exemple de discussion qu’on peut avoir sur le projet. Le projet a également accueilli pas mal d’artistes visuels et de théoriciens. Cette année, je n’avais pas assez d’argent pour le faire, mais ça fait une différence. Chez l’artiste visuel, le discours est partie inhérente du processus. Et puis très simplement, c’est très stimulant d’être en présence les uns avec les autres, les perceptions sont à la fois très différentes et très semblables.

I held a Clash project in Brazil in 2006 at the University of Salvador in Bahia. The project brought together twenty Masters’ students in dance. They were accompanied by an astrophysicist, a linguist and an individual familiar with systems theory. It was funny, we thought we were interested in the idea of coherence, and then after a few days, we said to ourselves, “but it’s not at all what we’re interested in; a work can be totally coherent but devoid of interest”. That’s an example of a discussion we can have during a project. The project has also included several visual artists and scholars. This year, I didn’t have enough funding to do this but it makes a difference. Discourse is an inherent part of the process in visual arts. Very simply, it’s very stimulating to be with others; individual perceptions are at once very different and very similar.


En mai 2006, vous avez dit au Dance Current que votre esthétique s’aligne à celle de la Judson School. Ce lien existe-t-il encore ? | You said, in The Dance Current in May 2006, that you align your aesthetic with that of the Judson school. Do you still sense a connection here?

Absolument ! Je suis toujours accrochée à cette esthétique. J’aime beaucoup l’art américain de cette période. En quoi le travail d’un artiste résonne-t-il avec le monde ? Ça peut participer à une culture et c’est super agréable, bravo. Ou bien, ça peut faire réfléchir, agir sur nos perceptions et accroître notre « potentiel » d’action. Moi, c’est plus de ce côté que je me range et cela sous-entend ne pas ignorer l’histoire, les courants de pensée, les idéologies et les paradigmes de notre temps.

Absolutely! I am still very connected to that aesthetic. I like American art of that period very much. How does an artist’s work resonate with the world? It can participate in a culture and that’s great, bravo. Or yet, it can offer food for thought, act on our perceptions and increase our “potential” for action. For me, it’s more the latter, and this implies not ignoring history, currents of thought, ideologies and paradigms of our time.


Vous employez un langage scientifique dans votre travail. Vous citez la biologie, la physique, et la théorie des systèmes comme influences. Comment tissez-vous ces filaments dans votre nouvelle création OUT ? | You use scientific language in your work. You reference biology, physics and systems theory as influences. How do these filaments connect in your new work in development OUT?

C’est intéressant ce que vous dites. C’est vrai, je m’intéresse aux sciences mais vraiment, je n’ai pas du tout une approche scientifique et ce n’est absolument pas possible en création. J’ai d’ailleurs beaucoup de difficultés avec les textes académiques, des textes le plus souvent tortueux en solipsisme.

Quand on fait de la recherche, on est toujours en train de chercher le mot qui va tout expliquer ce qu’on fait. Tout à l’heure, je vous ai parlé de « cohérence » ; et bien, les dernières années, mon mot magique était « langage ». Je suis alors retournée à mes études en philosophie et puis je me suis rendue compte que je ne m’intéressais pas au langage, au contraire, je m’intéressais à ce qui était en dehors du langage. Dans quel champ de la science ça se trouve ? Qui s’y intéresse ? Tiens, il y a quelqu’un en architecture qui a fait un projet autour de cela ? et c’est reparti !

It’s interesting what you say. It’s true, I am interested in science but really I don’t have a scientific approach at all and it’s absolutely not possible in creation. Actually, I have great difficulty with academic texts, texts most often tortured in solipsism.

When one begins research, one is always in the process of searching for the word that will explain what one does. Earlier, I spoke to you about “coherence” and in recent years my magic word has been “language”. So I went back to my studies in philosophy and I realized that I was never interested in language; rather, I was interested in what is beyond language. In which field of science do we find this? Who is interested by this? Right, is there someone in architecture who has created a project around this … and here we go!


Vous vous intéressez à l'interdisciplinarité et il me semble que l’idée de la convergence disciplinaire est importante pour vous. Êtes-vous d’accord ? With respect to your interest in interdisciplinarity, it seems that the idea of disciplinary convergence resonates for you. Would you agree or disagree?

Les collaborations les plus stimulantes que j’ai eues ont été, pour la plupart, avec des artistes d’autres disciplines. Je me suis aperçue qu’en danse, il était difficile de partager son champ de pratique – je crois que c’est aussi pour cette raison que Clash existe, c’est possible. Je travaille en ce moment avec Dana Gingras sur ma nouvelle création et c’est vraiment une collaboration inédite très excitante. Sinon, je viens de commencer un projet Clash à Vancouver. Six chorégraphes travailleront ensemble sur le projet en 2010.

The most stimulating collaborations that I’ve had were for the most part with artists from other disciplines. It seems to me that in dance, it is difficult to share its field of practice and I think that it’s likely also for this reason that Clash exists. Right now, I’m working with Dana Gingras on my new creation and it’s truly an open and exciting collaboration. Otherwise, I will debut a Clash project in Vancouver with six choreographers in 2010.


*An excerpted version of this interview appears in the May 2009 issue of The Dance Current.

La dernière édition de Clash se déroule du 21 au 26 mai à 17h30 à Tangente, Montréal.| The final edition of Clash runs from May 21st through 26th at 5:30pm at Tangente, Montréal.

