DANCE REVIEW: National Ballet Of Canada
5 Mar'10

NBOC mixed program 'breathtaking'

JOHN COULBOURN -QMI Agency
Rating: 4 out of 5

What’s in a name, you ask?

Well, if the names happen to be Frederic Chopin, Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, it might be a safe bet to assume that whatever it is, it will have a classical flavour.

But not so fast. Before you put money on it, you might want to make a trip to the Four Seasons Centre, where the National Ballet of Canada is serving up a mixed program that features music from those three composers in a series of dancing that is about as far removed as possible from classical ballet’s tutus and tights.

Even the tiniest of tutus and tights might be considered heavy apparel when compared to the barely-there costumes created by Vandal for Marie Chouinard’s 24 PRELUDES BY CHOPIN, a breath-taking, often witty work for 17 dancers that uses the Preludes of title as a sound-bed for a work that challenges convention as much as it does classical form. With pianist Edward Connell ensconced at the keyboard, Chouinard turns each brief musical flight into a slice of life, using a dance vocabulary that seems to be on loan from Mother Nature as wild-haired dancers, arrayed in see-through dance-wear that obscures only the naughty bits, flutter like butterflies, frolic like dolphins, strut like peacocks and and otherwise soar across the stage. It’s lovely, engrossing stuff that inadvertently underlines the fact that, like an appetizer, a prelude usually leads to something grander — and while 24 Preludes delights, one suspects it might be even more delightful with a few less preludes.

It does, however, serve as a prelude of sorts to two other potentially stunning pieces of modern dance in a classical vein. Choreographer Jerome Robbins and the legendary Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov came together in the early ’90s in a work titled A SUITE OF DANCES set to a series of compositions for cello by Bach. While Baryshnikov performed the work here in 1994, it has only now joined the repertoire of the NBOC, premiering at Tuesday night’s opening, sans Baryshnikov of course.

Taking his place in a simple, brief work that becomes almost a flirtation between dancer and cello, (played by Winona Zelenka) is Zdenek Konvalina, who takes a back seat to no one in the dance department. Not surprisingly, he handles the dance demands of this piece, created for a mature Baryshnikov, with aplomb, casually sketching various dance moves and slowly building them into finished routines in such a way that one almost believes that he is drawing the music from the instrument. Fine dancing simply isn’t enough, however, in a work that demands that its single dancer command the entire stage from the very first moment to the last.

That same problem plagues the staging of choreographer James Kudelka’s THE FOUR SEASONS, built around Vivaldi’s music of the same name and featuring violin soloist Mayumi Seiler. A virtual calling card for the company during Kudelka’s tenure as artistic director, THE FOUR SEASONS makes a welcome return to the repertoire, featuring Aleksandar Antonijevic in the pivotal role of The Man, with Jillian Vanstone essaying Spring; Sonia Rodriguez, Summer; Rebekah Rimsay, Autumn; and Victoria Bertram, Winter.

It still packs a tremendous emotional wallop, sufficient that one can almost overlook the fact that the company no longer approaches the intricate demands of Kudelka’s choreography with the precision and passion that once marked their attack. And even though Atonijevic proves himself, once again, to be a superb dancer, as a performer he simply lacks the heft to carry this entire ballet, only coming into his own in the fading seasons.

Choreographed by Marie Chouinard, Jerome Robbins and James Kudelka
Starring Artists of the National Ballet of Canada
At the Four Seasons Centre