This week I stepped out of the unrelenting spring rain into Queen Elizabeth Theatre to check out the grand finale of Ballet BC’s 2021-2022 season. Emerging from the pandemic, slowly but surely, we are learning to get back to where we had left off. But we have also changed irrevocably over the last two years. Ballet BC’s offerings this season however have maintained their world-class standards but have also grown to match our collective shift in sensibilities.
“Strange Attractor” opens with a scene that right then mirrored the rain battered streets outside. A dancer lies on the ground under a downpour, his feet moving in time to rockabilly singer, Jaycee Hill’s tune. He performs a stirring contemporary solo and then umbrella heads make their presence felt out of the darkness of the back wall. They inflate and deflate, looking strange and ominous. Like ancient birds or ghosts. The umbrella carrying figures ascend on the dancer and engulf him in their chaos. The umbrellas disappear and we are left with a mass of dancers in dark clothing. They move together to music that has now entered techno territory. As the music gains in strength so does the movement of the dancers. Their arms stutter and stab the air, many times they look at their own bodies like they don’t recognise them. The result is hypnotic and hair-raising. The dancers are then blessed with a ray of sunshine and edge towards it like zombies, thirsty to be human again. Choreographers David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen (Out Innerspace) recreate with dance the mental health spiral that the endless Vancouver rain can throw us into. Days without the sun make us strangers even to ourselves.
The second part of “Strange Attractors” happens in a sunny paradise. The dancers have changed into sheer clothing with embroidered flowers. Their movements are fluid and graceful, the music is gentle and sways. The dancers have been transformed by the gift of sunshine and the absence of urban stress. The piece is described in the program as exploring “the mysterious cycle of too much and not enough.” We see repetition in movements, and play between light and shadow. Continuous figure 8s symbolise the monotony of our lives.
The two parts of “Strange Attractors” contrast each other and make a point about how stressful urban life has become because of the pandemic, higher cost of living, unaffordability and technology. How much we all need a breather, a vacation. And why is it so unreasonable to ask that this vacation be a permanent way of life? Having said that, I found the first part to be absolutely mind blowing. The spell of never-ending Vancouver rain is hard to capture but Raymond and Tregarthen have done so with eerie accuracy. The visuals, along with the techno music and the hip hop choreography made me wish it would last the entire piece. As much as the second part rounds out the narrative of reprieve from the cruel modern world, it lacks the emotions and power of the first part. I could watch the rain sequence over and over again!
In Dorotea Saykaly’s “RELIC” we get a sci-fi piece about the what it will mean to be human in an age of artificial intelligence. The dancers wear light grey bodysuits and position themselves like statues on a museum floor. They move like machines but manage to bring harmony and fluidity into the mix. The music includes a voiceover that sounds like an instruction manual for robots to sound more human. The piece itself opens with two dancers in a stocking case looking for a way out. One of them finally tears through the gauze, signifying birth, and joins the other dancers. Another male dancer retains this gauze and wears it as a long skirt. I believe this dancer is Dex van Ter Meij. His costume allows van Ter Meij to move across the stage in defiance of gender norms. It is a sight of great beauty. Ballet BC star Livona Ellis performs a stunning solo and one wonders if there is a limit to her talent as she manages to one-up her last performance every single time. The lighting in this piece does a lot of work as well. It creates a manufacture facility-like ambience, and at one point, the insides of a plane. “RELIC” is an incredibly creative and modern piece that deconstructs the bridge between humanity and technology.
Closing the show is Felix Landerer’s “Everything will be ok.” We see dancers dressed in “plainclothes”, wearing earthy loose pants and comfortable long shirts in rust, olive and beige. Two oar-like bars, with LED tubes of light embedded in them, are stationed in the middle of the stage, connected at the top so they give the appearance of the two hands of a clock or the armed needle of a record player. Two dancers rotate these two hands at all times, slowly at first and picking up speed as the piece progresses. The rest of the dancers dance around and under these two bars. At the beginning this is playful like skipping rope or playing the limbo. But as the bars gain speed, the dancers’ navigation around them becomes fretful. They must move lightning fast to avoid being struck by the bars. The dancers keep out of the bars’ way, all the while giving us refreshing contemporary and breakdancing moves. There is not a moment of boredom or time for stillness. The breakout star in this piece is last year’s emerging artist, Rae Srivastava who dances with his heart on the stage without, basically, getting hit in the head! Landerer based this piece on “our deeply embedded need for optimism and a positive perspective on the future.” I feel he has achieved this goal spectacularly. He shows us how as the world unravels around us and the threats of climate change, housing unaffordability, racism, transphobia, and wealth inequality come at us every which way, intensified and blown up manifold by social media, it is still possible to keep up and see these difficult times through. It is exhausting but we keep going. “Everything will be ok” is a beautiful work that feels like an anthem for resilience.
“What If” sheds the skin of pretension associated with the world of ballet. It asks us to go deeper, with little fanfare, and assures us that there is still a lot to keep fighting for.
Get your tickets here!
-Prachi Kamble