{"id":64297,"date":"2019-10-30T16:39:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T20:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=64297"},"modified":"2019-10-30T16:42:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T20:42:46","slug":"interview-roberto-campanella-previews-toronto-premiere-proartedanzas-9th-set-beethovens-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2019\/10\/30\/interview-roberto-campanella-previews-toronto-premiere-proartedanzas-9th-set-beethovens-symphony\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Roberto Campanella Previews The Toronto Premiere Of ProArteDanza\u2019s ‘The 9th!’ Set To Beethoven\u2019s Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

ProArteDanza Artistic Director Roberto Campanella talks about the 10-year journey to complete the choreography for all four movements of Beethoven’s\u00a09th, culminating in the Toronto premiere of The 9th! <\/em>in November.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"ProArteDanza
The 9th! Company (Photo courtesy of ProArteDanza)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B<\/span>eethoven\u2019s 9th, more properly his Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125<\/em>, is one of the world\u2019s most beloved pieces of music. It comes to life in choreography in ProArteDanza\u2019s The 9th!<\/em><\/strong>, coming to the Fleck Dance Theatre in November.<\/p>\n

Adding the language of dance to Beethoven\u2019s seminal music may seem like a natural pairing, but the piece in its entirety has taken about a decade to come together. While the separate movements have been performed on various occasions in the past, it will be the first time the company has performed the entire symphony at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2009, we were commissioned to do the first movement,\u201d recalls choreographer Roberto Campanella<\/strong>. The occasion was the Festival International de Dansencore in Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, Qu\u00e9bec. At the time, the concept involved using a different choreographer for each movement of the famous symphony. A performance back in Toronto quickly followed. \u201cThe first time was in 2009, here in Toronto \u2014 just the first movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

All along, however, Campanella, along with working partner Robert Glumbek<\/strong>, was intrigued with the idea of completing his choreography of the whole symphony. \u201cWe\u2019ve been toying around with this thing since then.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was during a trip to Berlin in 2010 that Campanella had an experience which helped the work, in all its complexity, solidify in his imagination. \u201cOn one of my days off,\u201d he recalls, \u201cI went to the Berlin Wall<\/strong>.\u201d He viewed some historic video footage that was available on the site. One scene stuck in his memory, of a family with members standing on either side of the fence, separated by barbed wire. \u201cThe image stuck with me,\u201d he says. It was their body language that spoke to him as a choreographer.<\/p>\n

\"ProArteDanza's
ProArteDanza’s Kelly Shaw and Connor Mitton in The 9th! (Photo : Alexander Antonijevic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B<\/span>eethoven wrote the 9th, his last complete symphony, between 1822 and 1824, and it premiered in Vienna in May 1824. At the time, it was a pioneering work in its use of the chorus and vocal soloists in the last movement. In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, the symphony became a symbol of the city\u2019s newfound freedom, and was played in a landmark concert on Christmas Day, 1989<\/strong>, conducted by Leonard Bernstein<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, and performed by an orchestra and chorus composed of musicians from both East and West Germany. The \u201cOde to Joy\u201d became an \u201cOde to Freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Campanella earned about the famous performance, and his determination to complete the piece became firmly set in his imagination. Every few years, another movement would be premiered. In June 2019, the fourth movement premiered, again at the Festival International de Dansencore<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The full version of The 9th!<\/em> will receive its world premiere at the Chutzpah Festival in Vancouver<\/strong> in October at the invitation of the Festival director. \u201cIt\u2019s a good ramp up,\u201d says Campanella. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty important place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The date of the final Toronto performance is auspicious. \u201cIt falls exactly on November 9 \u2014 the date of the fall [of the Berlin Wall]<\/strong>,\u201d says Campanella. As it happens, it\u2019s 30 years to the day.<\/p>\n

ProArteDanza\u2019s founder and Artistic Director, Roberto Campanella is perhaps best known internationally for his choreographic work on the Oscar-winning movie The Shape of Water<\/em><\/strong>. The former National Ballet of Canada dancer has developed an international reputation for choreography that fuses ballet with contemporary dance. Co-choreographed Robert Glumbek is the company\u2019s Artistic Associate. Glumbek is a four-time Dora Mavor Moore<\/strong> nominee, and has won the Jon Jiepura award<\/strong> for best choreographer in Poland.<\/p>\n

\"ProArteDanza's
ProArteDanza’s Justin De Luna, Erin Poole and Daniel McArthur in The 9th! (Photo courtesy of ProArteDanza)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T<\/span>he company is celebrating its 15th anniversary season<\/strong> with the Toronto premiere of the 70-minute work, and choreography is challenging both physically and conceptually. \u201cWe\u2019re exploring the structured idea, as well as the symbolic.\u201d While the movements have been performed separately on previous occasions, assembling the larger work required some adjustments. \u201cPutting the whole thing together is a completely different beast,\u201d Campanella notes.<\/p>\n

Expressing Beethoven\u2019s emotional range in dance is itself a challenge. \u201cWe\u2019re the ones in the hot seat,\u201d Campanella says of their responsibility as choreographers.<\/p>\n

ProArteDanza\u2019s choreography is thoroughly modern in its approach, even with the symphony that is almost two centuries old. For the Toronto performances, the company is testing the possible use of video projections, created with the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre<\/strong> at Sheridan College.<\/p>\n

For the dancers, it\u2019s 70 minutes with no intermission. \u201cIt\u2019s a beast for dancers, athletically,\u201d Campanella says. \u201cIt\u2019s intense at a physical level.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to the music, Campanella and Glumbek have selected three specific recordings to use, including versions performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado<\/strong>, the Orchestre symphonique de Montr\u00e9al conducted by Kent Nagano<\/strong>, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen conducted by Paavo J\u00e4rvi.<\/strong> It\u2019s a delicate balance for choreographers to consider when choosing music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been great \u2014 there is a live version of the Bernstein recording from 1989, but it\u2019s excruciatingly slow,\u201d Campanella says. \u201cIt\u2019s about finding the right dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

ProArteDanza’s premiere of The 9th!<\/em> \u2014 a choreographic imagining of Beethoven’s entire 9th Symphony is on stage November 6-9, 2019 at Harbourfront Centre’s Fleck Dance Theatre, with company dancers Taylor Bojanowski, Ryan Lee, Sasha Ludavicius, Daniel McArthur, Victoria Mehaffey, Connor Mitton, Jake Poloz, and Kelly Shaw. Details here<\/span>.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Want more updates on classical music and opera news and reviews? Follow us\u00a0on <\/em>Facebook<\/b><\/a><\/em><\/span>, <\/em>Instagram<\/b><\/a><\/em><\/span> <\/b>or <\/em>Twitter<\/b><\/a><\/em><\/span> for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ProArteDanza Artistic Director Roberto Campanella talks about the 10-year journey to complete the choreography for all four movements of Beethoven’s\u00a09th, culminating in the Toronto premiere of The 9th! in November 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":64309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25164,20,29,4557],"tags":[32490,32489,32491,23989,23987],"yst_prominent_words":[32469,11623,32471,32470,23981,32493,31822,32473,32472,32466,32463,32462,32465,18823,32464,12857,32492,32475,23977,23048],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/10\/ProArteDanza-The-9th-header.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-gJ3","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64297"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64314,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64297\/revisions\/64314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64297"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=64297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}