dance – Page 9

Salomé’s rightful place

Salomé: Woman of Valor will have its world première at the Chutzpah! Festival March 8-10. (image by Anya Ross, graphics by John Greenaway)

There have been many interpretations of Salomé – thought to be the woman whose alluring dance persuaded King Herod to honour her request that he have John the Baptist beheaded – but none quite like that of Salomé: Woman of Valor, which has its world première at Chutzpah! March 8-10.

The creation of this complex, multilayered work that combines poetry, music, dance and film was led by composer and trumpeter Frank London and poet and performer Adeena Karasick. It features live music by London, percussionist Deep Singh and keyboard player Shai Bachar. The poetry is written and performed by Karasick, the dance choreographed and performed by Rebecca Margolick and Jessie Zaritt, and the video analyzing Charles Bryant’s 1923 silent film Salomé was made by Elizabeth Mak. The whole production is directed by Alex Aron.

“Frank was intrigued by the Salomé story due to the visual cornucopia of the Bryant film, and because it is a story where dance was at the centre, motivating the complex chain of events, and thus ripe for reinvention as a contemporary dance-theatre piece incorporating Bryant’s imagery,” Karasick told the Independent about why the work focuses on Salomé and not another Jewish historical or literary woman. “However, he was only aware of the [Oscar] Wilde retelling of the Salomé story and thus not really interested in her narrative. He came to me to see if I could reenvision her story in a more compelling way.”

It has always bothered her, said Karasick, how, within Christian mythology and entrenched in history by writers like Wilde, Gustave Flaubert and Stéphane Mallarmé and artists such as Gustav Klimt, Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley, “Salomé was seen as yet another Jewish temptress/Christian killer – but, in fact, there isn’t any evidence to substantiate this claim. According to apocrypha and Josephus’s Antiquities, she came from Jewish royalty and there is no evidence she murdered John the Baptist or even danced for Herod,” said Karasick.

“The only historical reference that [Herod’s wife] Herodias’s daughter’s name was Salomé is from Flavius Josephus, who makes no other claims about her – not that she danced for Herod, not that she demanded John’s head, but only that she went on to marry twice and live peacefully. The other apocryphal reference is that a daughter danced for Herod, which caused him to lose his mind and kill John the Baptist. Thus, the conflagrated Salomé that appears in the Wilde play, [Richard] Strauss opera and all subsequent productions, is an amalgamated construct, so we felt it was our duty to set the record straight.”

In fact, added Karasick, there are three women named Salomé in Jewish history: Salomé, daughter of Herodias and Herod II (circa 14-71 CE); Queen Salomé, her great-aunt (65 BCE-10 CE); and Salomé Alexandra (139-67 BCE).

“Her great-aunt, Salomé I, was the powerful sister and force behind Herod the Great, king of Judea and Second Temple rebuilder,” said Karasick, while Salomé Alexandra (also known as Shelomtzion) was one of only two women who reigned over Judea.

“I wanted my Salomé, Salomé of Valor, to carry the weight of both her genetic lineage and the cultural heredity of her name, embodying the legacy and power of the women that came before her,” said Karasick.

Karasick, who was born in Winnipeg, grew up in Vancouver, earning her bachelor’s from the University of British Columbia. She did her master’s at York University and her PhD at Concordia University. Among other things, she teaches literature and critical theory at Pratt Institute in New York, is co-founding artistic director of KlezKanada and performs her work around the world. The author of nine books – with a 10th, Checking In, published by Talonbooks, on the way – she has been awarded for her contributions to feminist thinking and, last year, the Adeena Karasick Archive was established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

London – a member of the Klezmatics and the group Hasidic New Wave, who has performed with countless musicians and made numerous recordings of his own – saw Karasick perform in New York in 2011. He then hired her, she said, “along with Jake Marmer to design and lead the poetry retreat at KlezKanada…. We hadn’t yet collaborated before this, but I was always compelled by his music and the breadth of all he created as a masterful revolutionary himself, not only as a spectacularly fierce trumpet player but virtuosic composer, reinvigorating klezmer music, transcendentally intermixing it with aspects of world music, jazz, Chassidic new wave, punk – and always felt it would be a thrilling and highly symbiotic artistic match.”

When Frank approached her about the Salomé project, said Karasick, they both “fell in love with the Bryant film but were so perplexed” about Salomé’s “reputation in cultural history.”

So, Karasick started researching, “poring through the multiple and conflict[ing] narratives – through Josephus and the apocrypha, locating the many discrepancies between Christian and Jewish mythologies, speaking with specialists in the field, and became fascinated with how there are so many ‘truths,’ stories, misreadings, and how imperative it is to question these grand narratives, problematize traditional cultural, moral and religious perspectives.

“For millennia,” she said, “Jews have been portrayed as the murderers of gods and prophets in other people’s mythologies, so Salomé: Woman of Valor deconstructs this mythology, exposing how she was not a demonic murderess, and opens up the possibilities for infinite retelling and how truth itself is always a construct of veiling and unveiling.”

About the magnitude of the project, Karasick said, “As the author of nine books invested in issues of ethnicity, gender and ways to construct meaning, as professor of poetry and critical theory, gender images in the media, and poetics and performance, Salomé: Woman of Valor is a logical progression in my 30-year career, and has allowed me to integrate my experiences in one work – something that I have never done before.

“Due to the scope of this show,” she said, “I’m able to weave together the multiple styles of writing that I’ve experimented with over the years – sound poetry, homophonic translations, post-language conceptualism, kabbalistic and feminist revisionist practices, all syntactically playful, polyphonic, ironic and rhythmically complex – a fusion of my esthetic passions and expertise; opening a space of female empowerment.”

While London has been involved in many projects, Karasick said Salomé might be the first for him with performance poetry at the centre.

“We created Salomé: Woman of Valor as an integration of performance poetry, dance, music and video exploring the dialectic between narrative and abstraction – it is a quantum leap forward in collaborative artistic development, challenging my conceptual processes of making an artwork,” she said. “I couldn’t be more excited.”

Salomé: Woman of Valor is already being presented in an array of venues and contexts, said Karasick. “Its form and content make it appropriate to be presented at jazz, dance, poetry, new theatre, literary and electronic literature festivals; in performing arts centres, universities, avant garde text-based multimedia events, as well as events focusing on new media and cross arts,” she said.

“With its feminist and mystical kabbalistic take on Jewish historical subject matter and a live score which draws from East European Jewish music (klezmer) with jazz, Arabic and Indian musics, our Salomé is especially attractive to Jewish culture festivals and to presenters of Jewish music, language, dance and art.”

The libretto has been published in Italian and in English, and selections of it have been published in Bengali, Arabic, Yiddish and German. It is “being taught in universities worldwide in departments of global literature, Jewish studies and humanities and media studies,” she said.

The artists bringing Salomé: Woman of Valor to Vancouver are all “at the forefront of their respective fields,” said Karasick, “and so I feel so fortunate to be working with such powerful creators, all revolutionaries in their own ways. Frank works with Shai Bachar and Deep Singh on a number of musical projects – Deep and Frank started the internationally acclaimed bhangra-klezmer fusion band Sharabi; and [Frank] co-developed Night in the Old Marketplace with Alex Aron, so bringing her on board as a director seemed a natural fit.

“Over the five years of envisioning the piece, we tried on a number of dance styles, ranging from tribal belly dance to sword dance/swallowers, and, with the advice of (Merce Cunningham protégé) Gus Solomons, Jr., settled on the avant garde modern dance of Israeli superstar Jesse Zarrit and the stunningly poetic Rebecca Margolick, with a shout-out to the Dadaist Loïe Fuller stylings by Jodi Sperling.”

Mak’s video on Bryant’s silent film, notes the project’s promotional material, is “punctuated with Jim Andrews’ stunning vispo [visual poetry], with special video appearances by … Tony Torn as Herod, lit by Nicole Lang.”

“Together,” said Karasick, “we’re expanding our work in ways only dreamed possible; have created an intellectually provocative, audio-visual sensorium, informed by our (Frank’s and my) ongoing obsession with excess, desire and pushing boundaries.”

And it’s an interest, if not obsession, with many others, as well. The Kickstarter campaign for Salomé surpassed its goal of $20,000, about half of the project’s budget.

“The show has been garnering a lot of love and support from colleagues and patrons,” said Karasick, “perhaps due to ways that it addresses the social and political necessity to speak the unspoken, resist stereotypes, misrepresentation and outdated myths, and fosters a thinking that leads to a hybridized syncretic culture, one that honours the intermixing of blood, belief, rhythm, texture and being. Content-wise, it addresses outdated notions of identity and ethnicity, and carves out a space where difference and otherness can be celebrated. We feel incredibly grateful, and hope that we can keep growing it. Broadway, here we come!”

But, first, the Chutzpah! Festival. They have also been invited to Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival and the Boston Jewish Music Festival, said Karasick, who will continue to tour with the Salomé books. “Frank,” she said, “will record and release the music as a CD. We hope to see it at major festivals and venues worldwide.”