Pour en savoir plus | Learn more >> www.lyndagaudreau.com; www.tangente.qc.ca

In Process with Peter Quanz: Part 3

Interview with Peter Quanz, Anton Lubchenko and Elena Tchernichova
by Selma Odom

Anton Lubchencko, courtesy of Quanz | Peter Quanz / Photo by V. Tony Hauser | Guillaume Côté and Bridgett Zehr | Artists of the ballet | Guillaume Côté and Bridgett Zehr | Heather Ogden, Zdenek Konvalina, Jillian Vanstone and Guillaume Côté with artists of the ballet in Quanz’s In Colour for The National Ballet of Canada / Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Choreographer Peter Quanz and composer Anton Lubchenko reflected on the production of In Colour after its last performance by The National Ballet of Canada in March. Their mentor Elena Tchernichova summarized the conversation in English and Russian. Following her career as Kirov dancer and international ballet mistress-coach, she has offered her outside eye to Quanz in the development of his work since 2007. As she explained toward the end of the interview, “Now it’s more interesting to see new creations and new talents.”

Thanks to Irene Seay for interpreting the Russian on the recorded interview.

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What were your experiences this past week?

Anton:

I mainly attended rehearsals and the performances. In my time here I only had one day off which I spent with Peter’s family at Niagara Falls. Niagara made a tremendous impression on me – this is what I saw in Canada in the way of “theatre”. I watched Peter’s work with the dancers and the work of the conductors with the orchestra. The observation was a great experience because it is always important to see how a work of theatre art comes together, not just the role that music plays, but how all the elements are born.


Peter:
There’s a point when you have to give up, you have to let other people take over and run the ballet. That’s the job of the ballet masters, and it’s interesting to see how much ownership Lindsay Fischer took of the ballet – Rex [Harrington] also supported the soloists—and to see how once we got on the stage how the dancers stopped coming to me with questions and they went instead to the ballet masters. I think that’s a very good process because it allows me to step out and separate myself from what’s onstage. I know all the problems, all the variations on each moment of the ballet, but it doesn’t matter because that doesn’t exist. What exists is what’s onstage at that moment. By the time the dancers get to the stage it’s time for me to step out.

What did you think of the audience response?

Anton:
I don’t really want to sing my own praises, but it seemed to me that it was very warmly received. My understanding is that some people in the audience saw it on several occasions. And the warmth with which it was received seemed to grow from one performance to the next over the run of the show.


Peter:
On the opening night I was watching the audience, and going into the pas de deux and throughout most of the ballet they were so quiet and silent. There are different qualities of silence. There’s the silence where they’re getting bored and nodding off to sleep and they start coughing, or there’s the silence where you feel that everybody’s holding their breath and sitting slightly forward in their seats. On the opening night that’s what I saw, that’s what I felt. There was a great energy coming from the audience that was feeding the dancers on stage, and to me that was the biggest compliment.

Anton:
[Later in the week] some of the soloists danced so beautifully that the audience applauded in the middle of the piece. This did not interfere with the music at all. It just conveyed an additional excitement to it.

Peter:
People have responded very well – including Anton – to the end of the Yellow variation, where the women are doing mechanical movement in a group of nine and the men come in and do their muscle boy poses. I set that up in a moment of being tired and having a quirky sense of humour and being a bit flippant, and it’s come out as something that people love. When you are relaxed or tired or pushed a little bit past where you feel comfortable, you sometimes let your guard down and allow something that is personal and human to come into the ballet, into the creation. It’s the same thing for the beginning of Chartreuse. For that rehearsal, it was at the end of the day, I was exhausted, I’d had some difficult calls, I didn’t know what to do and I walked in with absolutely no idea. And they just inspired something that for me is one of the highlights of the ballet – for a minute and a half long section that really defines itself. There are other sections that I laboured over with the corps de ballet moving from one position to another that I’m not happy with. Just before the finale when all the different soloists in their varied colours come in, the corps moves from the centre over into a diagonal on the side. It always looks sloppy – I have to change the pattern of it. There are things like that that just never clarified themselves and that on a second staging I would adjust.

In the corps movement I saw surprises that were fascinating. One is the supported arabesques where all the women are upside down and another is when the women are lifted and carried feet first. I found both arrangements take classical ideas into a different dimension. The women with the feet first are like armaments and victims – it’s an image I’ve never seen before. Where did that come from?



Peter:
Well, this music sounds like a machine gun in some ways. In my mind, in my story, I wanted it to be like a battle. And so as they’re coming in, it’s two armies facing each other, and they’re merging, they’re coming together, and it’s a double image. On one hand, the women when they’re lifted are like bloody bodies. They’re being carried out, and the other way they’re turned into the gun and I’m using that image in both ways. And then they get pulled to the back and turned into this army of mindless followers that are just randomly shaking their heads and following whatever the ballerina says. And so I am telling a story there because I needed to find a reason for the dramatic build in his music.

With the arabesque I feel that people understand a vertical image better than a horizontal image. In a major city like Toronto or New York or Hong Kong, we have all these skyscrapers where it’s a vertical repetition for ninety-some floors, and we find that appealing, it’s visually attractive. But if you take that skyscraper and turn it on its side that horizontal repetition would become boring. Because I’m interested at that point to have a very strong powerful image – we’ve just finished this huge fugue and then suddenly all the music is together – I wanted a very strong vertical energy so I put them in penchée to lift the energy up.

In the pas de deux I especially admired the ending when she hangs by her knee.

Peter:
When I first heard the variation for the pink ballerina, I thought Anton has written a soliloquy for Ophelia, and Ophelia drowns. And whether it’s a real drowning, if it’s like Virginia Woolf or it’s just this ballerina drowning in her own emotions, she goes up and she’s swirling in a whirlpool, reaching up for air and at the very end giving up and sinking down.

I was also intrigued by the choice of instruments for the pas de deux.

