Random Walk

(C) ProArteDanza

Saturday night, I attended ProArteDanza's Season 2011 at the Fleck Theatre. Unlike other contemporary dance troupe, they use recognizably and extensively classical ballet but reconfigured for a contemporary setting. The first piece, Verwoben (german for weaving) has Marc Cardarelli, Mami Hata, and Brendan Wyatt dancing to Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 3 in A-minor. In a series of interconnecting vignettes, the dancers move in intertwining patterns, and repeating small fragments. The last vignette is the most compelling, with the male dancers doing double-lifts of Ms. Hata. There is a playfulness where they danced solo, like little kids showing off to each other. This is Ms. Hata's Toronto debut since her relocation from Germany (Mannheim Ballet).

The second piece's more emotional content is better appealing to the Eastern European women in my area. En Parallèle has Tyler Gledhill and Marissa Parzei engaged in a torrid pas de deux. The ballet roots were most evident, with Parzei often up en pointe. Yet her sinuous poses reflected Tango or Flamenco influences. I enjoy the piece but the love/hate dynamics is cliche, as evidenced by every single dance on So You Think You Can Dance.

After the intermission, Pearline opens with a glowing white circle above the stage. Scrawled across its face, "The Moon". Down below, Hata and Louis Laberge-Côté are feeling extra playful. To the sounds of crickets and a hopping slide guitar, they dance and leap with abandon. Are they people or animals? Or animals pretending to be people or the reverse? What ever the case, there's plenty of leg rubbing, ear scratching, howling at the moon, and  humour in this fun piece.

The main piece is Fractals: a pattern of chaos choreographed by Guillaume Côté, principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada. All the dancers return in addition to Johanna Bergfelt, Valerie Calam, and Ryan Lee. Dressed in black, except for the male dancers' bare chests, they dance frenetically to fast industrial electronica drumming. They move in synchrony, break off, and regroup. Pairs of dancers will often invade each other's space with fast arm movements like Voguing on Speed. Their fingers and feet vibrate at high speed, resembling insect wings. It was a great piece, reminiscent of Pite's Emergence, but I could not discern the central conceit of the title. Fractals have a repeating pattern at every scale of resolution. I'm not sure how you would do it with people, but it has to be more than a group of dancers in lock-step.