The presentations of Salomé at Chutzpah! are presented in association with the Dance Centre, where the performances will take place. For tickets and the full festival lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Chutzpah! opens with Open

Ezralow Dance’s Open comprises many themes. (photo by Angelo Redaelli)

Los Angeles-based Ezralow Dance kicks off this year’s Chutzpah! Festival at the Rothstein Theatre Feb. 15 with, appropriately enough, a work called Open, for its embodiment of myriad ideas and ways in which to express them.

Chutzpah! also features a range of creative expression every year, with performers from around the world in dance, comedy and theatre. As has become tradition, the Jewish Independent will highlight several of the performances prior to the month-long festival. This week, we focus on dance, speaking with Daniel Ezralow, as well as Israel’s Roy Assaf.

* * *

“Open is a testament to what I believe,” Daniel Ezralow told the Independent in an email interview. “When my wife (who collaborated with me) and I were thinking of a title for the show, we played around with a lot of options, but when we came up with the one word Open, it expressed everything that I wanted to say. Be open, open yourself, open to others, open your eyes, open your mind, open your heart and stay open to the world in many senses.

“It was a way of saying, leave your judgments at the door and try, just try, to be open-minded. I find that we are so full of judgment, many times we fail to see the beauty of what is so simple and directly in front of us. I am constantly attempting to open my mind and receive what comes to me. There is a wonderful concept, ‘to want what you get, not get what you want.’ I think Open has something to do with this.”

In his work, Ezralow is certainly open to new ideas and a wide variety of media. In his 40-some years in dance, he has performed with several companies, co-founded others and choreographed for numerous groups around the world, including Batsheva Dance Company, Paris Opera Ballet, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Atlanta Ballet. He choreographed the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics and Cirque du Soleil’s Love. He has created for dance festivals, Broadway shows, gymnastics competitions, television, film, commercials and other corporate projects, awards programs, pop star performances and music videos. The award-winning choreographer, director and multimedia artist has a vast and eclectic resumé, to say the least.

“I remember as a child always asking my father ‘why?’ I asked him why about just about everything. There is no question I am naturally curious,” said Ezralow. “I was once working with Chaim Topol on a project in New York City and we were in a taxi together. I asked him why – why does he work, why does he do the things he does? I’ll never forget the response he gave me. He said, ‘Curiosity.’ At that point, I understood that was the same thing that made me do the things I do. My mother always encouraged me to ask questions and to do what I believed in. I do lose myself in creations, but usually it is not an escape. In my best moments, I also try to live life like a creation and lose myself in it.”

In looking at his body of work, it’s hard to believe that Ezralow didn’t take a formal dance lesson until he was in his late teens, when he was a biology student at University of California, Berkeley.

“Dancing chose me so strong, I had little choice to shy away from it,” he said of his change in career direction.

“At the time, I was deeply disappointed with the American medical system. I felt it had nothing to do with helping people and was mostly about a hierarchy to achieve a status of life. The system was very closed to acupuncture, Eastern ideas and anything alternative. At the time, this made me feel that it was really askew and not for healing and helping people but rather for diagnosing, medicating with pills and cutting in surgery.

“Hopefully, this has changed and we are now entering a period of truer possibilities,” he said. “I just saw a wonderful documentary titled Heal, which delves into the human possibilities to heal ourselves. This is the kind of medicine I would like to get involved with. I also feel that the work I do is healing – dance is healing!”

About his goal as an artist, he said, “As I have grown, I have shed some of my desire to be a performer/exhibitionist and have been humbled with age, which has allowed me to dig deeper to understand that all I ever really wanted was to make people happy. Happy can mean crying, happy can mean laughing, happy can mean many things to me. I really just want to help people to be inspired to live another day of their lives on this planet.”

Ezralow’s father’s family came to Los Angeles via Winnipeg, of all places.

“My grandfather ran from the Russian revolution to Canada and settled in Winnipeg, where my father was born, who was one of a family of five. My grandfather was a carpenter,” he explained. The family moved to Los Angeles, he said, “probably because my grandfather saw there was opportunity. They settled in Boyle Heights, the poor Jewish area of L.A., and he began building houses. One by one, he would build a house, sell the one they lived in and move to the new house. I took a tour of Boyle Heights with my father before he passed away and he pointed out all of the homes my grandfather built and the family had lived in.”

According to the Jewish Journal, Ezralow’s parents met in Los Angeles; his mother was born in Poland, but the family emigrated when she was quite young.

“My mother grew up a Sabra in Palestine, before the declaration of the state of Israel,” he said. “All of my family on her side are still in Israel and I would travel every other summer with my family to Israel, so I am connected by heritage to a people I know intimately from my entire childhood. This has given me a sense of Jewishness as natural and surrounding me.

“In Los Angeles, as well,” he continued, “there is a very strong and permeated Jewish community, which I grew up in and was a bar mitzvah. But, after that, I felt that there was too much dogma in religion. I have worked many times with Batsheva in Israel and still have a deep connection to everyone. I am sometimes sad to see what is happening with the conflict there. But I feel a strong sense of Jewish humanity in my soul. It is something that is universal and not selective to one religion.”

* * *

photo - Roy Assaf Dance’s Six Years Later — Roy Assaf Dance’s *Six Years Later*. *(photo by Costin Radu)*

Roy Assaf is both creator of and a performer in the two award-winning pieces he is bringing to the Chutzpah! Festival, starting Feb. 22.

“I dance in both works, the duet Six Years Later and the trio The Hill,” he said in an email. “Back in 2011 and 2012, when these works were created, it felt perfectly natural for me to choreograph and to dance the work at the same time. Nowadays when I create, it is not at all the obvious choice.”

Assaf was born in Israel, and dance has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. About 15 years ago, he started working with Emanuel Gat, initially as a dancer, then as an assistant choreographer. Assaf’s first choreographed work, in 2005, won two awards at the Shades in Dance competition in Tel Aviv. In 2010, he worked with the Noord Nederlandse Dans company in Groningen, Holland, creating for them a work called Rock.

“I was invited by their artistic director, Stephen Shropshire,” said Assaf about that commission. “The amount of trust that Stephen gave me while working with his company strengthened my belief in myself that I could and should keep making pieces.”

Since then, Assaf has created or co-created works for many other companies, including two full-length pieces supported by the Intima Dance Festival, a work for L.A. Dance Project for the Biennale de Lyon, a collaborative piece for the Royal Swedish Ballet, and a piece for the Gothenburg Ballet. This past fall, he began creating 25 People, working with third-year Juilliard students in New York City, where he was on faculty for a semester, which he is resetting with dancers in Israel.

For Assaf, dance is not simply art for art’s sake.

“I would like to give people room to imagine,” he said. “It’s certainly not about distracting people – I really hope we are in the business of encouraging or facilitating engagement in one’s own life. What a pity it would be if dance principally served to distract or disconnect someone from his or her experience. Please do come to a performance and be fully yourself there – see what you see, recognize what you recognize, run with your fantasies, meet your uncomfortable places.”

The duet Six Years Later explores the relationship between two people who have come together after having been separated for a long time, while The Hill is a commentary on war, based on the Hebrew song “Givat Hatachmoshet,” about a particularly devastating battle that took place during the Six Day War in 1967, a battle that Israel won but with great losses.

Despite the different subject matter, Assaf has described both pieces as having a lot in common.

“They share a spine, in terms of physical material,” he explained. “If you look closely, you may discover that they are both dealing with much of the same movement – but that the same movement has undergone a very different treatment in each work. You might say they share a point of origin, but parted ways in their process. Each work followed a path to its logical conclusion. Both, however, deal with the story of human touch: its effect, its consequence.”

For all of the Chutzpah! dance offerings and the full festival schedule, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

The Fringe is coming soon!

Seattle comedy couple Clayton Weller and Sophie Lowenstein are bringing Naturally to the festival. (photo from Amanda Smith)

Fear of death, making comedy and fighting prejudice are but a few of the topics Jewish community members will be exploring in their productions at this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, which runs Sept. 7-17.

Seattle comedy couple Sophie Lowenstein and Clayton Weller are bringing Naturally to the festival. It’s not one show, but two, with audiences deciding which they want to see: the one about grief, which also contains a dating scene, “the worst theatrical audition ever” and more; or the one about what sketch comedy is, how to make it – and why to bother making it.

“We have a variety of choosing activities at the top of the show, which culminates in the audience throwing paper airplanes at the stage for the show they’d most like to see. It’s going to be bonkers,” explained Weller. “As far as seeing both shows – how flattering would that be?! – the final two performances we’re locking in which show will happen.” So, Good Grief (Heart) will be on Sept. 14 and Understanding Sketch (Head) on Sept. 16; for the other performances, you’ll have to take your chances. Though, having seen them on video in preparing for this interview, it’s not much of a risk – both shows will have you laughing, and crying. There is a reason they dub Naturally “serious comedy.”

“As a duo, this has always pretty much been our style,” said Weller. “We’ve both done a bunch of plays, both serious and completely frivolous…. We thought that a laugh never feels as good as after you’re done crying. The contrast makes both the dark and light pop out more.”