Anton:
At the beginning of the adagio, the theme is started by the French horn and then it’s picked up by the violins and then all the strings. It’s obvious that if this is a love pas de deux, in the tradition of classical romantic music for ballet, the lyricism is captured by the strings. After the [ballerina’s] variation with little bells, the love theme is carried by just one clarinet echoed by a hymn of mourning by the piano. Peter interpreted this as the echoes of first love. The main musical idea I was expressing was through this theme that I transposed as a hymn of love at the end of the ballet.



What is the future of In Colour?

Peter:
After the first three years I can stage it for any company in the world. The National Ballet will be able to continue performing the ballet as long as they wish, and Anton is now able to program this music with any orchestra separate from the ballet. It’s a big risk to make a new work. It’s a lot easier to buy an existing ballet that you know is going to be a success. But then you don’t develop unique repertoire.

I feel that I’ve made a tremendous step forward with this work, that it’s been an exciting project and that it’s my best work so far. I feel that it’s emotional, that I achieved a lot of the goals that I set out to do and then surprised myself in other ways. I think Anton has produced a very interesting score and I’ve been thrilled to be part of that. I’m thrilled with the design that Michael Gianfrancesco has produced, and to have taken a risk on a designer who has not worked for ballet before was a major deal. I had a lot of satisfaction from working with Christopher Dennis. So I’ve enjoyed my team.

Anton and I certainly are interested to collaborate further in the future. It’s important that we established this relationship. We have a good understanding of each other now, and this is the time to start considering bigger projects and especially narrative work. I think that’s an area of repertoire that needs to be developed, that we need to tell new stories in dance.

Will you be involved in the next work?

Elena:
Well, who knows what the future gives to us, but of course I’m not giving up on these two boys.

Peter:
Lucky us!

Selma Odom [guest writer] teaches dance history at York University. Her research focusses on teachers and transmission in dance and music. She has published hundreds of articles and reviews since the 1960s and co-edited the anthology Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories (2004).


*A profile of Peter Quanz by Selma Odom appears in the March 2009 print issue of The Dance Current.

Learn more >>
www.peterquanz.com
www.national.ballet.ca

In Process with Peter Quanz: Part 2

Interview with Peter Quanz
by Selma Odom

Photo of Peter Quanz by Sian Richards; Choreographic notes courtesy of Quanz

Peter Quanz has just embarked on orchestra and tech rehearsals with The National Ballet of Canada for In Colour, which opens March 4th.


Remembering their work last summer in Russia, Quanz reflects on his collaboration with composer Anton Lubchenko and mentor Elena Tchernichova to find the concept and meaning of the new ballet:

When we fought over how to divide this work, whatever structure it was going to be, we realized that if we were going to have different segments we wanted to have one linking theme. We talked about a variety of different things and finally settled on colour because it was something that he could use in terms of an aural sense but I could also use in a visual sense, that could show off many different dancers in different ways and that could give different moods.

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He decided the musical structure – I had nothing to do with that – but we talked about what kind of journey there would be through the ballet. If you’re going to start off with colour, do you randomly jump into the colour wheel, or where do you start?

We decided to start with white, with white light being the combination of all colours, and have that be refracted into all the different colours, and at the end of the ballet end up with an apotheosis where using white light again we will put the dancers in silhouette, turning them black, so we have a journey through the whole piece. That is the type of structural conversation we had.

We talked about how many colours there are, what their relationships are, how to end the piece. If we were going to end the piece in black, how do we avoid it being depressing? How do we finish with a black ending onstage but with a celebratory feeling? We were all united in thinking that it needed to end on a very high note.

In the main pas de deux of the ballet I have a ballerina who dies at the end, and in the apotheosis she comes back as if she’s entering from another world – to help teach people, to bring them with her, to collect them and bring all the colours together. And so even though they’re turning black and dying and disappearing, there’s a transcendence that is really beautiful. That type of discussion, that philosophy helped unite us.

Anton is very religious. Certainly when I was there I went to church almost every day to light candles for various people here or my problems in Russia. I also come from a religious background. I come from a Mennonite background where dancing is not encouraged. I grew up with people telling me that they were praying for my soul that I wouldn’t go to hell for dancing. But for them it was a matter of education. When they realized there was a difference between dancing as an art form and dancing in a strip club, then it made a difference. For the premiere, half my church is going to be coming. It will be the first time they’ll ever be in the opera house, the first time they’ll ever see ballet.

I’m giving them something that has some qualities that will tie in to my religious background and Anton’s religious background that will also help them feel that it’s something that makes sense for them, without it being overly Christian, hammering down. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about trying to find a way for us to learn to improve our humanity, for us to work together, for us to see our differences, and realize that, yes, they’re there and they will always be there, but we can get along.

The structure of this piece has helped me develop a clear message that is personal for me. It may not read for anybody else, but it gives me a backbone to hold on to, and that’s all grown out of the people involved, the situation that we’re in, the way that we collaborate and the difference in cultures that we’re in.

The scenes that you’ve talked about so far – the pas de deux, the apotheosis – are keys to the ballet. Are there colours for other scenes?

To begin the ballet, I want to reflect light off their hands into their faces, so that they don’t stand in the spotlight, but they put their hands into it – ten dancers on stage – and that lights up their faces for the first time in the piece, and that’s the cue for the music to start. They dance by turning their bodies in different ways, keeping their hands in the light. They pivot around that light and reflect it in different ways, transforming the light into a physical, tangible object as opposed to an object that just influences the environment that we’re in.


So light is a partner.

Yes. We can’t have colour without environment, without light. Our understanding of any one object is always based on what is surrounding it. I’m trying to create situations where the lighting in the ballet is like a mirror to us as dancers and as an audience to understand the movement on stage and the images that are projected.

