For its latest touring show, Ballet B.C. is showcasing the work of a trio of choreographers from the province and beyond.
The performance comes to the Port Theatre on Saturday (Sept. 23). The evening features 16 + a Room, choreographed by Ballet B.C. executive director Emily Molnar, former Ballet B.C. company member Crystal Pite’s Solo Echo and Bill by Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal.
Molnar said she aims to curate diverse shows that include emerging and established choreographers from Canada and around the world. She said she seeks out pieces that complement each other and generate a cohesive conversation with the audience.
“It is an experience that I am trying to curate. One that will engage … serious ideas and perspectives. It will create an opening for people who maybe never have seen dance before and also create an opening, an interest, for people who know a lot about dance,” she said.
“We really believe that showing this kind of diversity, this kind of multi-faceted, multi-voiced platform is really successful in that way. It gives people a range of observations about what’s going on in the world of dance and there’s an enormous amount of talent out there and we’re really proud to be able to be the company that houses so much of that.”
Molnar described her piece, 16 + a Room, as “a study of time.” She said she drew inspiration from the works of British writers Jeanette Winterson, Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf and the performance features a textured, electronic score by a German composer.
“It’s about 16 people in a room, and if you start tipping the room as if it’s a metaphor for the unknown, what are the patterns, what are the vibrations that come out? So it’s an abstract poem, in a way,” she said.
Pite’s Solo Echo features seven dancers portraying a single character from different points of view, accompanied by the music of Johannes Brahms. Molnar said Pite’s earliest choreographies were done at Ballet B.C. and the company has a number of her works in its repertoire.
“She is one of our most significant choreographers today. Crystal has built a beautiful body of work, not only with her own company … but also choreographs with companies around the world,” Molnar said, adding that Solo Echo is one of Pite’s signature pieces.
“The piece is divided in two parts, two movements. The first being about one’s beginning of their life – the youthful exploration of daring and questioning and just exuberance and energy – and then the second movement is about the collectivity and acceptance of life and loss,” she said.
Molnar said Ballet B.C. is the first ballet company in Canada to work with Israel’s Eyal, adding that, “She’s a very important female voice right now in dance and is very much in demand.” Like Solo Echo, Eyal’s Bill features 18 dancers exploring one character from multiple angles.
“Often people who have not seen Sharon’s work, when they see it they are transfixed. She works a lot with the sensory body, so she’s very invested in very deep recesses of expression in the body,” Molnar said.
“[The piece] has almost classical composition to it … There are a lot of patterns. The piece morphs between a lot of solo work and then a very unique use of the group.”
Ballet B.C. has toured this show through North America and Europe since last season and Molnar said she has noticed the three pieces fit together in ways she did not originally foresee.
“I wanted to put the evening together with the first premise that it would be three distinct female voices in dance,” she said. “And then as we started to see the pieces together in a program, we started to see, yes, that there is this attention to time, to humanity, to the deeper workings and questions of who we are.”
WHAT’S ON … Ballet B.C. presents 16 + a Room, Solo Echo and Bill at the Port Theatre on Saturday (Sept. 23) at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $52 for adults, $17.50 for youths, $5 for students.