“I would also say that we find a lot of beauty in that line between joy and pain because it’s not a very thick line. It’s blurred and sometimes nonexistent,” added Lowenstein, who is part of the Jewish community. “When you’re working with comedy, experiencing other emotions besides happiness while you laugh is sort of taboo – at least rare. We play in that playground. I think, individually, we are both curious about people’s emotions and we investigate them in our own ways, so we came together to run a joint study.”

According to the press material, Lowenstein and Weller have been performing comedy together for more than 12 years.

“Sophie and I went to the same college, University of Puget Sound, and both got cast in our college sketch comedy group,” Weller told the Independent. “We performed in several shows before we actually started living together as roommates, then we started living together, with feelings and stuff. Humour and comedy definitely permeate every part of our lives. Lots of laughter keeps our hearts light.”

With the comedy group Ubiquitous They, the couple produced about 15 shows. However, said Weller, the group “is more of an alumni network at this point. Several members have moved on to work in L.A., or across the country. We produced really regularly from 2007 to 2014, but, for the most part, it’s more of a club that hangs out every couple of months, and goes, ‘Wow, it’s tough to be an adult, am I right?’”

For the past few years, Lowenstein and Weller have been focusing on their performances as a duo. “Basically, Naturally is the only comedy project Sophie and I do now,” said Weller. “We’ll do a variety show or small play here and there on our own, but, because our lives are so crazy, we’ve pared the work we do down and this is where we put our real artistic push. I’ve never made work I’m more proud of than what I’m currently making with Sophie. She’s awesome. (Secret: This is all just an excuse for me to hang out with her more!)”

“Other secret: I feel the same way about him,” added Lowenstein. “He makes this process happen.”

In addition to Naturally, Weller runs two performance venues – the Pocket Theatre and the Slate Theatre – and Lowenstein works as a nurse practitioner.

“I look at it like this: some NPs have kids and they can do it. I have theatre and I can do it,” said Lowenstein about balancing her careers. Her recipe for success? “Save as many of your nights for rehearsals as possible. Dinner no earlier than 10 p.m. most nights. Make sure the other member of your group does all the administrative stuff and keeps you motivated when you’re dragging your butt and snarling. And, if the project doesn’t give you deep joy, don’t do it.”

In one of the Naturally shows, Weller mentions that he once had a lucrative high-tech job that he gave up for comedy. Does he have any regrets?

“I started a company called Freak’n Genius in 2012,” he said. “We made animation software, and we raised over half a million dollars in financing. At first, I was working with cool creative people and helping them make awesome things – then we slowly turned into an iPhone app for tweens. I learned a ton, but I 100% do not regret leaving. I give about three hours a week’s worth for tweens. Not the 60 hours a week I was putting in. Artists are who I really care about!”

About how he became one, or at least got into comedy, Weller said he had terrible stage fright until eighth grade. “I decided I was tired of being scared, and did improv comedy. After the first laughing crowd, I got bit by the bug, and I’ve been doing it ever since. There’s no better way to make friends than to make art together. Our relationship is proof to the point! I’m super lucky.”

For her part, Sophie said she first got into comedy “by loving that feeling of making my friends laugh. So, I practised how to do that more and more. I also had very funny friends. Now, I’m friends with the funniest human I know, and he also has a heart and mind. Bonus. As for the theatre part, I started performing when I was a little kid then throughout school: musicals, Shakespeare, etc. Stuck with it.”

The couple has been doing Naturally for a couple of years now. “After every performance,” said Weller, “we can’t help but do the ‘Oh man, next time why don’t we blah blah blah.’ The script is never permanent, and every remounting of the material we go through a rewrite and punch up all the scripts. Also, finding new ways to fit it together is a whole other way to make the thing new for us. Mostly, we just like hanging out and this is a great excuse.” Lowenstein agreed.

Naturally runs Sept. 8-16, at various times, in the gym at False Creek Community Centre on Granville Island. The 55-minute show is rated 14+ for coarse language and sexual content. Running Sept. 7-17 at the Firehall Arts Centre, also at various times, is the Canadian première of Cry-Baby: The Musical!, which is being presented by Awkward Stage Productions. It, too, is rated 14+ for the same reasons.

Jewish community member Erika Babins, who is artistic associate of Awkward Stage, choreographed the Fringe production, which features “a cast of 16 emerging artists” and runs 90 minutes.

photo - Erika Babins choreographed Awkward Stage’s production of Cry-Baby: The Musical! — Erika Babins choreographed Awkward Stage’s production of Cry-Baby: The Musical! *(photo from Awkward Stage)*

“It’s 1950s Baltimore, the conservative squares face off against the leather-clad delinquents in this rockabilly musical based on John Waters’ cult film,” reads the press release. The 2008 Broadway show was nominated for four Tony Awards, including best choreography, and won a Drama Desk Award for outstanding choreography. So, where does Babins begin?

“I start my choreographic process by obsessively listening to the music of the show so that it can live in my body,” Babins told the Independent. “Before we start rehearsals, I’ll meet with the director and we’ll talk through the shape of the show so that we know what purpose each song serves in the show, where we’re coming from and where we’re going, and how we’re going to get there.

“Then, when I get the cast in the room, I can take the story I know I’m going to tell and use them to tell it, using movement and music as my storytelling techniques. If I’m really stuck about how to tell a part of the story, I might look up a video or two on YouTube to see how a different company made something work, but I’m careful to only watch it once so that it only ever is for inspiration and I don’t accidentally steal something.”

Awkward Stage decided to mount Cry-Baby for several reasons. “Awkward has made a tradition out of presenting hilarious, and culturally relevant, full-scale musicals at the Fringe Festival,” said Babins. “Cry-Baby: The Musical came to us via artistic director Andy Toth. He brought it forward as a show that features a mostly young cast, great music and a lot of interesting and fleshed out female characters. Not only that, the messages in the show about systematic prejudices, classism and living your own truth so long as it’s not hurting anyone else, are still so relevant today.”

This is Awkward’s eighth musical at the Fringe Festival. “In that time,” noted Babins, “we’ve won three Pick-of-the-Fringe’s and the Joanna Maratta Award. We are committed to bridging the gap for emerging artists coming into the professional theatre scene in Vancouver and paying our artists for their efforts.”

For the full Fringe schedule and tickets ($14), visit vancouverfringe.com. (Note: a $5 Fringe membership is required for all shows.)

DOTE dances across the street

LINK Dance Foundation will perform Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? at a few intersections in Vancouver during Dancing on the Edge. (photo from DOTE)

As part of this year’s Dancing on the Edge festival, which takes place July 6-15, LINK Dance Foundation will explore the age-old question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“The idea for Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? came about through various stages, like all things do,” said Gail Lotenberg, founding artistic director of LINK. “The germination to the actual realization was a process and it is still in development for the future.”

DOTE producer Donna Spencer invited Lotenberg to be involved in this year’s festival with a specific piece, but the timing wasn’t right. “So, I told her I had another idea for this year if she was open to it. We had a meeting and together we cooked up this piece,” said Lotenberg.

Leading up to the 2013 provincial election, she said, “I wanted to help attract young people to exercise their right to vote, so I spearheaded a dance performance at the intersection of Davie Street and Granville Street with signage from Rock the Vote BC.

“The dance did not deliver overt messages about voting (though there were subtle motifs in the choreography), rather it aimed to stop people in their daily lives to enjoy viewing a quick dance by an ensemble of dancers as they crossed a busy intersection. We had people stationed at the corners to hand out pamphlets with more specific information about voting day.”

The concept was introduced to Lotenberg in 2005 by a “close friend and colleague, Cara Siu, who came to Whitehorse, Yukon, when I used to live there. At that time, I was producing an annual festival called Dancing in the Streets. She came from Vancouver to make a dance at the intersection of two main streets in Whitehorse as part of the week of outdoor dance performances. I loved the idea and always knew I would use it again.”

For the 2017 incarnation, Lotenberg said she wanted to “include a large pool of less-well-known dancers in the community in a site-based work at intersections” and Spencer was all for it.

“In fact,” said Lotenberg, “it was her idea to involve young dancers from pre-professional training programs in the project. She also saw the benefit of having DOTE volunteers on the corners to provide more information to people about other shows they could see during the annual summer festival. Donna really helped to make the idea crystallize into what it is now, a work for eight dancers – mostly young dancers in the final stages of their training with the exception of two professionals. The two dancers who would normally be considered out of their training stage … will perform my core idea of a duet between pieces of white cloth to complete the show.”

Lotenberg, however, won’t be performing. “I will not be dancing in this work,” she said, “unless I’m wearing a chicken costume.”

She hopes “Intersection Interventions” will become “an annual part of DOTE, in the way Dusk Dances were a signature aspect of the festival for almost a decade.”

She said, “I believe in public art. I see myself as someone who evolved from the same fabric as the public frivolity movement of the 1990s – Unsilent Night, flashmobs, etc. These are acts of art that enhance our civic arena.