After this white section, the dancers are going to split and I have the red section. All the corps de ballet dancers are in grey. I have seven corps men at that point with the red lady. The first time we’re going to see any colour in the ballet is them hurling her in the air out of this tight circle of men. They just throw her up and there’s this shock of red flying in the air and then she gets swallowed up in the group again.

We progress on to yellow, and it’s a jester-like movement that makes fun of everybody around, and then we have a beautiful pas de deux with a purple man and pink lady, in which she dies at the end after a major crisis in their relationship. After that I have three ladies in chartreuse that I see as three fates. After she’s died, they laugh as hyenas on stage and they go on to dance with the boy in blue, who’s another jester figure trying to tempt fate and dance with them.

Then we have the green lady who commands this vast army of grey people that absently follow her commands, following along without looking as to what’s happening. Suddenly everything rises from the depths and we have all the colours on stage again. It’s like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty in the prologue. Then we go into the apotheosis, where the girl who died comes back, in a white dress instead of a pink one.

Let’s talk about the movement and how you’re developing it with these dancers. You’re working with how many in total?

There are twenty-seven dancers in the ballet, which is pretty big. My largest cast has been thirty-two, but twenty-seven for this stage, the Four Seasons Centre, and for the National Ballet, is a pretty large cast. Basically the whole company will be involved by the time you get double and triple casting. So I have nine soloists and principals, nine corps de ballet women and nine corps de ballet men.

I believe that numbers are very important in the shape of the ballet, that numbers have meaning, that they have values and that they will create different frequencies on stage based on the number of people you have there. I’m excited about having those three sections of nine. I think that’s a really thrilling number.


Do you work on your own body?

Some choreographers work on their own bodies and choreograph what feels good for them. I was not a great dancer – I was an okay dancer, but not a great one. I’ve never developed my own sense of personal movement to the point where I’ll only do things that look good on me. I’m good at tailoring things to other people. Even though I may be planning something out by myself, it’s with them in mind. It’s not me making it on myself and then transferring. It’s me making it for them and then making sure it fits. With principals, I will also work on my own beforehand, but a lot of that is to work out images, the musical structure or some basic ideas. Then I’ll go in the studio and I’ll flesh it out and adjust it for them.

How do you interact with the corps?

When you are running rehearsals with the corps de ballet, you notice very quickly which dancers lead the corps. These are sometimes dancers that are very gifted who for some reason or other have not been promoted to soloist but have been in the company awhile, and they take great pride in being in the corps. You rely on those people to shape things. For example, if I have a question – can you make it from this point to that point with this step? Do you have time? You know very quickly who to ask. That’s part of getting to know a company, figuring out how to play with the corps. It’s a very sensitive instrument, and you have to figure out its individual dynamics right away.

Unfortunately ballet, when it’s a large cast and a big hierarchy is not democratic, and if you listen to everybody’s voices all the time you don’t move forward. So you have to be very clear in who you’re going to listen to. With the corps it’s more of a psychology than a complete collaboration as you’d have with the soloists. I love working with the corps de ballet. I look forward to their rehearsals almost more than anything else, and I take great pleasure in seeing them take pride in their work.

Sometimes my corps work can overbalance what I’ve done for the principals. Because I enjoy it so much I sometimes get into that more than I do working with the principals. I don’t know why, I just relate well to them. And so in this piece, in addition to the emotional quality, it’s a challenge for me to show off those nine soloists in very individual, clear ways and keep addressing that balance between corps and principals.

When you’re working on movement alone, how do you hold on to what you are doing? Do you write notes? Do you videotape?

I don’t videotape. I have a notebook, and when I’m preparing a piece I go through and I break the music down into a variety of sections so that every time there’s a change in music, every time there’s a new instrument coming in, I have that mapped out. I figure out who’s on stage, but then I write out all the patterns involved. Any traffic issues I’ll have worked out on paper. I move pennies around on the floor. That way I can have a clear idea of where they are on the stage. The steps are easy to remember.

When I’m preparing anything that’s a big structural formation or progression, I look at the spacing first. I work out where they’re going on stage, how much time they have to move, and after I’ve done that I work out the steps. The steps are the last thing to go into a ballet, for me. If you don’t have the architecture, you can’t put in the detail.


Tell me about the design and lighting.

I have two designers working on this piece. One of them is Christopher Dennis, resident lighting designer of the National Ballet of Canada, and this is the first time I’m working with him. He has a great reputation for his lighting. I’m very excited about working with him and trying to find new technologies and ways that we can achieve what we’re looking for – to take a very simple set and make it look different in as many ways as possible.

The set and costume designer is Michael Gianfrancesco, who went to high school with me. We were put back in touch by a friend. Now he works in theatre and opera. When I approached him to do this work, I gave him the theme of colours. We talked about environment and I told him about the journey, and we decided to make a very simple space. We’re hanging white legs in front of the black box but just slightly back so there’s white with a black border all the way around.

For the apotheosis, I wanted the ballerina to come back from another world. There needed to be a progression, a transformation, and so the requirements of what we wanted to happen for that, how we wanted the stage to move and be adjusted scenically, dictated how we were to shape the back of the stage, so we kind of built it backwards from that point.

He found this incredible fabric from a German scenic company that’s a poly-combo-something, thirteen letters long. It is material that has a whole bunch of semicircles cut into it so when it’s stretched it creates holes the light can pass through. It allows me to put people behind it and kind of see them. We’re using panels of that at the back of the stage, which also gives me the possibility of entrances mid-stage and gives a way to parachute a dancer on stage without much warning. It gives me a lot of flexibility at the same time allowing space for this transformation for the apotheosis.

