Words Fail (1999)

Solo Dance

Jan 17

In the fall of 1999, ballerina turned producer-curator-filmmaker, Veronica Tennant, invited me to create and perform a short work with cellist Shauna Rolston for a concert marking the opening of the Timms Centre for the Arts in Edmonton. As the artistic director of the gala evening, Veronica had programmed Alberta-born or Alberta-based artists working in music, dance, theatre, poetry, and literature. Though we had never met, Shauna and I both grew up in Alberta, and it was Veronica who brought us together for what would become the first work in a long-standing collaboration.

Shauna suggested several works for me to consider and we quickly settled on a brief, deeply stirring composition by Chan Ka Nin, Soulmate. Having performed to his music for Sylvain Quartet just a year prior, I was extremely excited to dance to another of Ka Nin’s works. Shauna provided me with a cassette recording to work with while I choreographed, and though the music was all there and very well performed, it did nothing to prepare me for the impact of dancing with Shauna live. From our very first run-through together, Shauna played the music from memory, but more than that, she played as if she was creating the music then and there, as if this music was all and everything she needed to express. Her physical intensity was like an energy field, and it catalyzed my dancing. Her playing unleashed the underlying despair I was carrying in relation to my husband’s relentlessly accelerating multiple sclerosis, and I titled our work Words Fail.

Just five minutes long, this work for Shauna and I was further enhanced through contributions by a stellar design team: costume designer Caroline O’Brien, visual artist Ina Levitsky, and lighting designer Bonnie Beecher. Shauna and I continued to perform Words Fail together on her recital programs and in my dance concerts, and it was also captured as a short film directed by Veronica Tennant in 2001. - PB

“… a haunting inner journey of mood and introspection.” Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail

related links

If you’d like to explore the films of Veronica Tennant, and watch Words Fails, shot at the Banff Centre, in 1999, please visit Veronica’s site here.

credits

choreography and performance:
Peggy Baker

music:
Chan Ka Nin (Soulmate, 1994)

cello:
Shauna Rolston

visual art:
Ina Levytsky

costume design:
Caroline O'Brien

lighting design:
Bonnie Beecher

premiere

Edmonton
October 16, 1999
Timms Centre for the Arts
Global Culture & Arts Communities Symposium

subsequent presentations

Full list available here

media links