The National Ballet of Canada Fall Mixed Program / Body of Work by Guillaume Côté, Rhapsody by Sir Frederick Ashton, and Silent Screen by Lightfoot Leon, Four Seasons Centre, closes Nov. 16. Tickets here.
To say that the National Ballet scored a coup in snaring the Canadian premiere of Silent Screen by Lightfoot Leon is an understatement.
Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon are two of the greatest choreographers of the modern age. Add in a delightful eye-candy ballet by Sir Frederick Ashton, and a compelling solo by principal dancer Guillaume Côté, and you have the ingredients of a hit season opening.
More to the point, the company is looking spectacular, with depth all through the ranks.
Silent Screen (2005) by Lightfoot Leon
Choreographers Paul Lightfoot from England, and Sol Leon from Spain, are synonymous with Nederlands Dans Theater, itself Europe’s most revered contemporary dance company. Both joined NDT as dancers in 1985 and 1987, respectively. They started to choreograph together in 1989, becoming resident choreographers in 2002, and, over the years, creating a mindboggling 60 plus works for the company. Lightfoot was artistic director of NDT from 2011 to 2020, with Leon as artistic advisor. In 2020 they retired from the company, and note, they rarely give their work away.
A hallmark of a Lightfoot Leon dance piece is what the Germans call Gesamtkunstwerk, or a total work of art, where many art forms are brought together to create a new reality. Silent Screen uses dance and film as its core, with Lightfoot Leon designing the set, costumes and film concept.
The inspiration for Silent Screen came from silent film. Lightfoot likes to quote director Alfred Hitchcock’s statement that silent cinema is the purest form of acting. Lightfoot Leon take this one step further by saying that silent cinema is choreography because the actors are using their bodies and faces to express their emotions without words, and it is the tropes of silent film that infuse the quirky movement they created for Silent Screen.
The set is three interlocking screens with a film of a seashore, against which three figures stand in silhouette. One cinematic figure walks into the sea, while the two real people (Christopher Gerty and Hannah Galway) turn to face the audience. It is the disjointed, emotional journey of this couple that we follow throughout the piece. There is no plot, only random episodes of various stages of a life together, like a kaleidoscope flashing before our eyes.
The seashore then becomes a forest, and a little girl in a red coat runs up to the screen. The camera then focuses on her eye, which becomes a churning vortex, that morphs into a stark interior of a room, then transforms into clouds, followed by starry skies, and finally, back to the beginning at the seashore. Against this backdrop, Lightfoot Leon have created highly charged, highly dramatic, highly physical movement.
There are ancillary people in the lives of this couple, but beware, Lightfoot Leon run deep. Their works are enigmatic, even opaque, and highly symbolic. It is left to the audience to come to grips with the meaning behind the choreographic images.
For me, the third person who walked into the sea manifests himself live as an eminence grise (Ben Rudisin), whose menacing movement seems to create a grave disquiet in Gerty and Galway. A couple in white (Shaakir Muhammad and Erica Lall) appear to be a younger, more intimate, happier version of themselves.
The little girl in the red coat from the film now becomes real (Emma Ouellet) and is joined by three ultra-athletic men wearing jackets with red lining (Spencer Hack, Josh Hall and Noah Parets), with Parets performing a very edgy solo. Rising from the orchestra pit (Xiao Nan Yu), her back to us, wears a lavish, pleated black dress which covers the stage, evoking an inquisitive solo from a male figure (Oliver Yonick).
Meanwhile, Gerty and Galway appear from time to time, either reacting to the other dancers or precipitating their interludes. Are they memories or wishful thinking?
Then, it is back to the seashore with Gerty, Galway and Rudisin. This time we know that Rudisin is real.
What any of this means, the characters and their cinematic backdrop, is open to question. Is the young girl pursed by admirers or rapists? Why the red lining in the jackets? Why does the male figure — a boy in my estimation — react as he does to the huge dress? Is the dress a symbol of mourning? What do the various cinematic images say? The questions are endless, but then Lightfoot Leon pride themselves on being provocative.
Underlying all of this is the brilliant choreography that expresses a parade of never-ending emotions. The bodies distort, contort, angle, thrust, bend and twist in precise, deliberate movements, with the face never being still. In one instance, Gerty opens his mouth in a silent scream — a reference to Edvard Munch’s famous painting?
Lightfoot Leon have incorporated aspects of the larger-than-life, melodramatic overacting, double takes, and pregnant pauses of silent film into their movement. They have thrown in slow motion, and even the odd reference to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but always, always, the choreography is sophisticated, pointed and filled to the brim with meaningful expression. Nothing is gratuitous.