I’m relying on Christopher Dennis to pull versatility from the set. The lighting is going to make the setting more functional than it would be if you had a three-dimensional object there. And since I’m trying to show that light is the environment that we’re in and that influences our understanding of the object, I think it’s a very good parallel to the whole underlying feeling of this piece.

What will the dancers wear?

In the beginning in the white section they’re wearing very simple tight costumes but they change out of those very quickly after the first minute and forty-two seconds and go into their coloured costumes. All the women are in one costume, or one shape of costume, bodice and skirt, and the men are in another shape, pants and shirt, but they’re in contrasting colours. So the corps are all in grey, and each of the soloists will be in their individual colour. For the corps I needed something that could act as a transition, as a unifying comment, a way of moving between things.

You told me an important source has been the book Chroma by Derek Jarman. I looked it up at the library. It’s a fascinating meditation on the diversity of colour in nature, art, literature, history. He quotes Kandinsky and many other artists. How did you find it?

My sister, Katie, who did her undergrad at York in the film program, graduated at the top of the class with a specialty in sound. Derek Jarman made a film called Blue when he had gone blind – he played with the idea of a film about sound. She gave me this book, she had me read it. She’s now at Laurier doing her PhD in film.

What is most challenging or scary about choreographing In Colour?

Some of this music is absolutely terrifying. The score was written in the middle of the war between Russia and Georgia last summer, and I was there and seeing how the media portrayed the war. In Russia it was very clear who was the aggressor, and in the States it was very clear who was the aggressor, and they weren’t the same. I saw the same file photos being used in both countries, both places, but being portrayed as being the opposing sides. To be in the middle of that and to see how information was changed was really quite interesting.

One thing I realized last night as I was reading a little bit on Kandinsky and his understanding of green – that green is a passive, calm, motionless colour, very serene – I thought, that’s interesting, because I’ve decided to put green in the most warlike section of the ballet. It made me realize that our understanding of the perception of colour changes over time.

I think with camouflage, with how people dress – I associate war with green, with jealousy, but as I was talking with my sister about this I realized that almost every single one of these colours is associated with conflict or fight in some front. Red used to be about war, its blood, but at the same time now it’s the fight against AIDS. Pink is the fight against breast cancer. Green is jealousy, it’s aggressive. Yellow is a provocation. My realization was that the parts of this ballet are seeing colour through conflict.

That gave me a way to understand the tension and power in this music. It’s highly volatile music. It’s very big, written by a young composer who has huge ideas and huge energy. And you sense that. You feel that youth, but at the same time an incredible maturity in him and the two are at odds with each other. This realization helped me to figure out partly how to step into that. I’m terrified of some of these sections. That’s good, because when I’m not scared of a piece of music, I don’t create interesting movement.~

Selma Odom [guest writer] teaches dance history at York University. Her research focusses on teachers and transmission in dance and music. She has published hundreds of articles and reviews since the 1960s and co-edited the anthology Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories (2004).


*A profile of Peter Quanz by Selma Odom appears in the March 2009 print issue of The Dance Current.

Learn more >>
www.peterquanz.com
www.national.ballet.ca

In Process with Peter Quanz: Part 1

Interview with Peter Quanz
by Selma Odom

Photos of Peter Quanz and National Ballet dancers Elena Lobsanova and Noah Long by Sian Richards

Peter Quanz is currently in rehearsal for his new ballet In Colour, with a score by composer Anton Lubchenko.

The studios of The National Ballet of Canada are a beehive of activity with the full company rehearsing works by Peter Quanz, Sabrina Matthews and Crystal Pite for the Innovation program, March 4th through 8th in Toronto. Quanz’s involvement began in discussions with Artistic Director Karen Kain after his premiere for the company’s Choreographic Workshop in September 2006. He explains:

I was told that it would be an evening with three new ballets by Canadian choreographers, the first of this kind ever in The National Ballet’s history, the first time they ever commissioned three new works, the first time by three new Canadian choreographers, and I think a major step in Canadian dance history in terms of the ballet companies.

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The premise of this whole project is that we’ve each been given the same budget, and we can choose how to use that budget according to what we’d like to do for our own ballets.

While I was in Russia working with the Kirov Ballet I was introduced to a young Russian composer. His name is Anton Lubchenko. When I met him he was twenty-two, and he was sent to my studio by the Secretary of the theatre, Marta Petrovna. She’s decorated by Putin – so quite a powerful secretary. She sent me this composer partly at her thought and partly at the inspiration of former dancer-ballet mistress Elena Tchernichova, who has been a mentor and coach of mine.

They both felt a young composer should be paired up with a young choreographer – that the choreographer would develop by having access to new music and the composer would develop by being challenged with having to work with dance rhythms and a more theatrical sense of music than would be done in the concert hall.

I think this has been a very fruitful collaboration for the two of us. This is the second project that we’re working on but the first one to hit completion. We’ve been developing a full-length ballet, an original two-act work that is still in process. Timelines in Russia are strange things, so that’s why it hasn’t been up yet, but we’re working on it, and when I realized that project was going to take more time to develop, I thought, now that I have money from The National Ballet and I can commission the music, it makes sense to continue this collaboration with Anton, in order to give him experience working with me, give him his North American debut and also bring something of my experience in Russia to a Canadian audience.

So you began your collaboration in St. Petersburg in 2007?

We started before my premiere in July 2007 – that’s when I was doing Aria Suspended to Stravinsky’s Symphony in C – but I was back in Russia for much of October and November of that year and then I was back in February of 2008 and again in the summer for another two and a half months. I spent eight months total in Russia in the last year and a half.

