Three Becomes One

On Saturday, I headed over to the King St E. and Parliament area for a dance recital at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse. I'm not a regular visitor so I noticed there's been changes since I visited Little Trinity church. There are more trendy boutique shops including Roselle Desserts.

The building was a free school in 1849 and has gone through many incarnations. It faced demolition in the 60s but was saved by local residents. It is now Toronto's oldest surviving heritage building. The main space had an airy vaulted ceiling. Apparently, it is used for catered events including weddings. Tonight, rows of chairs on three sides faced the center where the performers will dance.

Echo Chamber wants to combine contemporary dance with interactive live music. I had seen them at a public dance in Union Station. Tonight, they were using more modern music composition from Eastern Europe (Corigliano, Kodaly, Enescu). As such, there were hints of klezmer, Romani, and folk influences.

It was interesting to compare the 2 pieces and dancers. Though both pieces were contemporary, one was choreographed by principal ballet dancer Brendan Saye and the other by modern dance choreographer Hannah Kiel. Saye's piece, centred around a table with 3 chairs, was for his compatriots Naoya Ebe, Donald Thom, and Hannah Galway. The latter also danced in Kiel's piece with contemporary dancers Kelly Shaw and Ryan Lee.

With the use of props, costume changes, and repeating dance motifs, there was an underlying narrative to Saye's choreography: a story of familial conflict and loss. Kiel's was more free-form, letting the viewer project their own experiences into her movement. The ballet dancers were about straight, clean lines whereas the modern dancers used angled limbs and rapid, sharp transitions (likely inspired by hip-hop dances).

The interactivity between dancers and musicians still seemed a bit tacked on. It mostly involved a violinist walking toward a dancer, played for a bit, and then walking away. It felt more awkward mashup than true union.

Since the musicians were of high-calibre (mostly from Canadian Opera Company), there was a desire to highlight their playing especially on Enescu's Opus 7 for String Octet. But this meant long stretches of playing without dancing, which was unsatisfying for the dance aficionados. On the other hand, the music lovers in the crowd probably didn't love all that crazy movement interrupting their music either. I don't know if it's possible to truly add more interactivity without increasing, for example, accidents. But a more unified presentation would be more engaging. A step in the right direction could be something like this show with Australia's Circa and the Debussy String Quartet.