“I like art that engages people in community and invites people briefly into the humanizing experience of co-creating art. I don’t like art that does this by ignoring the principles of composition and virtuosity and esthetics, meaning they are inclusive but not very entertaining. So, I strive to find the duality that makes work provocative and pleasing to view, while at the same time offering some type of invitation to be an active rather than a passive participant.”

From 2008 to 2012, Lotenberg was an associated artist with Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue. The academic director of the centre then, Mark Winston, supported many of her endeavours, she said, “because he saw my work as a model for how to employ art as part of public engagement and how to construe social engagement as fertile soil for making art. I am grateful to Mark for that period of cross-pollination of ideas and expertise. He, too, is a Jewish person and together we mined the depths of what it meant to be Jewish and engaged in our mutual professions, he as a scientist and director of the CFD, me as a dance artist and director of a dance company.”

She said, “When I was a younger artist, there was a hierarchy in my mind that put work onstage above public-engaged art practice. Then I met Liz Lerman, a famous populist choreographer from the U.S., and I shifted my perspective to a less hierarchical model.

“I love seeing how dance can enter the public domain and engage people in something that lives between the opposing ends of a spectrum. On the one hand, you have pure social dancing that is non-performative but fully inclusive and, on the other end, you have very formal dance performance, which occurs on a stage with no apparent involvement from the audience except as witness. I love the in-between.”

Over the course of her dance performance and choreography career, Lotenberg has created many works that combine dance and activism.

“I’m a political person,” she said. “I grew up that way. As a Jewish person, I was taught to think in terms of how I could contribute to making the world a better place. I use my attributes as a choreographer to bring people together in a way that feels beautiful or powerful or profound or just fun.

“Take the Occupy Movement, for instance. I see something like that and I think, ‘Oh, imagine how easy it would be to occupy more space by getting people to not just stand around and chant but rather to do a square dance, which inherently takes up a lot more space.’ In occupying space with a square dance, people are using dance politically and the results are varied. People are having more fun. Authorities may not feel so threatened because the impulse is to relish life, not to be destructive, which is true of most political movements that are not hate-based. So, dance for me is an interface between the institutions we hope to shift and the people who are trying to have sway in shifting those institutions.”

Being Jewish has informed Lotenberg’s way of engaging with the world in various ways.

She said, “Being Jewish made me a political person and that feeds an aspect of my choreographic interests…. Being Jewish also surrounded me with people who embrace ritual and ritual is an important aspect of art. Being Jewish led to many opportunities to be in community through song and dance, and there is nothing more uplifting than that. In fact, I would say that these acts of sharing voice and song are what do connect me to my spirituality.

“And finally, I grew up as a New York Jew and my parents were very involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. We moved to a town that was emerging as a leader in desegregation of schools, so I went to a school right from Grade 1 that was racially mixed.”

Lotenberg earned her bachelor’s degree at University of Michigan, was a dance teacher and skier in Crested Butte, Colo., for about five years and then did her master’s degree in history at University of Washington. In Seattle, she said, “I met a Vancouver boy, graduated, sold everything, moved here and then, within a year, we left for the Yukon.”

While Yukon was home from 1993, Lotenberg returned to Vancouver often for dancing. In 2007, she and her family moved to Bowen Island – “bad for my dancing career but otherwise wonderful,” she said.

Lotenberg took an approximately three-year break from dancing to be more present for her daughter, who has a learning disability, she said. “She’s good now. She’s strong and knows how to self-advocate for learning support that allows her to perform well in school. And, she basically is my happy place. But, I missed dance and being with other dancers – people who see and sense the world through a different lens.

“I feel gratitude at the opportunity to re-enter the dance milieu from the place I am today. I am grounded; I have a good job as a pilates instructor; I want to have my work seen and appreciated but that desire does not define me anymore. I am eager to share my work, but I feel strong and I feel confident and I trust that my work is valuable because it is honest and well-crafted and unique.”

Lotenberg is in the midst of developing a new stage work for next year’s DOTE in which she will be dancing.

“It is a piece I am challenging myself to take on because it feels important for me to step back into the dancing body to tell my story in a real and vulnerable way,” she said. “In fact, the application to show this work I’m describing is what actually led to having Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? happen at this year’s festival. Life is a beautiful journey that way. You sow seeds but you don’t always know how they will bear fruit.”

The promotional material for Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? asks the question, “Rather than walk, why not dance to get to the other side?” What can be gained from dancing, even if only across the street?

“Dancing is liberating,” said Lotenberg. “Dancing is frivolity and elemental connection (at the same time). Dancing is one of the first forms of art and, in some cultures, it is the glue that defines who they are, how they touch the earth with their feet and what is the rhythm of their heartbeat.

“I tried to leave dance and choreography to become a better mother. I did become a better mother but I also realized in that period that dance is essential to who I am.

“Dancing across the street,” she said, “is a way of celebrating life, is a way of being part of making the world a more beautiful place, is an invitation to be part of a happening that makes today just a bit more rich than yesterday or tomorrow.”

For the times and locations of Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?, visit dancingontheedge.org/program/chicken-cross-road. For the full DOTE schedule, visit dancingontheedge.org.

The art of creative criticism

Dr. Rabbi Yosef Wosk, right, presents Max Wyman with the inaugural Max Wyman Award for Cultural Commentary. (photo by Fred Cawsey)

In the program of the inaugural Max Wyman Award for Cultural Commentary, Dr. Rabbi Yosef Wosk describes Max Wyman as “a cultural paragon whose clear vision, incisive writing and fearless voice have both grounded and encouraged us. In his half-century here in British Columbia, he has been an unparalleled personality, a cultural critic and midwife of creativity whose influence is sure to be modeled by future generations.”

In establishing the biennial, province-wide award – which will include a $5,000 honorarium and allow the recipient to choose an emerging commentator, who will receive $1,000 – Wosk will help ensure Wyman’s continuing influence, as well as “catalyze the art of creative criticism.” The award will be “presented to a writer for an outstanding piece or body of work that will raise the level of cultural conversation and, ultimately, human creativity.”

Wyman was the first recipient of the award that bears his name. He received the honour at a gala at Vancouver Playhouse on April 18 – 50 years plus a day after Wyman’s first shift at the Vancouver Sun. “Pure, lovely serendipity,” Wyman told the Independent about the timing.

Born in England, Wyman immigrated to Canada in 1967. He was a longtime arts columnist, dance and theatre critic, and books editor with the Sun and with the Province. He is an actor, radio and television personality; cultural commentator; arts policy consultant; author of several books; educator and arts advocate; former mayor of Lions Bay; and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Among other things, he was involved with the Canadian Conference of the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He was a juror for numerous competitions, chair of several cultural committees and served on the board of the British Columbia Achievement Foundation.

That Wosk wanted the cultural commentary award to be in Wyman’s name “brought a tumult of responses,” said Wyman.

“I was astonished, deeply touched, profoundly humbled and, of course, delighted,” he said. “Delighted not just for the personal recognition (every ego likes to be stroked, after all), but, more importantly, because the award would lead us to a clearer understanding of how serious and intelligent criticism – creative criticism, the informed observation and contextualization that is an essential tool of the examined life – could best function in these momentously changing times.

“My joy, astonishment and gratitude have not diminished now that the project is up and running. I have been in awe of Yosef’s social activism for years: he seems to live the essence of the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam, the notion that we should perform acts of kindness to repair the world. He puts his resources where his idealism is.”

The idea for this type of an award was first raised some years ago at a dinner at Wosk’s home, said Wyman. “The topic came up again more recently at the inaugural meeting of another of Yosef’s initiatives, the SFU [Simon Fraser University] Jack and Doris Shadbolt Community Scholars, and, early in 2016, Yosef brought forward the proposal to establish a prize to stimulate and recognize creative criticism in various disciplines.”

“I have thought about championing the idea and the ethical practice of criticism for many years,” Wosk told the Independent.

Shying away from criticism when he was younger, Wosk said, “In our tradition, we are told that God created the world through words. Rabbinic teachings emphasize guarding our tongues, not speaking badly about others and not spreading rumours. Life and death, we are reminded, is often controlled by words. Just look at the prevalence of bullying in schools and the tragedy of so many youth who are driven to suicide in an effort to escape the unbearable embarrassment of verbal abuse. I had to work through numerous stages of emotional and intellectual maturity before learning that intellectual opinions or personal preferences were not the same as lashon ha’rah, derogatory speech about another, nor was it the same as moral rebuke.

“Criticism, I learned, could be a gift. It involved courage, clear sight and expression. Saying ‘no’ to one thing also means saying ‘yes’ to something else. I rejected mean-spirited criticism but embraced creative criticism.”

Wosk first heard of Wyman when Wyman was at the Sun. “I admired his work,” said Wosk. “From the sound of his name, I thought he was probably Jewish. Later, I found out that he wasn’t but, as I got to know him, I realized that he certainly had ‘a Jewish soul’: he was kind, smart, sensitive, humble and active in helping the world be a better place. I got to know him better when we were both involved in the Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars at Simon Fraser University. When I was appointed a Shadbolt Fellow at SFU in 2015, I invited Max and his wife, Susan Mertens – also a critic and a brilliant scholar of esthetics with a doctorate from Cambridge – to be in the first cohort of Shadbolt Community Scholars, with a mandate to knit together the academy, the arts and the community.”