Part of the reason it has taken so much time is that Anton doesn’t speak English, or he’s learning for this project but he doesn’t speak much, and I’ve had to learn Russian from my first day there, and so our communication is sometimes slow. But in doing so, it’s really forced us to listen to each other, to spend time doing silly things, or walking around the city or just getting to know each other as people, which has greatly influenced the choreography. I can see in the music the parts that he would enjoy playing on the piano. I can visualize how he would hold his body as he’s playing, and that in turn is going to shape some of my movement.

What is his way of composing – does he improvise? How does he share his music with you?

Well, he does several things. I mean there’s what he considers the serious music and what he considers his music for fun. Together with Elena, we would sit in her apartment, with the kettle always on the boil and eating cookies and just having a wonderful time. Eventually she bought a piano and had it hauled up to her fourth-floor apartment so that he could play for us. So now there’s this baby grand, well mid-sized grand piano, and it’s just for him. And we would spend all night every night.

He would play different types of music – sometimes Tchaikovsky, sometimes Stravinsky, sometimes Schubert. He’d give us concerts every night, and then he would launch into these twenty-minute jazz like sessions where he’d kind of bash through all kinds of different well known popular classical pieces and rearrange them slightly and make musical jokes. That’s the type of improvisation he does. These sessions would last all night and Elena would be fretting that the poor neighbours couldn’t sleep, and we’d get the odd shouts from the courtyard, but it’s music, it’s beautiful.

It sounds like a bonus for the neighbours! They probably didn’t mind all that much – well, maybe on a hot night with the windows open.

But in terms of his actual composition, he says he doesn’t sit down to write music. He hears it in his head and then sits down and writes it out. I remember very clearly when we were talking about the first theme for this ballet, which was the theme that we’re using for the very first section, the white section. It’s kind of an ostinato that is on the strings and it has other lines going through. He played one thing for us first, and it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, so I asked him to make a few changes.

He sat there maybe three minutes staring off into space, and then he got up to the piano and played the first theme exactly as he has written it. He went on to tell us what theme would come afterwards, how it would develop. In those three minutes he didn’t only come up with a new theme, he could see the entire structure of the ballet. And he could race through it, forwards, backwards, any given speed – it was like a three-dimensional object that he could walk through. The thought process and the way that it just flowed out of him was the most divine expression I’ve ever seen.

He has musical reasons for arriving at his structure, I suppose, but what about composing for the theatre?

The National Ballet is understandably very concerned about the amount of rehearsal time that we have for these ballets. Three new ballets is a lot. To have three demanding choreographers running around, all using the same people, and trying to use the same resources is a challenge. And so even though Karen Kain wanted me to make a large classical ballet, she wanted me to do it on a minimum amount of rehearsal time, which is a huge challenge.

I thought if I am going to deliver that type of ballet, which I like to do and I’m good at and I enjoy, I should probably make a ballet that I can break into sections, where I can rehearse smaller groups of people. In my mind it was a theme and variations type work. When I mentioned that to Anton, he said, “Oh, no, theme and variation is horrible. You cannot do theme and variation in the year 2008. It does not work, no way. I write symphony.”

It’s one of those things where you can’t argue. It’s in two movements, but it’s called symphony in nine variations. When I went to break down what I was doing I realized that I didn’t always follow his breakdown of variations. Some of that differed, but that’s okay, I’m musical, too, and I can work within his structure. There have been some huge screaming matches, and also there have been slammed doors, Russian drama, but there’s also a real dedication to each other.

It was the three of us living together for more than a month several different times. He had his residence from the Conservatory, but it was far away and it was in the summer when the bridges over the Neva are raised at night so he couldn’t get home. It was three of us in an apartment all the time. It leads to some very high emotions, but one of the things that I’ve been working on is being more emotional in my choreography. I’m very clear on structure, but I need to show that I can also be more human, and perhaps this allowed me to open up that way a bit more. His music has provided me a wonderful vehicle and challenge.

In this process there have been points where I’ve had an idea where this project is going movement-wise before hearing the music, and when I heard the music, they fit. I don’t know why or how that could be, but it was like we were given the same information. I don’t want to turn that into too much of a mystical comment, but I believe there’s some kind of force behind it.~

Selma Odom [guest writer] teaches dance history at York University. Her research focusses on teachers and transmission in dance and music. She has published hundreds of articles and reviews since the 1960s and co-edited the anthology Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories (2004).


*A profile of Peter Quanz by Selma Odom appears in the March 2009 print issue of The Dance Current.

Learn more >>
www.peterquanz.com
www.national.ballet.ca

For an introduction to Anton Lubchenko, his music and the city of St. Petersburg circa 2006, see April Man by filmmaker Dmitriy Lavrinenko:
www.dimalavr.com/en/ChelovekAprelya.html

UNDERCURRENTS: Yasmina Ramzy

March 2009
Interview with Yasmina Ramzy
by Megan Andrews













Photo of Yasmina Ramzy by Sussi Dorrell

Yasmina Ramzy is a dancer/choreographer and the founder and artistic director of Arabesque Dance Company and Orchestra, Arabesque Academy, and the International Bellydance Conference of Canada.

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Your work involves an amalgamation or fusion of many different kinds of Middle Eastern dance. How do you distinguish or characterize “bellydancing” and the different styles of Middle Eastern dance or dances?

I am familiar with and teach fourteen different styles of Middle Eastern dance, three of which are under the category of bellydance and the other eleven are folkloric or spiritual trance dances, such as the Zaar Exorcism ritual or the Whirling Dervish. Each style has a character, a musical style and a realm of movement. Within each realm, there are limitless ways of expression. Some of the architecture or physical movement is shared between some of the styles but the nuances are very different. Bellydance, in particular, has borrowed from many of the folkloric styles but is presented with a different character and nuance.

