Ballet BC Program 1: Awe-inspiring
Ballet BC turned 30 this year, one year younger than I am. Attending the first performance of their thirtieth year on the last day of mine felt perversely symmetrical. I can only wish that I had grown as sophisticated, thought provoking and heartfelt with age.
The pre-show talk was concluded with the wish that each audience member honour their own experience of the work, whatever it may be, without worrying whether their response is appropriate. We can distrust our own experience of art, looking to experts to tell us what we should be feeling or thinking. But Program 1 is a full sensory experience and cannot help but move even the most timid of audience members. So many contemporary local performances of dance or theatre that I encounter are bland, muddled or over-thought and I do feel like I have to really search for a response within myself to feel anything other than ambivalence or apathy. But as soon as the lights came up on Twenty Eight Thousand Waves (a remounted piece by Ballet BC's new resident choreographer, Cayetano Soto), I was transported, my soul awash with pure movement, sound, and images.
Through my experiences of Ballet BC my perception of dance has changed, not only as I marvel at the capabilities of the human form, but also at the depth of emotional catharsis that I experience compared to other mediums. There is something so viscerally poetic about this type of dance that all of the feelings I struggle to name are expressed, vicariously, eloquently, amplified and reflected back to me by the story on the stage.
Described in the pre-talk as being about oil rigs, transition and the discomfort of that state, and in the program as the thin line between life and death and the inner waves of the survival instinct, Twenty Eight Thousand Waves felt to me like my own inner turmoil made manifest. The tangled chaotic relationships forming and dissolving before me made my pain seem not only physical, but beautiful.
There is an element of transcendence in art that, while completely subjective, is still shared on some level by the whole audience. The lady next to me declared in an amazed tone that it had been the shortest thirty minutes of her life. I felt similarly. And a little shaken from the intensity of the experience.
The second piece of the evening was the world premiere of Awe, choreographed by Stijn Celis and accompanied live by Chor Leoni under the direction of Erick Lichte. If the first piece was indicative of the majesty and might of the ocean, Awe was a poignant celebration of the beauty of the world and the human struggle within it. The voices of the choir, shadowy faces seemingly suspended in the murky darkness of the extremely deep stage, swelled and dipped with the dancers, so exquisitely interlaced with the movement that I could not imagine one without the other.
The third piece, the Canadian premiere of Solo Echo, choreographed by Crystal Pite, was spell binding. Sitting in the dark, I felt a solo tear echo itself down my cheek. Seven dancers comprised a single molecule, relationships between their bodies constantly chaotic, shifting, and precarious, but always coming back to the cohesive whole. A struggle for individuality and community, family and self, backlit by the chill of falling snow.
Another point from the pre-show talk that batted around my brain during the evening was the distinction between contemporary dance and contemporary ballet. Emily Molnar was asked why the company has the word ballet in their name while their work might be classified as contemporary dance, albeit performed by ballet-trained dancers. Molnar's answer, that the discipline of ballet is behind everything that the company does, is evident in the precision and mastery that I see consistently in Ballet BC's works. You can actually see a physical impulse not just ripple through the muscles of one Ballet BC dancer, but flow in to another and jump into the next. This level of precision is not the norm in contemporary dance. But even more than technique, mastery requires a deep, soulful love of the discipline. There is reverence, an emotional fullness, presence and connectedness as a troupe that I have come to think of as a signature of Ballet BC. The moment the lights go up, all thoughts immediately drop away and I am absorbed, carried along and dumped out the other side of the fallen curtain like a piece of flotsam. It is a ride that is seductive and addictive. Season tickets are the only answer to this condition.