Wosk said he approached Scotiabank Dance Centre with the idea for the Wyman Award because, although “Wyman was recognized as a culture critic in general, he was most famously known as a dance critic.”

Wosk sought the advice of the centre’s executive director, Mirna Zagar, and was introduced to associate producer and chair of the Dance Foundation, Linda Blankstein, who was hired to research the feasibility and nature of a possible award.

“Not only did Linda produce an excellent report that became the basis for future planning,” said Wosk, “but we also subsequently hired her to produce the inaugural event. With considerable advice from the organizing committee, she assembled a professional team from the Dance Centre, the British Columbia Alliance for Arts + Culture, a filmmaker to produce a video on Max, found the appropriate venue, worked with a graphic designer, publicist, assembled mailing lists, arranged for media interviews, and so on.”

In addition to the award presentation, the program at the Playhouse featured Bard on the Beach’s Christopher Gaze as the emcee, various speakers, video greetings and several dance performances.

Among Wyman’s publications is the first on Canadian dance history, Dance Canada: An Illustrated History (1989), as well as The Royal Winnipeg Ballet: The First Forty Years (1978), Evelyn Hart: An Intimate Portrait (1991) and Revealing Dance (2001).

“If you only knew me to look at me, and tried to work out what I did for a living, a career in dance is of course the first conclusion you would jump to,” said Wyman. “In fact, when they hear that I spent my life writing about dance, the first thing people say to me is, well, of course, you must have been a dancer. And I’m reduced to explaining that, in fact, no, I have only ever danced once. But it was for the Queen.

“I was 8 or 9, living in Nottingham, where I grew up. She was Princess Elizabeth, and she was on a visit to the city to open a gasworks or cut a cake – anyway, every kid for miles around was rounded up and taken to a clearing in Sherwood Forest, where we were made to do country dances around the maypole as part of her program of entertainment. I can still remember her vividly: coming down a slope into the clearing in an open car, beautiful pink dress, big pink hat, the famous wave. The memory has stayed with me all my life, so you can imagine how disappointed I was when I finally got to meet her – she had no memory of me at all.”

Wyman believes that “dance is the most moving and communicative of all the artforms.”

“It crosses the borders of language and logic, lets you see beyond the interacting bodies on the stage and, through the interplay of rhythm and pattern and energy, to an idea, or an emotion, or an intuition within yourself that the dancing has provoked – puts you in touch, at the best of times, with the intuitive, the spiritual, the transcendental, and you go away refreshed, thoughtful, energized.

“What makes all this so hugely poignant, at least to me,” he said, “is the transience of it all. The body, such an impermanent scrap, moves, and the dance is gone. No other artform speaks so directly about the fragile, temporary quality of life, or about the human instinct to cast off its physical bonds and aim for that perfect moment of self-realization. It exists in the realm of the transcendent and the truly brave.”

On May 14, Wyman turned 78. He has been intermittently writing his memoirs over the last few years, he said. They are “currently at 325,000 words and counting – and I post bits quite often to my website, Notes Toward a Life: essays, diary entries, pen-portraits, maxwyman.com.”

He is also working on a variety of other projects. At the time of his interview with the Independent, he was preparing a paper for a conference at the University of London. In an interview with the Sun in the days leading up to the award ceremony on April 18, he reminisced about his early years at the paper.

“We covered everything,” he told writer John Mackie. “Everything professional in theatre and music, dance, visual arts. It was a wonderful time. The Sun sent me off to Stratford and Shaw (in Ontario) every summer for the opening weeks. They sent me to Europe for the summer festivals one summer.”

The industry has changed since then, but Wyman is optimistic about the future of newspapers.

“The steady coarsening of public discourse, the shallowness of what passes for debate, the polarizing of political thought, the pernicious crudeness of public taste mean that our need for mediated, trustworthy information and informed opinion can only intensify,” he told the Independent. “Traditional media are flailing around to find their footing and their market in the shifting digital landscape … but I believe this is an interim period. What will emerge will be a leaner, cleaner delivery service that will give informed context to events and issues that affect their readers. However, the splintering of reader interests will mean that the one-paper-fits-all model is over. Given the way technology is evolving, it’s not hard to envision tailored-to-the-individual e-publication at a workable price.”

And the future need for cultural commentary – that which the Wyman Award hopes to perpetuate?

“The whole point of engagement with art, it seems to me, is to expose yourself to something that has the possibility to change you,” said Wyman, whose books include The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters (2004). “I always want to come out of a theatre or a gallery or a concert hall a different person, even just slightly: I hope to have been shown a different perspective on how the world works, understand better the ways other people think or feel or express themselves. Many of us have stood before a painting, listened to a piece of music or watched a play and felt – along with the pleasure of the experience itself – a sense of inexplicable, even inexpressible, understanding or revelation.”

He acknowledged, “Cultural commentary will not produce a cure for cancer. It will not take us to Mars: not physically, at least. But, in its constant probing of new ideas and its ceaseless explorations of the human spirit, it gives us ways to rethink who we are and contemplate how we can be better. We are privileged and passing occupiers of this marvelous earth: books, plays, paintings, ballets, music – they guide us to the hidden truths of our daily being.

“So it is time – beyond time – to relocate creative activity and engagement at the heart of the social agenda, with an imagination-based education as the keystone. Engagement with arts and culture, the humanities, helps develop the flexible thinking that lets us see our world in fresh ways. In ways that allow us to build resilience, vision, innovation and generosity into our thinking so that we can cope with the unpredictable and adapt to rapid and complex change. If society is the Petri dish, culture is the, well, the culture that catalyzes change: makes us a better society, makes us more empathetic people, lets us understand our neighbours, civilizes us. It is the way we realize and communicate our shared humanity.”

Our sense of reality and self

Chuck Wilt and Rebecca Margolick in birds sing a pretty song. (photo by Maxx Berkowitz)

Social media has changed the way in which we work, play and shop. It has changed how we communicate, access information, and even how we define ourselves.

A new work by Rebecca Margolick and Maxx Berkowitz, called birds sing a pretty song, “explores how surveillance and confinement through our digital and physical surroundings affect one’s sense of reality and self.” The full-length piece will have its world premiére in New York City next week. It will then arrive in Vancouver for its Canadian première at Chutzpah!Plus May 13-14.

Birds sing a pretty song was created during a year-long fellowship at New York’s 14th Street Y Theatre’s LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture and two Chutzpah! Festival creation residencies.

LABA describes itself as a program “that uses classic Jewish texts to inspire the creation of art, dialogue and study.”

“After learning about LABA in 2015, we decided to take our shared vision and esthetic to create a piece together that would leverage our differing backgrounds and skill sets of dance and music, design and tech,” said Margolick and Berkowitz in an email interview. “Through the year of study and support from the LABA fellowship, our original concept, revolving around the loss of physical self in a hyper-social world, evolved through the varied conversations about beauty and imagery seeded by the provocative ideas in the ancient texts we studied.

“We had two work-in-progress showings at the 14th Street Y in April 2016 and, this past year, we were fortunate to be able to continue to develop the full-length piece through the support of two creation residencies from the Chutzpah! Festival, in Vancouver and Sointula, B.C., where we refined the choreography and brought in live music. The roots of last year’s showing are still present; however, the movement, sound and film have all changed.”

“Some of the most memorable moments in the development of the piece were when Maxx and I would have moments of clarity between us,” said Margolick. “After coming up with complex ideas, we would realize that staying true to our core goal for this piece, being that simple and raw, can be the most impactful, and that technology should be used as a means to enhance the narrative of the work, rather than a means of distraction or excess.”

As for Berkowitz, he said, “One of the most memorable conversations Rebecca and I had during the development of this piece was walking home after a LABA study session where we had read the story of a rabbi who was known as one of the most beautiful people of the time. His beauty led a princess who loved him without reciprocation … to the point of losing touch with what his beauty meant to her, coveting his beauty to the point of taking the skin off of his face to make a mask for herself. This horrifying story led us to discuss the parallels with how one can lose themselves in their online personas, seeking fame, beauty and recognition to the point of losing their sense of self.”

Birds sing a pretty song involves two dancers, whose wanderings the audience follows “through a world manipulated and influenced by the ‘curators’ … and projected light structures that move and direct the world onstage. Throughout the piece, they encounter an attempt at a relationship, fleeting glimpses of memory, and a fight for connection.”

Dancers Margolick and Chuck Wilt are joined by guitarist/media/composer Berkowitz, guitarist/composer Jake Klar and percussionist Bruno Esrubilsky (the curators) and Israeli author and scholar Ruby Namdar.

“The idea of ‘curators’ came from our exploration of how, in our social media platforms, it is easy to forget that everything you see is carefully selected for you based on the computer-crafted picture of you, that you can get trapped in a sounding room where the news, information and even advertising is targeted at your historical tastes and how that can be harnessed to manipulate your choices and decisions and fixes you into a stereotype of yourself,” explained Berkowitz. “This has become even more [relevant] in the current political climate and the ‘post-truth’ world, in which social media has played such a heavy role, and surveillance is an ever-increasing fact of life.”

