land | body | breath (2014)

Sep 7

Between 2003 and 2011 I brought my work into the AGO for special performances on 5 different occasions: as a soloist for the exhibition Reconfiguring Degas (2003); amid the massive sculptural forms of Henry Moore on a stormy night in 2005 accompanied by crashing thunder and the live vocals and percussion of Ahmed Hassan and Debashis Sinha; in the Walker Court for an afternoon performance of The Disappearance of Right and Left (2007); interior with moving figures (2009) – four works performed simultaneously in four different galleries and cycling over the course of 70 minutes (Strand danced by Jessica Runge, three story house danced by Jacqueline Ethier, armour danced by Larry Hahn and me; and move for a cast of 16); and a performance of Aleatoric Solo No. 1 by Sahara Morimoto for the exhibition Abstract Expressionist New York (2011). In each case, it was thrilling to bring my choreography into juxtaposition, alignment and resonance with accomplished and provocative works of visual art, and into a new relationship between performer and viewer. These experiences left me wanting to create a work expressly for performance in a gallery setting, and in 2014 I was able to realize that ambition with the premiere of land | body | breath, a site-specific work featuring dancers Ric Brown, Sarah Fregeau, Benjamin Kamino, Kate Holden, Sean Ling, Sahara Morimoto, Andrea Nann, and Jessica Runge; with vocalist Ciara Adams and my primary collaborator, vocalist/musical director Fides Krucker.

The AGO’s Thomson Collection houses iconic images of the Canadian landscape and exquisite First Nations’ sculptural pieces within a network of 21 galleries. The many interconnected spaces provide the possibility of intimate viewing within a single gallery or vantage points that provide visual access to several spaces simultaneously. Our performance had two chapters of about 25 minutes each. In the first chapter the dancers each performed as soloists within their own gallery space while the vocalists wended their way throughout the network of galleries without ever meeting. The rich and startlingly beautiful vocal score created by Fides for all 10 performers evoked birdsong, buzzing insects, crashing waves, groaning wind, and cracking ice that echoed throughout the galleries. The audience moved freely, shifting location and proximity as they chose. At the half-way point a slow migration drew the performers and viewers into the large central space. In this second chapter the dancers moved as an ensemble, calling up images of wind, water, and earth. They intensified their vocalizing as a chorus, further enriching the soundscape and underscoring the solo vocal forays of Fides and Ciara. In the concluding scene, haunting echoes of songs by Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young emerged and dissolved.

In July of 2017 we were invited to take land | body | breath to the National Gallery of Canada as part of the Canada Scene Festival and the Canada Dance Festival. The richly embodied performances by Fides and Ciara - this time joined by Nicole Rose Bond, Sarah Fregeau, Sahara Morimoto, Andrea Nann, David Norsworthy, Jessica Runge, Mateo Galindo Torres and William Yong - surpassed my highest aspirations. I will never forget the impact of the final scene in which the dancers were aligned like a twisting and undulating spine under two massive sculptural renderings of whale skeletons by Brian Jungen. Constructed with parts and pieces of white, plastic lawn chairs, Jungen’s powerful rendering of the natural world subverted through the extraction of oil and the manufacture of plastic charged the final scene of land | body | breath with the tremendous urgency of his message. - PB