Sylvan Quartet (1999)
For their 10th anniversary concert at the University of Toronto’s Walter Hall, the chamber group Amici – at the time Joaquin Valdepeñas, clarinet; David Hetherington, cello; and Patricia Parr, piano – invited me to create a solo choreography to be performed to Chan Ka Nin’s I think that I shall never see… written for Amici in 1993. Ka Nin had composed this work with a scenario concerning the environmental dangers of deforestation and identified each instrument with a “character” central to this issue, (cello/tree, clarinet/bird, piano/woodcutter). Initial performances of the work included staging and performance devices to illustrate the composer’s notions. For this anniversary concert, I was invited to create a completely re-visioned staging.
Choreographically, I set out to embody the equivalent of a fourth line of music in the score. Just as the musicians do not play non-stop in this work, but each have a line of music that includes entrances and conclusions, moments of great presence and passages of subtle support, I shifted among varying degrees of visual prominence. Between choreographic episodes I walked quietly to my next starting place, with the resets planned to allow for a moment of stillness proceeding each new sequence. Fleeting images of the composer’s original characters emerged and dissolved from time to time through my body. I positioned the musicians as far apart as possible, both to create space in their midst that I could move through, but also to set up a spatial and auditory tension among the musicians so that they were functioning at a vulnerable threshold. My overarching aspiration was to match the superb artistry of the composition’s abstraction, the clarity and depth of the musician’s performance, and to bring the dance into the work as a fully integrated visual/kinetic element.
Ka Nin embraced my presence in his inspiring work with incredible grace and generosity, and it was a rare treat and a great honour to dance within a performance of his music by Joaquin, David, and Patricia. - PB
credits
choreography: Peggy Baker
music: Chan Ka Nin
(I think that I shall never see…, 1993)
original costume design: Caroline O'Brien
lighting design: Marc Parent
originally performed by: Amici and Peggy Baker
subsequently performed by:
Sahara Morimoto, Shauna Rolston / cello
John Kameel Farah / piano, Max Christie / clarinet
costume design: Robyn Clarke
premiere
May 1, 1998
Walter Hall, University of Toronto
Amici Chamber Ensemble
subsequent presentations
media links
See 2014 in the media and press archive
Also see 1999 in the media and wards archive
photography
As credited.
