Oh, Canada!

Canada Dance Festival National Arts Centre and various venues Ottawa, Canada June 7-15, 2002

Canadian dance, it turns out, differs radically from the dance being made in New York, where I live now. Beyond the high-end production values--there is money for culture in Canada--I noticed the detail of gesture, as if entire cosmologies lived in a pointed finger or a signed word. Then there was the elusive source of techniques on view: modern, yes, but very little of the Graham, Cunningham, or release moves that can define the New York scene. I saw a multiplicity of languages, spoken and danced. From Montreal's Lucie Gregoire, whose Disappearances portrayed angst-ridden encounters with real-life pedestrians on a walkway under the Rideau Canal, to Ottawa-based Yvonne Coutts, who gave us hand games and grocery lists beneath a downtown bridge in Perfect Nowhere, the movement on view was free ranging in style and precisely rendered.

I caught six shows on a four-day visit; the highlight was Compagnie Marie Chouinard's solos, Etude #1 and Des Feux dans la nuit. Galactic in scale, concept, and impact, these solos compressed more information into a single space and body than most choreographers do in full-length evenings set on entire companies. In Etude #1, under full house lights, the extraordinary Lucie Mongrain--assisted by Elijah Brown--arrived onstage, only to reset the proscenium. The back curtain lifted, the wings came up one by one. Finally, Brown placed Mongrain on a square, miked floor in the center of the stage, and the dance began: a citational riff on tap and the tricky exchange between performer and crowd. Rattled by shrieks and silence, alternately drawn in or shut down by Louis Dufort's scratching soundscape or Mongrain's private asides and torquing body, the audience took a test on the limits of beauty and illusion in dance. How are these terms defined? And who, in the end, is performing for whom?

The answer lay in the movement alone. We saw a melding of the choreographer's signature undulating, elastic body, where movement begins internally with a kind of vaudeville-in-outer-space tap-dance presentation, broken by moments of marking the dance, starting over, or otherwise announcing that this is theater.

Almost sixty minutes long, performed with riveting focus, Des feux featured a minimalist score for piano played live by Rober Racine and cycles of repeated, elegant movement by Brown that isolated the musculature of the shoulders, arms, and torso. Lighting by Axel Morgenthaler (the Jennifer Tipton of Canada, armed with more attitude and intellabeams) rendered the bare stage dense and mystical. When Brown finally broke stride, whether to rock across the stage in an unexpected worm borrowed from break-dance or to strap on in-line skates for a final silent glide as the lights faded, it was as if this starman had returned to earth--and the effect was of exquisite surprise.

Montreal house mama Martha Carter was back, this time working the hip-hop vernacular with the group marta marta HoP. At times on small platforms, at times on the floor, six dancers teased their way--part bump-and-grind, part break vocabulary--through a mostly standing, stationary crowd as a DJ played music by Sonic Youth and video screens flashed graffiti. The kids in the small club-style theatre lapped it up, but I was alienated by a wack folklore vibe--when does club dance lose its authentic edge and start to feel more like a museum display? Without the spectacular virtuosity or performance bravado I associate with the vernacular, and before a watching audience as opposed to a dancing crowd, the intended sexy fun of the piece fell flat. Though excellent to see girl hip-hoppers--five of the six performers were women--the risky business of fusing concert dance with club culture came off as "kidz" on display, sex for sale.

That said, four days was not enough. I missed a rare new work from the brilliant and underseen Daniel Leveille of Quebec, as well as new material from Crystal Pite, formerly of Ballet Frankfurt. Since its inception in 1987 and under the care of longtime producer Cathy Levy, this festival is beloved as the national party for dance insiders and everyday fans. More high-risk think tank than sales showcase, this year's model--under the new direction of Edmonton's Brian Webb--kept it real with nine new commissions, twenty world premieres, and a focus on dance literacy.