As is now custom, Tangente began its new season last week with its Extracurricular Dances program. Seven recent graduates from Montreal’s top three dance schools were called forth this year, promising a jam-packed and diversified evening. As to be expected, such diversity also necessarily leads to varying degrees of quality, but for the most part the class of 2007 is positively refreshing.
One work that raises its head above the rest – due to its most innovative choreography – is Dany Desjardins’s Shitoi & Dordur. The beginning of this work is overpowered by abruptness: from the bright lighting to the sudden eruption of a dancer onstage, passing by the spastic movement. We are then left with two performers, their face hidden by their own hair, maintained in place by a furry hood.
These creatures notice one another and crawl across the stage to meet, an encounter that reveals to be humorous. Their corporality is animalistic and their contact is hindered by blindness, their sense of touch being used instead to guide them towards one another. There is a palpable desire for connection between the creatures, but their interaction is delightfully awkward, due in no small part to their paw-like fists.
Similarly,
Poetry Spotlight: Jessica Wood
Prayer to Saint Anthony my dad sent a package to me that I never received. maybe it got…