What artistic values underlie your vision as a choreographer and artistic director?

Although I do not make an obvious point of it, all of my messages are in essence spiritual. In other words, I am always striving to open the hearts of audiences with powerful emotion. The kind of emotion that reminds us of the miracle that the universe exists and that we are blessed with the pleasure of enjoying its experience. There is something profound in the multitude of subtle layers and weaving interconnections of Arabic dance, music and poetry that I feel is a key to this experience.

Some people believe that bellydancing reinforces the characterization of “women as sexualized spectacle”. Others consider bellydancing an empowering, feminist practice. How do you address these opposing views?

Both can be true depending upon the view of the bellydancer and the view of the spectator. From ages fourteen through twenty-one, before I was a bellydancer, I lived in a Buddhist centre with celebate monks and nuns. I was always taught that sex is a very holy expression of the miracle of the universe and an expression of infinite love. I feel that bellydance is the perfect vehicle for this message. Many women who study bellydance find it very empowering because the archetypal movement and nuance they are tapping into ends up rewiring their view of their own womanhood and its importance. People who may be more in tune with the last 2000 years of sexual denial will experience bellydance as a negative thing. By the same token, bellydance is fast becoming globally popular, because it is a way of overcoming this inner oppression.

In your work, you place an emphasis not only on dancing style and technique but also on musical understanding, folklore and history. Do you consider your company a kind of cultural ambassador?

My last production called Asala was a thank-you kiss to the Arabic community for giving me my artform and nurturing me. I created a two-hour presentation featuring many of the folkloric styles of dance I had learned over the years. I wanted to inspire and pass on my knowledge to a future generation and thus free myself to go beyond and find my personal voice. My school Arabesque Academy continues to give a solid foundation in tradition while encouraging creativity. Lately I am experimenting with traditional Arabic musical poetry, which is always about love – a profound love in which the desire for the Beloved is the same as the desire to be one with God or the Goddess.

When you create a new production, what kind of audience are you primarily considering?

The choreographies that come together to make a production come out of a need to express something, not with any particular audience in mind. I think all the members of Arabesque Dance Company and Orchestra want to stir up the hearts of all kinds of audiences.

How is your new production Egypt different from past full-evening productions?

Egypt has a little bit of all the different directions I have expressed through my art over the years. It is my way of summing everything up and deciding which is the direction to pursue more deeply for the next part of the journey. I am starting to see that bringing the differences together might be creating a whole new way of expression that can include them all, the Goddess worship, the folklore, the sensual and playful bellydancer and the deep and profound poet.

Contemporary choreographer Robert Desrosiers is a choreographic advisor on this project. How are you and he working together on the production? What new discoveries have you made through this working relationship?

I knew many, many years ago that Robert and I used diametrically opposed ways of moving but we both expressed essentially the same message. When we met in person, we found we had too much in common. Working with him is euphoric. He is such a fountain of creativity. We found it was impossible for him to choreograph on my dancers because they cannot move like him, but when he describes a feeling or vision, I can translate it to our movement. We hope to do more in the future perhaps with half the dancers trained for his movement and the other half trained by me. The juxtaposition of opposite movement approaches side-by0side could be either impossible or fascinating.

In the last few years, you have initiated a successful international bellydance conference. What prompted you to develop this project and how is it affecting the bellydancing community internationally? Is there a conference in 2009?

I had attended and was greatly inspired by a similar conference at the Orange County University in California. This, coupled with the frustration that there is so much talent across Canada but it is little acknowledged, were factors to propel me to take on this huge task. Canadians were always looking south of border when very often, it was Canadians who were ahead of the rest. The conference was a way to put Canada on the bellydance map and instill pride in Canadian artists. Most of all, I enjoyed bringing together so many inspiring artists and scholars from all over the world in one place at the same time, debating and discussing the pertinent issues with one another. We need to skip 2009 to recoup and regroup. We hope one day to take the conference to a different Canadian city each year. We are currently working on the line-up for 2010.

*An excerpted version of this interview appears in the March 2009 print issue of The Dance Current.

Learn more >>
www.arabesquedance.ca

UNDERCURRENTS | COURANT CONTINU: Hélène Langevin

February 2009 février
Entrevue avec Hélène Langevin de/Interview with Hélène Langevin
by Megan Andrews, traduction de/translation by Marie Claire Forté








Hélène Langevin de/of Bouge de là / Photo de/by Rolline Laporte

Hélène Langevin est directrice artistique de Bouge de là, une compagnie québécoise qui crée des spectacles multidisciplinaires pour le jeune public. | Hélène Langevin is artistic director of Bouge de là, a Québec company that creates multidisciplinary performances for young audiences.

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À quel groupe d’âge s’adresse principalement votre travail ? | What age groups do you primarily create for?

Je crée pour des jeunes de cinq à dix ans ; c’est mon groupe d’âge préféré. Mais mes spectacles sont appréciés par des adultes et des très jeunes, lorsqu’ils viennent en famille. | I create for an audience of five- to ten-year-olds. This is my favourite age group. But my shows are also appreciated by adults and by very young children, when the whole family comes.

Selon vous, pourquoi est-il important de créer des spectacles pour les jeunes ? | Why do you think it’s important to make dance works specifically for young people?

