Awesome Anthology of Dance

Two weeks back, Toronto company Kaeja d'Dance presented an unusual and truly effective evening of dance entitled Solo Dance Xchange as the second phase of their multi-year project, Xtraordinary TO Dances.  I'll do the usual honours right up front.

Conflict of Interest Alert:  My nephew, Robert Stephen, was one of the dancers.

I wanted to put that right at the outset, because I would never have heard of this programme or gotten a ticket for it unless Robert had told me about it.  This kind of performance isn't usually on my radar, as my interest gravitates on the whole (but not entirely) towards more classical art forms.  

The concept of the co-artistic directors of Kaeja d'Dance, Alan and Karen Kaeja, was simultaneously complex and inspired.  The project began last year with the production of a film featuring 22 leading dancers from Toronto.  Each one was filmed in a short improvised dance segment in a location of his/her choice. 

Since the project began with the film, entitled XTOD: Moments in Reel Time, the show did likewise.  We took our seats in the theatre of Streetcar Crowsnest, a relatively new arts performance space in a modern condo building at Dundas and Carlaw in east Toronto.  The film lasted about 25 minutes, from which one can easily tell that the individual segments were indeed brief, and the linking moments between segments likewise.  For all that, this short "documentary" -- if that's the right word -- brought together beautiful camera work, creative editing, and evocative background soundscapes with the variety of locations chosen.  Whether by accident or design, all of the dance segments were filmed outdoors and all but two or three of the dancers chose locations involving nature in the city -- flowing water, trees, shrubs, the lakeshore.

After the intermission, each of the dancers presented a 2-3 minute solo dance inspired in some way by the film segment of one of the other dancers.  Names had been drawn from a hat, and each dancer then spent some time conversing with her/his "muse" about the sources for the flavour of the filmed improv solo.  Each dancer then created the short live segment for the performance, using some aspect of that interview or of the film as a point of departure.

The whole performance was effectively counterpointed with very creative lighting work by Simon Rossiter, and soundscape music by Eric Cadesky, Laurel MacDonald, and Phil Strong -- all of which was improvised during the space of a night or two before the first of the three performances.  

I've gone to the trouble of explaining all this in so much detail, because it helps to show my faithful readers why a conventional review of such a performance is incredibly difficult to write.

As the dance segments unfolded in front of us, one by one, I was struck by the incredible diversity of what we were seeing.  Throughout the evening, dichotomy was the rule of the day.  Some segments were deadly serious, and some were comical.  High-speed energy was succeeded by slow, controlled movement.  Props from sticks to tables to skateboards were used by some, while others simply moved within the space.  Elaborate costumes were followed by simple clothes and -- in two cases -- by complete nudity.  Some segments were impressionistic in the extreme, while others presented much more concrete images (Atlas holding up the world was my immediate impression in one case).

Styles of dance, by intention, ran the full gamut.  Mi Young Kim's traditional Korean dance  gave us the height of stylization.  Robert Stephen took us into the world of ballet.  Esmeralda Enrique brought Spanish flamenco into the mix.  Shawn Byfield presented an energetic tap-dancing performance.  Other performers explored the infinite variety of movement possible in the liberating environment of what is loosely called "modern" dance.

By way of review, all I can really say is that this lengthy sequence of dances (about 90 minutes) remained totally engrossing and fascinating for me throughout.  Equally fascinating was the performer talkback at the end.  Each dancer was asked to name their "muse" and briefly speak about what they took from that person to work with.  There followed an audience Q&A session, which brought out the fact that these quasi-improvised performances kept growing and changing from night to night of the 3-show run.  (I attended the final show).

During the performances, I had been looking for influences of a visible kind.  But in the talkback, it became plain that many of the dancers had taken up their muse's influence at a more subtle level, rather than making it overtly visible.  None the less, I remain convinced that some of those influences spilled over into more than one of the other performers' solo segments.  I wonder if that was another by-product of the continuing growth and change of the dances through the three performances?