“We wanted to play with the idea of the dancers being trapped in a curated space (the stage), where the musicians subtly manipulate the dancers’ movement and reactions,” added Margolick. “The dancers are also aware of the audience’s gaze, subconsciously at first but, as the piece goes on, they become aware of the audience and curators and are left exposed.

“As a performer, I was always intrigued by the fact that you’re in an enclosed space together with the audience, where you are aware that the audience is watching you as you are also watching them. This feeling of being observed while also observing is something I wanted to explore in this piece.”

Margolick has family connections in Vancouver, and has given of her time to the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Festival Ha’Rikud, which she will do again when she is here in May. She also has connections to the Metro Vancouver dance community.

“I trained at Arts Umbrella from 6 to 18 years old and, through that program, I was introduced to both local and international dance artists and choreographers,” she said. “Over the past couple years, I’ve traveled between New York City and Vancouver and have been involved in dance projects with Donald Sales’ Project20 and Shay Kuebler’s Radical System Art. As for the Jewish community, through growing up attending Temple Sholom, working at the JCC summer day camp and dancing with Or Chadash, I was immersed into the local Jewish community.”

Berkowitz, too, has local ties.

“I was fortunate,” he said, “to be involved with the Chutzpah! Festival in the past, joining Shay Kuebler’s Radical System Art’s residency in Sointula to document their process and teach photography to local residents. And, in 2015, my up-and-coming band Twin Wave had two performances in Vancouver, at the Imperial Theatre and the Red Room.”

Among the major supporters of birds sing a pretty song are the Jewish Foundation of Greater Vancouver, Phyliss and Irving Snider Foundation, Diamond Foundation, Betty Averbach Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, B.C. Arts Council and the City of Vancouver.

Birds sing a pretty song is at the Rothstein Theatre May 13, 8 p.m., and May 14, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $29.50, $25.50 (senior) and $23.50 (student) and can be purchased at chutzpahfestival.com, 604-257-5145 or in-person at the JCCGV, as well as from Tickets Tonight, 604-684-2787.

Ballet BC trio of firsts

Choreographer Emanuel Gat, who was in Vancouver for a few weeks at the beginning of the year, will return for the Ballet BC world première of his new work. (photo by Wendy D Photography)

Ballet BC finishes this season May 11-13 with Program 3, which features a world première by choreographer Emanuel Gat, an almost world première by Emily Molnar and the Ballet BC première of Minus 16 by Ohad Naharin.

“I have long admired the works of Emanuel Gat and Ohad Naharin and have been eager to bring them to our artists and audiences,” says Molnar, artistic director of Ballet BC, in the press release announcing the program. She isn’t the only one to admire the creativity of choreographers Gat and Naharin, and many dance fans will be excited to see their work performed. Professional dancers age 16 and over will even have a chance to learn with Gat in person on May 6, when he teaches excerpts from the 30-minute piece he created for the full Ballet BC company (balletbc.com/choreographic-workshop-emanuel-gat).

Both Gat and Naharin started their dance careers relatively late, in their 20s, but have more than made up for any lost time. Born in 1952 in Kibbutz Mizra, in northern Israel, Naharin has been artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company since 1990 and is the creator of the movement language called Gaga – it is not an exaggeration to say he is an icon of contemporary dance. Born in Netanya in 1969, Gat is artistic director of Emanuel Gat Dance, which he established in 2004, and his works have been performed around the world.

Gat’s career trajectory changed when, at age 23, he attended a workshop led by another Israeli choreographer, Nir Ben Gal.

“I was studying music at the time,” Gat told the Independent in an email interview. “I’d just started a first year at the Rubin Academy of Music, and intended to be a conductor. I stopped a few months after starting to dance.”

Within a couple of years, Gat was working as an independent choreographer. When he founded his company, it was at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, which Batsheva Dance Company also calls home. However, after about 15 years in Tel Aviv and a few in the south of Israel, Gat moved to France in 2007, where he lives in a small village near Aix-en-Provence.

One of the aspects Gat most likes about being a choreographer is that “you work with a group of people, that it’s not a solitary process, and that it’s always full of surprises and insights.”

In various interviews, he has stressed the importance of process in the creation of a work.

“Time, space and eager dancers, basically,” he said of the elements needed for a creative environment. “All the rest is a result of an ongoing process of examining different questions regarding these elements, the way in which they come together and affect each other.”

While the Ballet BC program doesn’t name Gat’s new work, his website lists it as Lock.

“It comes from a certain task I gave [the dancers] on devising ways of joining two separated phrases,” he said about the title. “One of the strategies they came up with, they named ‘lock,’ which I liked the sound of.”

Gat was in Vancouver for a few weeks at the beginning of the year to create the piece, he said, and he will be returning “to finalize the work and create the light[ing] for it.”

“I’m very happy about this project,” he said, “and it was a lot of fun creating together with this talented bunch.”

Heading the talented bunch at Ballet BC since 2009 has been Molnar. The National Arts Centre in Ottawa commissioned her latest work as part of ENCOUNT3RS. The NAC presentation paired “three Canadian choreographers with three Canadian composers to create works with original scores, in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary,” notes the Ballet BC release. Molnar’s creation, set to a score by Canadian composer Nicole Lizée, saw its world première in Ottawa at the NAC April 20-22 and local audiences will see it as part of Program 3.

Rounding out Program 3 is Naharin’s Minus 16. Unfortunately, the choreographer won’t be able to make it to Vancouver for the performance. For just over two months now, he and Batsheva Dance Company dancers have been developing Venezuela, a full evening work set to start its première run at the Suzanne Dellal Centre May 12. But Batsheva personnel will be helping Ballet BC rehearse their first Naharin work.

“I have a team that can do it without me, though I would love to join all the premières,” Naharin told the Independent in a phone interview from Tel Aviv. “I trust them,” he said. “They have done it before without me many times.”

photo - Ballet BC will perform Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16 as part of Program 3 — Ballet BC will perform Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16 as part of Program 3. *(photo from Ballet BC)*

At the start of his career, he said, “I didn’t have the safety net of people I can trust and that knew how to do it; I didn’t have the skill myself to teach other people how to do it. Over the years, and especially with Minus – because Minus has been done by a lot of companies and also it’s a work that we do, or we do versions of it – my assistants have become experts at doing it and teaching it. It’s true that still, given the control freak that I am, it’s an exercise of letting go each time, but it’s a good exercise.”

The Ballet BC program description of Minus 16 mentions its “mesmerizing use of improvisation.”

“The idea is to give dancers as much information as possible, because it’s not about free form or do whatever you want,” explained Naharin about how improvisational aspects are “written” into a piece of choreography. “It’s about basing your intention, dynamics, texture, volume on very clear ideas, and those ideas are shared with the dancers, then they improvise and they get feedback. Usually, it’s not about what not to do. Feedback usually will highlight what was weak or what was right, what was the moment that produced what it needed. What is nice about the situation is that it can offer a [dimension] that I didn’t write that can be just as good, if not better sometimes.”

But, he said, about Minus, “There is very little improvisation in the piece, actually. What has made the piece easy to teach … is that it is very structured. Also, some of it is built on repetition and accumulation; it is not crowded with a lot of steps. Some of my work has a more complex structure, many different people doing different things and different movements, and that takes a lot of time and also skills and experience to learn and to teach. With Minus, a lot of it is unison and a big chunk of it is about repetition and accumulation, and very clear counts – so many times, my work is done to music that doesn’t have a groove or a beat, and the manic of the movements comes from listening to each other and understanding the essence of the creative pulse of the movement. With Minus, almost all the movements are counted and based on a particular rhythm that also comes from and is supported by the music. The improvisation part of Minus is meaningful, but it’s not the big part of it.”

Originally created in 1999, Minus 16 is “set to a score ranging from Dean Martin to mambo, techno to traditional Israeli music.” Of what ties its elements together, Naharin said, “I think, in balance, what ties things together in a right way is not how different the ingredients are from each other or how similar they are, but it’s how you try to create the right tension between all the elements.

“It’s just like if you go and look at the landscape. Sometimes it can be just desert and sky, and sometimes it can be a landscape that’s crowded with a lot of elements, including bridges or houses or the sun or clouds or birds or animals or people or machines, and it can still create something that is coherent and clear. It can also create, potentially, the sensation of ‘wow!’ And the reason it’s all connected is not because of what the ingredients are but how they are all organized.”

While there are no rules about what music can go with another music, he said, “a choreographer has his own rules, or his own code.” He explained that a choreographer could set an evening-length work to only the music of Mozart and still the work’s elements may not connect well, whereas shorter pieces set to vastly different music could work together well as a whole – “you could put John Zorn with Vivaldi and it can be magnificent,” he said. “It has to do with creating the right tension and the right mix.”

Naharin has been creating that balance since his choreographic debut in 1980.

