a true story (1997)
This week’s blog post looks at the first dance story that Peggy created. It foreshadows a deep interest in drama, text, and vocalization that she will explore in the coming years, working with artists such as Sarah Chase, Denise Clarke, Michael Healey, and Fides Krucker.
“An invitation to perform at a fundraiser for the December 6 Fund demanded some deep thinking about how to contribute something relevant as a dancer. The Fund provides interest-free loans to women in the Toronto area working to extricate themselves from violent relationships, and their May 1997 event was titled Reclaiming Mother’s Day: A Critical Celebration of Motherhood.
When Ahmed Hassan and I married in 1990, I joined the household he shared with his 13-year-old daughter, for whom he had sole custody, and so became her stepmother. “Stepmother” – what a loaded word. So harsh and intrusive sounding, so laden with negative connotations. I developed a true story, a text and movement piece that unpacked my struggle with that word and with its eventual replacement by a word coined by the young child of a close friend.
For that first performance, I wore street clothes, including my Blundstones, standing at a microphone on the small stage at Trinity St Paul’s United Church. The program was extremely moving and included a performance by Tafelmusik and spoken contributions by actors Shirley Douglas, Linda Griffiths, and Elizabeth Sheppard; writers Irshad Manji, Susan Swan, and Stevie Cameron; politician Olivia Chow; and comedians Diane Flacks and Sandra Shamas. Diane Flacks followed me on the program and when she approached the mic imitating my walk before turning to me with a huge beaming smile I flushed red and felt my heart race at the thrilling embarrassment.
I found it incredibly potent to speak while dancing, and the piece landed for me with a tremendous resonance. I went on the perform a true story many times over the next 20 years.” PB
“Ms. Baker, a Canadian whose superlative dancing and clever choreography are well known in New York, started off with a true story. Her initial stamps, violent torso rotations and emphatic arm folding seemed like pure dance. Suddenly the gestures were imbued with dramatic meaning and illustrations of words spoken by the dancer.” Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times
To watch the parentally-themed comedy stylings of Diane Flacks, visit YouTube.com here.
