The contemporary evening Ultraviolet Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal (GBC) unveiled colors other than the brilliant pinks that announced it. The pieces by Kristen Céré, Lesley Telford and Cass Mortimer Eipper forge a program with darker, more serious, more critical and (a little) more egalitarian words and tones, even in the greetings, than what the GBC have accustomed their audience. A beautiful evening, in black, white and shades, like one of those crossings into gray areas that can bring about change.
Ultraviolet is surprisingly uniform. In the colors, tones and shades of three of the four pieces shown. In the heavier, more oppressive words — the disconnection from others, the difficulty of meeting standards (to the uniform, “to the dress”), alienation. In the music (“hey, more Purcell…”). In the costumes, more dressed, which follow the movements well.
Delectable imbalance, by Kristen Céré, is the favourite. With throwing gestures, “sock slides” that move the dancers laterally on the floor, small frenzies of the hands and skillful group compositions, the piece is an echo of the internal and external movements of this irresistible old lady with white hair. — the choreographer’s grandmother, but we miss paper programs to find out in situ — which appears filmed in close-up, and talks, and raves, and moves beautifully.
This piece provokes flashbacks to 1990 in the spectator with a long memory, great moments from Jean-Pierre Perreault, O Vertigo, even La La La. The dancers throw themselves into it magnificently. We wonder about the durations, the shortened music and tableaus, which give a small impression of zapping: everything is there, choreographically; but the effects do not have time to reach the affects. Hats off to the lighting by François Chirpaz. Lamps rising and falling from the ceiling compress and dilute warmth, focus, density, and purpose in their movement.
strong women
The beginning of Lesley Telford’s choreography, Beguile, just aim. We really liked seeing Maude Sabourin incarnate there differently, in this character of a powerful woman, with straining muscles, heavy with the heaviness of real work, who refuses to enter the mold and the imposed dress. Feminist criticism is refreshing here. But the weft of the writing is diluted here and there, carrying with it the beautiful tensions which had arisen in the first moments.
Substrate, by Cass Mortimer Eipper, is another beautiful moment. Marija Djordjevic’s decor is masterful, and allows the dancers to exploit a different verticality by “climbing the wall”. We would have liked it to be more exploited. At the heart of the piece, a duet, admirably danced on the evening of the premiere by Célestin Boutin and Yui Sugawara, both in contagious complicity and visible pleasure in dancing, to an excerpt from Carmenwhich ends with an ironic use of recorded applause.
The group moments are very, very effective, to the point that we feel they are too short. There remain air pockets, less successful tableaux, and a somewhat lopsided narrative curve, often symptoms of compositions that still need to mature.
The GBC continue to let some of their dancers dabble in choreography. This initiative-laboratory established by Ivan Cavallari is an opportunity for the performers who embark on it and for the spectators, who can bond in this way in a different way. Roddy Doble signs a pas de deux that the room clearly audibly loved.
Ultraviolet is a contemporary GBC evening. Without spikes. Without exhibitionism of bodies and skins — the costumes were covering. To more serious, more current remarks. Leaving the room, hearing the comments fuse, we felt disconcerted spectators – perhaps not disappointed, certainly not satisfied with their expectations. This is probably an illustration of the great challenge of GBC: to satisfy a large, attached, loyal and aging public, hungry for tradition and the types and stereotypes that come with it. While getting back in phase artistically, aesthetically, and why not? politics with current contemporary creation.