“There are a few things I can think of immediately,” he said about what he loves about his work. “One of them is the pleasure of research and finding things that I didn’t know existed before I found them, couldn’t even imagine before I found them, and I find them in the process.

“Another thing is the pleasure of working with a brilliant, generous, beautiful, creative group of people that I love; learning from them and sharing with them what I learn.

“I love what the dancers offer me. Not when they show me my choreography but when they show me their interpretation of my choreography, and when they can offer a narrative that I didn’t write. That can be very moving.

“I like to dance. I love to move. I love to make up movements. I need to dance. It’s something that, if I don’t do it, I’m unhappy.”

He added, “For me, to dance is not about performing. I don’t need an audience to dance.”

One of his favourite places to dance? “I love to dance in the shower.”

Anything else he’d like Jewish Independent readers to know? “Just not to forget to dance a little bit every day.”

Program 3 runs May 11-13, 8 p.m., at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets range from $21.25 to $91.25 and can be purchased from 1-855-985-2787 (855-985-ARTS) or ticketmaster.ca. For more information, visit balletbc.com.

Dance that speaks out

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion’s The Gettin’ is among the repertoire the company will be bringing to Vancouver March 11-13 for the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Jerry and Lois Photography)

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion is bringing to Western Canada for the first time a sample of its acclaimed repertoire, including The Gettin’, Quiet Dance and excerpts from the company’s newest work, Dearest Home. They will perform at the Chutzpah! Festival March 11-13.

“Dearest Home is a new evening-length work that is broken up into solos and duets dealing with love, longing and loss,” explained Kyle Abraham in an interview with the Independent. “Some of the themes, and movement itself, were derived from the workshops and conversations that took place during residencies. The excerpts that are shown in this program were made during a residency at the Hopkins Centre for the Arts, Dartmouth College.”

Politics, identity, justice and freedom are some of the other themes Abraham explores in his work.

“I try to create work that reflects society as I see it,” he said. “Sometimes people see hope in that and sometimes people see the disparity that is in closer correlation to my experience growing up in this country. But, there is also purposefully the possibility of seeing both hope and disparity in my work; I think that speaks to the conflict and tensions that have been in this country for a long period of time. There are stories that are from an earlier time, but the work winds up correlating with current events basically because of the cyclical nature of history repeating itself over and over again. With that work so often comes a direct smack in the face that there is still so much more progress to be made. I like to make work that speaks to all those things.”

Religion also plays a part in some of Abraham’s creations.

“Since my parents passed, and since my mother’s more recent passing, I have had a really conflicting connection with religion and spirituality in a larger sense,” he said. “I was very curious as a child when it came to religion. I think there’s so much history in religion, in so many different ways. My parents were of different Christian faiths: my father was raised in an Episcopalian church, my mother was raised in a Baptist church, and I purposely chose to go to Hebrew school. I think that shows that I was really interested in learning about different faiths and trying to figure out where I fit in.

“It’s a tricky thing. Just because your parents believe something doesn’t mean that’s what you will believe. Just because your friends believe something doesn’t mean that’s ultimately what you’ll wind up believing yourself. But, I’ve always been curious about religion and faith in some way, shape or form, and have spent time in different religious spaces through points in my life. The last religious space I was in was a (Jewish) temple; that was in October for a friend of mine’s mother’s passing. And then, before that, it was my mother’s passing, in a Baptist church.”

While his parents weren’t artists per se, Abraham said the arts were encouraged at home, and that his parents “were really creative people because they worked in education and they had to come up with inventive ways to really push education forward in the public school system.”

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Abraham’s education in dance started relatively late in life.

“I started studying dance the summer I turned 17, when I took a boys jazz class,” he said. “The catalyst for this was seeing the Joffrey Ballet performing in Pittsburgh to Prince’s music, which was the first dance performance I ever saw. I also had some good friends that were in musical theatre that I went to raves with, and they suggested that I audition for our high school musical.”

Though he has made a career of dance, before Abraham started on that route, he studied music. And, when he took a break from dancing for a few years, it was to music he returned.

“For so much of my life, music has been my first passion,” he said. “When I was a senior in college, I thought about moving to England to study studio composition, to make electronic music, but, during that same year, I started taking company classes with Bill T. Jones. I was later offered an apprenticeship, which led to joining the company very briefly after college.

“That experience was very telling for me, because it helped me realize that even though I really loved that company and wanted to be around them, I preferred being a part of the creative space around the dancers rather than being a dancer myself within the company. I had a very hard time with making mistakes with an artist’s work that I respected so much. I felt like I was ruining the possibilities for people to be inspired by messing up, which is such a heavy burden to bear that I needed to find a healthier way into dance.

“When I quit dancing,” he said, “I started working in record stores; I would meet up with friends and I would maybe sing over some records for friends while playing around in the studio making songs. I also worked at the Andy Warhol Museum as an artist educator. During that time, I thought about different facets of my artistic interests growing up; for example, bringing in music at times, bringing in movement and finding ways we could connect those art forms to Warhol’s work. That’s primarily what I was doing with that time off.

“My way back into dance started when I was dating a visual artist. At the time, we both wanted to move to England so we thought that the best way for us to do that would be for both of us to get into school in England. I also applied to NYU [New York University], just as a backup plan in case I didn’t go to Europe – maybe I would go to NYU and see what New York was like again. We both ended up going to school in London, where I attended the [Trinity] Laban School. I went to Laban for maybe a couple months, but I was frustrated by the lack of opportunities I had to really dance: to make dance, take classes, etc. So, I left school and spent the rest of my time there focusing on trying new things (i.e. singing). I eventually moved to New York to go to NYU to figure out what my relationship to dance could be.”

Abraham received his bachelor in fine arts from the State University of New York at Purchase (2000) and his master’s from NYU (2006). He is a multiple award-winner, for both his choreography and performance. He has performed with many notable companies, and his works have been performed not only by his company, Abraham.In.Motion, which he founded in 2006, but others, as well, throughout the United States and abroad.

About one of the pieces set to have its West Coast première next weekend, Rachael Carnes of eugeneweekly.com wrote, “… The Quiet Dance, a quintet set to Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Some Other Time,’ this work built organically around simple gestures, from the swivel of knees and elbows side to side, to the slow descent of a head, alone, or against another. Abraham played with connection here, relating dancers to self and other, finding moments of counterpoint, without being heavy-handed or glossy. His organic style delved into lovely canonical structures without feeling artificial or contrived, as he boldly carved the stage space into two separate fields of vision.”

About The Gettin’, she wrote, “set to Robert Glasper’s interpretation of Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, Abraham plows even more deeply into the roots of racism, exploring the similarities between apartheid South Africa and the U.S.

“Jazzy and lyrical, yet pointed and gripping, this piece sings from a deep, guttural place.”

Abraham.In.Motion performs March 11 and 13, 8 p.m., and March 12, 7 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. For tickets ($29.47-$36.46) and the full Chutzpah! schedule, call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Life stories told in dance

Allen and Karen Kaeja perform their latest lifeDUETS series March 9-11, as part of the Vancouver International Dance Festival. (photo by Zhenya Cerneacov)

As a dancer, how do you tell the story of a couple’s life together that has deep roots but is continually evolving? The Kaejas decided to commission two different pieces from two different choreographers. The result is the latest in their lifeDUETS series, which comprises a structured piece that is more or less consistent in every performance, and another that constantly changes.

Allen and Karen Kaeja established Kaeja d’Dance in 1991. The Toronto-based couple commissioned three duets about 20 years ago, and the newest two were commissioned in 2015 for their 25th anniversary. It is this anniversary pair – one by Tedd Robinson, the other by Benjamin Kamino – that the Kaejas will share at Roundhouse Performance Centre March 9-11, as part of the Vancouver International Dance Festival, which runs March 1-25 at various local venues.

“We’ve always performed together, but improvised, and I suggested this idea of commissioning choreographers,” said Karen in an interview with the Independent over speakerphone.

“We commissioned Claudia Moore … Peter Bingham from out west, and then we did our own lifeDUET, and commissioned Marie-Josée Chartier. Those years of commissioning ended in 2001,” said Allen.

Variations of that program toured throughout Canada, the United States and many other parts of the world. “And then,” said Karen, “for our 25th anniversary, that’s where I thought we should really reinstitute the lifeDUETS and commission more people. At that time, Allen was performing less, so it took a little bit of nudging and, together, we decided on bringing someone into the fold who was highly experienced and created pieces on so many Canadians, which is Tedd, and then someone who was up-and-coming who was in the realm of experimentation.”

“And that was Benjamin Kamino,” said Allen. “And so, two opposites of the spectrum.”

The two pieces were collaborative works. “We created together with both of them, so both choreographers say in their program notes, created with and performed by us,” explained Allen. “They were both created for our 25th anniversary, as Karen was saying, and Tedd’s is called 25 to 1. He talked to a very dear friend of his, Peter Boneham, about, what am I going to do with these two guys?” The semi-joking response, said Allen, was to put the couple in a tent having sex (though less delicately phrased).

