Dance Softly

I went down to Fleck Theatre on Saturday to watch ProArteDanza. This contemporary dance troupe always put on a physical, kinetic show. This year, there was a melange of music that was reflected in the first piece. Since their 2nd dance was to the classical music (Beethoven's 9th - 3rd Movement) and their last dance is to industrial dance, it seemed appropriate that their 1st piece had both.

A Canadian premiere of Shifting Silence (2011 Mannheim), Tyler Gledhill stood in a rectangle of light clad in tight red pants. He would begin to manipulate and jerk his limbs, seemingly disconnected and disturbed by his body. The other dancers came in dressed in grey, and over the course of several vignettes, would either interact with each other and occasionally mirroring Gledhill's movements. Delphine Leroux was his counterpart in a red dress. Were they others or his different aspects of his own psyche? It was interesting that the men (Ben Landsberg, Ryan Lee) and female dancer Mami Hata used soft, supple, classic lines while the women (Leroux, Erin Poole, Anisa Tejpar) were often frenetic and angular. With each pas de deux with Gledhill, he finally arrived at a stillness within himself.

After intermission, it was the world premiere of Beethoven's 9th - 3rd Movement, this troupe's ongoing attempt to choreograph contemporary dance with classical, symphonic music not written for dance. The dancing was also more classical, though the interaction with wooden chairs was modern. They would sit down, only be tipped over by other dancers. Or else they leapt off the chairs or balanced precariously on them. At one point, each dancer was joined to one other by holding onto two chairs; this hybrid snake twisted and turned into complex shapes.

The final piece was a remount of a 2011 piece called Fractals. Just as the before, I was impressed by the military precision of the furious movement. There was a strong similarity to Emergence. This was a major crowd pleaser. As I looked over Ai Wei Wei's Bicycle Forever later in the evening for Nuit Blanche, the 4000 bicycles locked together reminded me of this piece. The human soul (or the modern version) finds repeating patterns to be enchanting and beautiful.