Artistic Director |
Artistic Director |
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Hillar Liitoja
In 1977, Liitoja graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Music in Performance. Five years later he switched careers, abandoning the life of a concert pianist to become the most radical theatre creator in English Canada.
Liitoja’s direction is all-encompassing. He co-designs the space, the sound and the lights. He has evolved a DNA aesthetic – one committed to environmental staging – that is recognizable throughout his work, whether it’s HAMLET (an eight-hour interpretation), a piece tackling AIDS issues (SICK), or sensory journeys inspired by the poetry of Ezra Pound.
In the mid 1990s, DNA spent five years creating a major new cycle inspired by the great theatrical visionary Antonin Artaud. The effects of that research still inform the work, challenging Liitoja to push his own artistic boundaries and to find new avenues of creative expression. In 1995, he premiered his first proscenium show in Estonia – a hybrid of ballet and poetry, an exploration of the soul.
Over the past decade the arts community has begun to notice Liitoja's innovative choreography. In 1994, Patricia Rozema requested the “Iron Dance” from POUNDEMONIUM for her award-winning film, “When Night Is Falling”; and REMNANTS (for solo ballerina) toured to Calgary and appeared in the High Performance Rodeo in January 2000.
Liitoja’s work as playwright (THE LAST SUPPER and THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IN ORANGEVILLE) has been recognized with a Chalmers Award in 1994 and a jury prize for Innovation in Theatrical Writing at the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques in 1987. His most controversial play, PAULA AND KARL, premiered at the international Six Stages Festival in 2001.
Liitoja’s first installation opened in August 2002 – the final event of DNA’s twentieth anniversary season. THE OBSERVATION was then invited to be in the Free Fall festival, a national festival of experimental theatre.
Subsequently, Liitoja has focused on ballet, apprenticing under James Kudelka (former Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada) through the 2003-2004 season. In 2004, using dancers from the National Ballet’s corps de ballet, Liitoja created his first full-length ballet, I KNOW AND FEEL THAT FATE IS HARSH BUT I AM SO LOATH TO ACCEPT THIS to acclaim and standing ovations. His second ballet, I OF THE BEHOLDER (ballet bagatelle), was considered "so dark and original and witty" as well as "rigorous, disciplined and surprisingly refreshing for something so harsh."
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