“But then, of course, the whole thing began to evolve, and became this really gorgeous duet. And what was beautiful about that was that neither of them knew that Karen and I, in our dating years, would do wilderness camping up in Algonquin, in Temagami; we’d go out for 10 days to two weeks at a time. We loved wilderness camping, so it really resonated at home with us, but they didn’t have any idea.”

As for the idea that sparked Kamino’s piece, Karen said, “I think his vision came from the concept of ‘becoming’ each other, and that was the initial seed. Because we have this history of all these years, instead of having us do what people know us to do, which is a lot of partnering and so on, he would create a work where we almost never touched each other, where we would become each other to different degrees to a scored creation, because we knew each other so well.”

Karen said that every work created for her takes her off guard – “because it takes me on a tangent that I would not go myself” – and these two were no different. “Ben’s is really quite raw and exposed,” she said, “and that was a very beautiful inter-relational process, of becoming each other – and having him witness, as a choreographer. That process, for me, was like a mindful trio, very different than me and Allen being in the studio creating a work.”

Robinson and Kamino were creating works on a significant and special relationship, she said, and she and Allen “in a way, had to open our door and let them in.”

“Karen and I met in 1981 and started dueting 36 years ago, but started dating 32 years ago … so, our physical connection has a longevity that most people don’t know together,” said Allen, referring to its dance aspect. “As Karen was saying, a lot of our dueting is improvised, so we’re continuously surprising each other, we’re continuously living in this state of unpredictability, and yet a depth of knowledge about [each other].”

“Or catching each other’s predictabilities and challenging those,” interjected Karen.

“That, as well,” admitted Allen. “That being said, Tedd’s piece is tightly, tightly, tightly choreographed, to almost every beat in the music. There is very little room for variation. Whereas, in Ben’s piece, there’s only one moment that’s set and even that is an improvisation, so it really captures our life and our existence together.”

After a brief discussion about how many moments are indeed set – which wasn’t definitely resolved – Allen said, “The emotionality of the work, especially with becoming each other, with Ben’s piece, it’s a very different type of piece because we are continuously asking ourselves questions. For example, I was there when Karen’s father passed away, and so I would ask a question, what would my last dance be for my father’s final minutes, things like that. It’s got an emotional resonance that nobody would know but her. For me, it’s not only a vulnerable place and a personal place, but it puts me into her being, her essence. I’ll never know how Karen is truly feeling … but it allows me a window into her soul, to be my perception of where she is at.”

The Kamino piece is different every night, said Karen, “because we work with imagery that comes to us; it’s not set imagery.”

While not religious, Allen described he and Karen as “Jewish to the core.”

“Some of our works have touched upon that aspect of our lives,” he said. “But, as creative artists, I would say the connection to being Jewish, in a sense, is that connection of always questioning, of not being satisfied with an answer.”

“But I would say that that is universal,” said Karen. “I don’t think that’s particularly Jewish, but that’s what’s led us, our heritage.”

Allen’s father was a survivor, and Allen has done series of works on his father’s life during the Holocaust, including two trilogies of films, he said, some of which are housed at Yad Vashem, in its permanent collection, as well as in the permanent collections of New York’s Jewish Museum, and Museum of Modern Art.

Karen said her parents never approved of her becoming a dancer, and certainly not her marrying one. “Acceptance came later,” she said, “after the commitment to our career went forward and they saw what fruits were coming. It’s a long road, establishing oneself as a dance artist…. But, here we are, 27 years into the company.”

For tickets to lifeDUETS and the full festival lineup, visit vidf.ca/tickets or call 604-662-4966.

Chutzpah! tix now on sale

David Broza, left, and Ali Paris will perform in concert. (photo from Chutzpah! Festival)

Tickets are now on sale for the 17th annual Chutzpah! Lisa Nemetz International Jewish Performing Arts Festival, which will run from Feb. 16 to March 13, at venues including Rothstein Theatre, York Theatre, Scotiabank Dance Centre and the Biltmore Cabaret.

“We are all excited for another year of presenting an electrifying array of internationally acclaimed dancers, musicians, comedians and theatrical artists to our audiences in Canadian, Western Canadian and world premières. We’re headed for an energizing and thrilling journey from stand-up comedy to theatrical drama to rich global music to explosive and elegant dance!” said Mary-Louise Albert, Chutzpah!’s artistic and managing director.

photo - Italy’s Spellbound Contemporary Ballet returns to Vancouver, bringing with them Carmina Burana — Italy’s Spellbound Contemporary Ballet returns to Vancouver, bringing with them Carmina Burana. *(photo by Mariano Bevilacqua)*

As it does every year, the 2017 Chutzpah! Festival dance series presents some of the most sought-after contemporary choreographers in the world. This year’s performances include the return of Italy’s Spellbound Contemporary Ballet with their full-length Carmina Burana; Israel’s Yossi Berg and Oded Graf Dance Theatre with their acclaimed 4Men, Alice, Bach and the Deer; and Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion (United States) brings a mixed repertoire of some of Kyle Abraham’s most popular works in their Western Canadian première. Vancouver’s Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art première their completed and full-length version of Telemetry, while local choreographer and performer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg and Italy’s award-winning Silvia Gribaudi navigate the role of comedy as a catalyst to questions of gender, culture and language and understanding – this is world première presented with the Dance Centre. As well, in Chutzpah! Plus (May 13-14), there is Birds Sing a Pretty Song (Canada/United States/Israel/Argentina), an exploration through dance, film, interactive media and live music created by Rebecca Margolick and Maxx Berkowitz during a yearlong fellowship in New York City with LABA: A Laboratory for New Jewish Culture.

Among the Chutzpah! Festival 2017 musical highlights is Grammy-winners the Klezmatics 30th Anniversary Tour (United States). In concert together will be David Broza, whose music reflects the three different countries in which he was raised (Israel, Spain and England), and Ali Paris, who fuses Middle Eastern and Western music styles, and plays the qanun, a rare 76-string zither that dates back to the 14th century. Also in concert together will be Shalom Hanoch – touted as “the King of Israeli Rock” and compared to musicians such as Neil Young and Mick Jagger – who will be joined on stage by his longtime music producer, partner and keyboard player Moshe Levi.

Now based out of Chicago, Marbin, founded by Israeli guitarist Dani Rabin and Israeli saxophonist Danny Markovitch, is a progressive jazz-rock band, and MNGWA [ming-wah] opens their performance, mixing elements of psychedelic rock, dub, African rhythms, and vocals in four languages. Israeli singer Maya Avraham, who is known by Chutzpah! audiences from her performances with the Idan Raichel Project, comes to Vancouver with her band of Israeli and American musicians, and Lyla Canté (United States/Israel/Japan/Argentina) also joins the festival – exploring the intersection of Sephardi, flamenco and Ashkenazi music. For Chutzpah! Plus (April 2), composer Landon Braverman and Friends put on an evening of musical theatre – while currently based in New York, Braverman is originally from Vancouver.

With respect to theatre, one of this year’s Chutzpah! highlights is Wrestling Jerusalem, created and performed by Aaron Davidman. Set in America, Israel and Palestine, the play follows one man’s journey to help understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Davidman’s solo performance is a personal story that grapples with the complexities of identity, history and social justice.

Another theatre draw is Folk Lordz, high-speed and multicultural improv featuring two members of Edmonton-based Rapid Fire Theatre, which was co-created by Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodetsky and brings together the unlikely combination of Cree storytelling, Chekhovian character drama and spontaneous comedy.

Comedy highlights include Mark Schiff (United States), who has headlined major casinos and clubs and has appeared many times on both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman. He has had HBO and Showtime specials, was a featured act at the Montreal Comedy Festival and regularly opens for Jerry Seinfeld.

Also on the comedy front, there is a double bill: Ali Hassan and Judy Gold. Canada’s Hassan appears in his one-man show Muslim Interrupted; Hassan is a stand-up comedian, actor, chef and radio and television celebrity, and is the host of Laugh Out Loud on CBC Radio and SIRIUSXM. Gold’s (United States) most recent TV appearances include guest-starring roles on Louie, Broad City, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Inside Amy Schumer, and she has a recurring role on the upcoming series on TBS Search Party. Gold has had stand-up specials on HBO (Cable Ace Award), Comedy Central and LOGO and was twice nominated for the American Comedy Award for funniest female comedian.

After the success of Chutzpah’s first literary event in 2016, this year’s Chutzpah! features author Christopher Noxon in Hollywood Stories, a special pre-festival event. Noxon is an author, journalist and illustrator and his humorous and unflinching Plus One is a novel about an interfaith family set in contemporary Los Angeles. Noxon is married to television writer and producer Jenji Kohan, creator of Orange is the New Black. This event is presented with the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival and will take place on Feb. 5.

Single tickets for Chutzpah! range from $23 to $50 and are on sale now from chutzpahfestival.com, the festival box office, 604-257-5145, or Tickets Tonight, 604-684-2787. Chutzi Packs are also available – see four different shows for $94 – and new this year is a special five-show dance pack for $115.

Tickets will be available in-person starting Jan. 30 at the on-site festival box office at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. For hours and other information, visit chutzpahfestival.com.