Members of the company in Pond Skaters.
I'm apprehensive of the creator's notes that often accompany dance pieces. In stating one's intentions, an artist sets herself up for a perfunctory assessment of whether or not those intentions are achieved.
The creator's notes for Christopher House's new work, Martingales (part of the TDT's Triple Bill at Harbourfront's NextSteps series), are ambitious. House writes of being inspired by probability theory, game structures, aspects of particle theory such as Brownian motion, and Paul Klee's line theory. According to the program, the work's goal is to "generate kinaesthetic interest in the spectator through the performers' split-second decision-making, sense of play, accidental virtuosity and success and failure within systems." But, hey audience, no pressure.
I can't speak as to whether or not my interest was "kinaesthetic," but I was gripped by this gorgeous, atmospheric new work from start to end. Using all 12 members of his youthful company, House has created what feels like a gritty and unpredictable community experiment. With Thom Gill's moody electronic music (which Gill plays on a laptop from a metal desk on stage) and a huge black brick wall interrupted by a high, curving string of amber lamps, we get the sense that we've stumbled upon a late-night gathering in a dark alley.
The dancers begin by tossing a ball as they move across the stage in shifting configurations. They look elegant but tough – both men and women are dressed in androgynous white skirts and leather booties (designed by Bojana Stancic) – staking out territory like an ethereal street gang. The bass intensifies, and the dancers break off into moving pairs, holding their partners with a waltz-like formality, the tension visible in their arms. They stare into their partners' eyes, completely present, articulating something between a challenge and a pact. Soon, they separate into a repeating pattern of isolated spins, before the bass becomes a roar and they are sprinting backward, escaping an uncertain threat.
One of the things that was so compelling about this piece was the dancers' beautiful alertness in a setting that felt both realistic and extreme. Contrary to what I expected from the very conceptual program notes, the work was alive, unconstructed and interpersonal. Though the movement itself is quite simple (there's more running than dancing at this stage of its development – the piece will be completed in 2016), we are sucked into a captivating, moving picture created by an almost cinematic synthesis of light, sound and motion.
I was less excited by the two remounts that followed Martingales. House's 1992 Early Departures is about the particular toll the HIV epidemic took on Toronto's arts community. Featuring four men in ties and collared shirts, and set to a cluttered orchestral score (John Rea's Kubla Khan: Dirge Refrains), the piece felt oddly unemotional despite its harrowing subject. House juxtaposes symbolic, figurative and literal movement in a way that doesn't quite make sense. In one moment, the men are miming playing instruments; in the next, one man is stabbing another with his hand. The work felt particularly dated with the repetition of a snaking arm-gesture that was popular in choreography 20-odd years ago (the hand covers the face to swing behind the neck and over the head), and by the tidy circularity of the composition – ending in the configuration in which it began.
Pond Skaters, by Brussels-based Swiss choreographer Thomas Hauert, had compelling moments but was generally uneven. Set to the sound of frogs, crickets and other related squawking, the piece felt beset by a clumsy and unspecified absurdity. The five dancers, (all dressed in tight, optic print pyjamas) sometimes seemed to perform the jerky isolated movements of insects or birds; other times, they just looked a little drunk. Nothing about the choreography's aesthetic felt productive or consistent until near the ending, when Pulga Muchochoma broke out into an impassioned, comedic solo that involved frenetic kicks and deep squatting pliés. The choreography's intentional ungainliness became earnest and delightfully strange.
Martingales is a stirring fusion of motion, space and sound; TDT's Triple Bill is worth seeing for it alone.
Toronto Dance Theatre's Triple Bill continues through Nov. 8.
Martha Schabas