DNA: Radical, Shmadical
by Kathleen M. Smith
If the world of contemporary dance is a bit of a closed community, not always so
welcoming to outsiders who come from other than the conventional channels, the
world of classical ballet is more so -- a family compact. You'd better be
bringing something pretty special as an offering to the patriarchs if you hope
to sit down at the dinner table and be listened to.
Enter Hillar Liitoja, radical theatre artist of long-standing notoriety in
Toronto, bottle of Alsatian Riesling in one hand and a passion for ballet in the
other.
Trained as a concert pianist, Liitoja began making theatre in the eighties,
establishing his company DNA as a laboratory for environmental stagings and
installations of (often) challenging ideas. Liitoja's obsessions have been deep
and serial -- Ezra Pound, Antonin Artaud. But his plays have also tapped into
the zeitgeist, albeit in unconventional ways: witness The Last Supper (a real
time dramatization of an act of euthanasia), This Is What Happens In
Orangeville (about hate crimes in a small Ontario community) and Paula and
Karl (obviously, a two-hander about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka). Liitoja's
fascination with dance is a long-standing one. He's a devoted fan of artists
like Belgium's Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Germany's Pina Bausch, artists who
blend choreographic genius and a flair for theatricality with the utmost of
rigour. And he's used movement in almost all his performance works,
choreographed to a greater or lesser degree. His "Iron Dance" in 1993's Poundemonium was borrowed by Patricia Rozema for her film When Night Is Falling; he created
an ensemble movement work in 1999 called Phalanx; and a solo for ballerina
called Remnants that went on to the High Performance Rodeo in 2000.
But it's a long stretch from incorporating dance elements into theatre work,
however unconventional, to choreographing a full-length ballet using pointe work
and all the other features of the classical vocabulary. Liitoja managed the feat
on June 30th, premiering an eighty-minute work for a cast of six ballerinas aged
fifteen to fifty-seven with the unwieldy but evocative title I Know and Feel
That Fate Is Harsh But I Am So Loath To Accept This.
As part of a team capturing footage for a documentary about Liitoja, I had an
opportunity to observe parts of the creation process for this work. This
circumstance created a bias that I'll disclose upfront. This bias caused me to
view the finished production in a way the typical reviewer or audience member
couldn't. This was my fate. And I accept it.
In the beginning -- as always with Liitoja -- there were words. "I'd been
thinking about fate for YEARS", Liitoja points out. "Fate was always going to be
the issue at hand with this work. Even though I do not personally believe in
Fate." What Liitoja did and does believe is that he and his company are jinxed.
But that's not quite the same thing, is it?
Liitoja began work on his ballet while observing National Ballet of Canada
Artistic Director James Kudelka, during part of a mentorship program through
Theatre Ontario. "He placed an enormous trust in me based on his experience with
The Observation. (The Observation was an installation performance in Liitoja's
home that Kudelka had attended. The audience was required to experience the
piece individually, with Liitoja greeting them personally upon completion of the
experience.) His goodwill and moral support -- especially in the early stages of
creation -- were just tremendous," says Liitoja.
At the same time he was watching the creation of Kudelka's Cinderella, Liitoja
was watching dancers take class. "I didn't have the knowledge to be judging
their technique," he says now. "I was looking for a quality of working, a focus
and a discipline. I was looking for an intensity at work." Once chosen, each
ballerina was quizzed on her thoughts and feelings about fate. These ideas were
processed by Liitoja, the performers and dramaturge John Delacourt into poetic
monologues that were then deconstructed word for word. Movements were assigned
to each word creating a kind of lexicon of dance phrasing. Liitoja worked with
each dancer individually, eventually stringing each word/movement into a danced
monologue. The dancers (or at least those who made it all the way through
Liitoja's sixteen-month process) finally came together when the production moved
into the Winchester Street Theatre and began rehearsing with the elements of
Liitoja's designed environment. These included an alternately thundering and
muted score of classical music mixed by Steve Marsh, an intricate grid of
hanging light bulbs, each one on a separate dimmer (devised by Rebecca Picherak
and Sandra Marcroft after a concept of Liitoja's) and a subtly textured dance
floor painted by David Duclos.