Les études ont démontré qu’exposer les jeunes enfants à différentes formes d’art leur permet de développer une appréciation de la musique, de la danse, du théâtre. Ce goût risque de durer tout au long de leur vie et, à long terme, cela donnera naissance à un public pour la danse de demain. Aussi, j’espère que mes spectacles incitent les enfants à danser. | Studies have shown that exposing young children to different art forms helps them to develop an appreciation for music, dance and theatre. These experiences will hopefully last throughout their lives and, in the long term, cultivate a future audience for dance. I also hope that my shows entice kids to dance.

À vos débuts, vous travailliez en danse contemporaine pour « adultes ». Comment cela vous a-t-il mené à créer de la danse pour les jeunes ? | You previously worked in contemporary dance for “adults”. How did that work lead you toward making dance for youth?

De 1988 à 1999, j’ai travaillé avec le collectif Brouhaha Danse. Les spectacles très multidisciplinaires abordaient des sujets sérieux tels que la violence envers les femmes avec Claire et l’endoctrinement idéologie avec La Galerie des horribles. Comme chorégraphe, j’étais celle qui proposait la légèreté et l’humour dans ces spectacles. À la dissolution de la compagnie en 1999, j’ai décidé de laisser libre cours à ma joie de vivre, d’exprimer mon côté ludique et clownesque avec la danse. J’ai gardé le goût de travailler avec plusieurs formes d’art comme le cinéma, la littérature et le théâtre. J’ai fondé Bouge de là en 1999. Depuis, je me sens bien en ligne avec ma créativité. Créer des spectacles pour de jeunes publics me permet de rencontrer les enfants dans les écoles et de leur donner des ateliers de danse. L’enseignement de la danse créative est ma deuxième passion, et cela, depuis 1980. | From 1988 to 1999, I worked with the collective Brouhaha Danse. Their highly multidisciplinary shows had strong content, like violence toward women with Claire and ideological indoctrination with La Galerie des horribles. As a choreographer, I was the one who brought lightness and humour to these shows. With the dissolution of the company in 1999, I decided to let my inspiration lead me to express my comedic and clownish side through dance. I maintained the desire to work with multiple art forms, including cinema, literature and theatre. I founded Bouge de là in 1999. Since then, I am very comfortable with my creativity. Making shows for young audiences also allows me to meet students in schools and offer them dance workshops. Teaching creative dance has been my second passion since 1980.

Quelles stratégies employez-vous pour susciter l’intérêt des jeunes aujourd'hui ? | What strategies do you use to engage youth today?

Le jeune vit dans un « fast food » d’images et de sensations. Tout est prédigéré pour lui et je dois compétitionner avec des films d’animation et des jeux vidéo réalisés avec des budgets de plusieurs millions. J’aime contaminer mes chorégraphies d’une certaine narrativité qui crée un lien avec le vécu du jeune spectateur. Et j’aime bien le faire rire, car l’humour est mon arme de séduction. Je veux lui donner le goût de danser après les représentations. Alors, ma danse est très physique, performante et peut-être spectaculaire par moment. Elle doit être surtout variée en textures. | Kids live in a “fastfood” culture of images and sensations. Everything is predigested for them and I compete with multi-million-dollar animated films and video games. I like to imbue my work with a certain narrative quality that creates a connection to kids’ daily lives. And I definitely like to make them laugh, because humour is my weapon of seduction. I want to inspire them to dance after they leave the performance. So my works are very physical, dramatic and can be spectacular at certain points. Above all, they must include a variety of textures.

Vos interprètes sont-ils des artistes professionnels ou faites-vous appel à des jeunes ? | Are your performers professional artists or do you also work with youth to make your work?

Je travaille uniquement avec des danseurs professionnels en danse contemporaine. Ils doivent avoir une bonne technique ainsi que de grandes qualités théâtrales afin de bien communiquer leurs émotions au jeune auditoire. | I work solely with professional contemporary dancers. They must have good technique as well as strong theatrical qualities to be able to effectively communicate their emotions to young audience members.

Comment stimulez-vous votre imaginaire pour nourrir votre processus de création ? | How do you stimulate your own imagination to feed your creative process?

Quelques fois, je pars d’un conte jeunesse ou d’un thème comme le rêve ou les cinq sens, par exemple. Je fais une recherche sur le thème, je travaille une gestuelle à partir de mots, d’images, de sensations et d’improvisations avec les danseurs. Mes créations sont toujours la somme de la créativité des gens engagés dans le processus. Je travaille beaucoup en collaboration avec mes danseurs. | Sometimes, I work from a children’s story or a theme like dreams or the five senses, for example. I do research on the theme and develop a movement language from words, images, sensations and improvisation with the dancers. My creations are always the sum of the creativity of the people involved in the process. I work extensively in collaboration with my dancers.

Votre vision inclut-elle des thèmes tristes ou violents ? | Does your vision also include the potential for sad or violent themes ?

Avec ma dernière création, j’ai adapté un conte de Dominique Demers, Vieux Thomas et la petite fée. Ce conte parlait du cycle de vie et de la transformation d’un vieux marin colérique et triste. Mon défi était de diriger ma créativité vers des émotions et des personnages qui sont loin de ma nature et d’explorer des rythmes inhabituels comme la lenteur du vieil homme, par exemple. J’ai aussi réalisé que les enfants peuvent aimer un spectacle qui finit tristement. Cette découverte m’ouvre de nouvelles portes en tant que créatrice. | With my last work, I adapted a story by Dominique Demers “Old Thomas and The Little Fairy”, about the life cycle and about the transformation of a sad and grumpy old sailor. My challenge was to direct my creativity toward emotions and characters who are very different from me and to explore unfamiliar rhythms, like the slow pace of the old man for example. I also realized that children can like a story with a sad ending. This discovery has opened new doors for me as a creator.

*An excerpted version of the interview appears in the February 2009 print issue of The Dance Current.

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