The choice of score is clever, and we expect nothing less of Lightfoot Leon. The minimalist music of Philip Glass’ Glassworks (1982) and music from the film The Hours (2002) is perfection. It runs beneath the choreography like an insistent throbbing nerve that won’t go away. Tom Bevoort’s moody pin-spot lighting provides strong focus on individual dancers.
As for the dancers themselves, who run the gamut from corps to principal, they have mastered Lightfoot Leon’s difficult and unique movement vocabulary in magnificent fashion and look to the manner born. Gerty and Galway are particular standouts.
In short, Silent Screen is profound, multi-layered, melancholy and even mysterious. It is a dance piece for adults.
Rhapsody by Sir Frederick Ashton (1980)
Since this Canadian premiere of Rhapsody is the National Ballet’s contribution to Ashton Worldwide 2024-2028, we should explain what this international festival is. The legendary choreographer was born 120 years ago (1904) and died 40 years ago (1988), and within the four years of the festival, companies around the world will perform an Ashton work, whether as a revival or a debut, the end game being to encourage performance of his ballets and highlight his legacy.
The wellspring behind the creation of Rhapsody was two-fold.
First, the ballet was a celebration to mark the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, which stemmed from a request to Ashton from Princess Margaret. Secondly, it was also created for guest star Mikhail Baryshnikov’s appearance with the Royal Ballet. Ashton also added that the work was a salute to classicism.
And here’s where the irony comes in. Baryshnikov came to the Royal to immerse himself in English style ballet technique, as Rudolf Nureyev had done before him, but Ashton wanted him to emulate his native Russian style. To say that the dancer was disappointed is too mild a word.
The structure of Rhapsody has a male principal (Siphesihle November) weaving in and out of divertissements by the 12-member corps de ballet, with the men and women sometimes being alone. The late arriving principal woman (Tirion Law) also comes and goes, with virtually little partnering between the two leads. In fact, the ballerina spends more time with the male corps, while the danseur keeps manoeuvring through the female corps.
The male lead represents Russian imperial style that is virtuosic, technical, expressive and dramatic, while the ballerina and the corps execute English classicism that is clean, precise, detailed and defined, with purity of line that is devoid of mannerisms or exaggeration. In other words, Russian (showy), and English (refined).
November can dance up a storm, and shows his prowess as a virtuosic technical wizard. Showy tricks follow showy tricks, but as exciting as they are, they seemed muted by the posh surrounds, so to speak. Law is her usual poetry in motion, dainty, delicate and gorgeously lyrical. She dances with such ease and grace, that you are unaware of her changing positions, so seamless are her movements.
The corps has a lot to do. The men jump and turn amid cross floor travelling, while the women bourrée and demonstrate exquisite port de bras while also creating their own definition in space. Ashton also has them move in complicated patterns, and what is very important is that their synchronization is near perfect. Some of the best classicists in the company are amid the 12, and they have been very well rehearsed. This corps de ballet is together.
Ashton designed the set which features an attractive portico of arches with steps leading down to the stage. This serves as an entrance way for the leading couple, when the male is not coming and going from the side of the stage. William Chappel’s original costumes are very pretty — pinkish fitted bodices with diaphanous knee-length skirts for the women, and pale-yellow embroidered jerkins and tights for the men. Jeff Logue has recreated the original lighting which bathes the stage in a warm glow.
The music is the beloved Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, performed with panache by piano soloist Zhenya Vitort and the formidable National Ballet Orchestra under Maestro David Briskin.
The result is a visual delight that features two types of classical ballet that are performed beautifully, and what’s not to like about that.
Body of Work by Guillaume Côté (2014)
After 26 years, principal dancer Côté is retiring from the National Ballet, and during this, his final season, he will be presenting a series of special performances.
Body of Work was created for the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award Gala in 2014. When someone is being honoured for lifetime achievement, in this case, the beloved Quebecois ballerina Anik Bissonette, an original work is commissioned for the gala in her discipline, and Côté was given that very special task. Happily, the solo has a life that can live on past that specific performance.
Banks of stand lamps slowly light up the dancer who has his back to us. Côté has always been a choreographer who loves big swooping movement, and this is embedded in the piece. In Body of Work, Côté is showing his body at work with a physicality that demonstrates his strength and prowess as a dancer. Every part of him is ultimately in motion, from the swanlike flutter of his arms to the quick turns and jumps that utilize his legs and torso.
His music is the slow second movement from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 which provides a strong underpinning to a strong dance piece.
Côté makes himself look good, and that’s what a perceptive choreographer does for a dancer.
It is fitting that he began the mixed program with this solo, giving him pride of place, and the crowd rewarded him with a prolonged ovation.
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