HIP-HOP AND JAZZ RULE THE DAY
Rubberbandance Group, bjm_danse and Montréal Danse
Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur
Grand Chapiteau
By Paula Citron
Two shows at festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur, in the Laurentians north of Montréal, demonstrate the problems with programming dance. Organizers want entertaining concerts that will bring in audiences. At the same time they want to nudge those audiences into more risky territory.
Three Montréal-based companies illustrated the dilemma. The double bill of Rubberbandance Group and bjm_danse created such a demand for tickets that extra seats had to be added. Hip-hop and jazz dance were clearly a boffo combination. The 20 th anniversary celebration of Montréal Danse did not fare as well.
Rubberbandance is irresistible. California-born artistic director Victor Quijada was a street dancer long before he trained in ballet. His dance vocabulary is a cunning fusion of hip-hop, ballet and contemporary dance that flows seamlessly together. While some of his pieces are set to rap, it is his bizarre use of classical scores that especially delights audiences.
For example Secret Service (2002) is set to the courtly dance at the Capulet ball from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet . Quijada transforms the stately music into white-hot passion by using it as a backdrop for disenfranchised street kids in his version of West Side Story.
For those unfamiliar with bjm_danse, the sobriquet is artistic director Louis Robitaille's way of saying he is turning Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal in the direction of more generalized contemporary dance.
The guy can certainly choose resident choreographers. His current dancesmith is Canadian-born , New York -based Aszure Barton. Les Chambres de Jacques is the second Barton piece I've experienced and her quirky, eccentric choreography is deliciously unmistakable. She somehow combines snakelike suppleness, angular distortions, erratic hand gestures, and unpredictable muscle impulses to create peculiar but endearing bodies in motion, all layered over a strong ballet technique.
The piece is set to a score that includes Roberto Iglesias' accordion/violin salon music, Yiddish klezmer groups and Vivaldi – all of which adds to the clever disorientation.
Barton's aim was to present humanity at its most intimate and banal. She was inspired by the personalities of the dancers, and so we see them laughing, crying, flirting, provoking and generally horsing around when they are not in some emotional crisis, yet always on the beat of the music.
Robitaille's 12-member company has never looked better. Standouts include the charismatic James Gregg, the loose-limbed Andrew Murdock, and the elegant Katharine Cowie….