Liitoja is infamous for "managing" his audiences -- telling them where and how
to sit, allowing them to enter the performance space a few at a time or not at
all -- and this production is no exception. The ballet is well underway with
lights and sound at full volume by the time most people have taken their seats
in the house or ranged on the floor along two sides of the space. On opening
night, a moment of vintage Hillar occurred when a gentleman seated himself on
the perimeter of the dance floor with one foot extending slightly onto the
painting. After repeated pleas from an usher were ignored, Liitoja himself left
his seat to rearrange the man's foot. "Leave if you don't like it," Liitoja
shouted over his shoulder and giggles broke out across the house.
Hillar-esque interventions such as this one are not unusual for DNA, but the
encounter did publicly underscore Liitoja's passionate concern for his cast.
"They rule," he told me at one point and, such was the evident joy he exhibited
working with Zoë Anderson-Jenkins, Maggie Forgeron, Mariline Goodhue, Vanessa
Harwood, Leslie Schroeter and Magdalena Vasko, that I did not doubt it. Physical
risk-taking was required for this unusual ballet but was never asked for or
undertaken foolishly.
About eighty minutes in length, the work is comprised of dancers entering, going
about their business and only rarely interacting with each other or the audience
before nonchalantly leaving. In self-contained auras, each dances her thoughts
on fate, expressing life experience and personality in an organically realized
series of gestures, steps and poses that was built over months of deconstruction
and renovation in the studio. All of the performers are technically assured,
well trained and able to do the steps (even though Harwood doesn't go on pointe,
one senses that she could). But what Liitoja has created is more of a showcase
for their artistry as actors, their depth as human beings. And it's upon this
idea that one must gauge the success or the failure of the performance.
As might be expected, each dancer has a unique vocabulary of gestures, steps and
attitudes. Mariline Goodhue is the most physical, in a way, performing multiple
grand jetés and running backwards. She also revels (as does Maggie Forgeron) in
falling heavily to the ground, the noise and collapsing posture a very
antithesis of the floating ballerina. She floats on occasion as well, reaching
for those light bulbs that flicker and pulse.
Leslie Schroeter personifies all that is light and flirtatious -- she's the
ingénue of this piece and her performance is charming with precise pointe work
and delicate port de bras. She also has the most interactivity with the
audience. Liitoja has envelopes falling periodically from the ceiling -- each
containing a card inscribed with instructions for the dancer who picks it up and
then hands it to a member of the audience: "entrechat quatre, smile at the
person, pirouette, shake wrists and repeat to all four corners", for example.
Magdalena Vasko is all serene rock-solid technique, but oddly that is less
compelling in the context Liitoja has created. I found myself looking for the
raggedy edges that signal real human effort rather that the technical perfection
that is a built-in expectation of classical ballet. For me, that quality was
provided mostly by Forgeron, who, while seeming technically a bit of mess, ended
up delivering one of the more moving and intriguing of performances.
Vanessa Harwood, too, offered real depth with her performance. True, you can't
fault her technique, but let's face it, ballet was designed to be performed by
the young. What the fifty-seven-year-old former ballerina offered in this
surprising and welcome comeback might be called the vestiges of an impeccable
technique. This in itself is moving, but combine it with infinite artistry of a
distinct emotional and spiritual nature and Harwood's performance leaves you
wondering why the great stars of classical ballet so often leave the stage
entirely when they retire. Could the classical idiom not be adapted somehow to
accommodate its most accomplished artists? By contrast, Zoë Anderson-Jenkins, at
age fifteen, is clearly still a student of dance. Her most significant
contribution is extreme youth and how that resonates as a balancing device
against the rest of the cast.
The ballet ends in interesting fashion with a few sensory treats for those
audiences (all of them as it turns out) who stand in ovation. The lights dim and
a cascade of objects falls from the ceiling with a crash. Though it's too dark
to make out what the objects are, after a few moments, the nose knows. Limes.
All in all, it's an endearing ensemble and a daring endeavour executed with
sincerity, humour and great production values. Big round of applause for all
involved. That said, Liitoja's show raises more than a few interesting
questions. For example, why apply extreme rigour to a creation process but do
everything in your power to hide that process from your audience? Is Liitoja
bolstering or subverting the fact that ballet in North American is largely based
on the comfortable fulfillment of long-standing expectations? If you're calling
something radical, shouldn't it challenge ALL of the conventions in an overt
way?
I can't wait to see what Liitoja comes up with next. I dearly hope it's another
ballet.