STEREO OERETS
PHONIC CINOHP
PHOTOS OF SEAN LING, SAHARA MORIMOTO,
BENJAMIN KAMINO & ANDREA NANN
by Joël Bénard
PEGGY BAKER DANCE PROJECTS presents 3 world premiers and two
landmark solos from Peggy Baker - through March 3
rd at the Betty
Oliphant Theatre (404 Jarvis Street). A collection of stunning costumes, original choreography by Baker, set to evocative music and text, with piano by the brilliant John Kameel Farah, creates an evening of diverse
dance that features duets, solos, and a final punctuating piece of elegant
movement and gestural form that frames the overall program with a gorgeous sense of utilitarian rhythm and form.
Encoded Revision opens the evening with Benjamin Kamino in
loose yet infrequently revealing trousers, white shirt and vest as he overhwlems the stage
with bursts of spoken text, aided by pianist John Kameels Farah's verbal
ministrations and piano virtuosity. The meta-textual nature of the piece, with
pages on stage for the dancer to respond to, to crumple and to play with, give the
overall sequence a simultaneously raucous and sombre tone as a train accident
on the Canadian prairies in 1898 is revisited in vital, exhilarating ways. As
he jumps, contorts, and raises the folds of his elegantly designed cotume by
Caroline O’Brien, revealing a lithe powerful ltorso, the choreography speaks
subtly, coporeally, and perhaps unintentionally of the physicality of tragic demise and the
locomotive power of the body in chaos - caught up within the motion
of accidental occurrence,
Andrea Nann gives a stunningly composed and sharp edged
performance in
In a Landscape with music from John Cage (In a Landscape,
1989). Nann’s subtle prowess dominates the stage and is magnificently framed by
a heavily textured costume by Jane Townsend.
Split Screen Stereophonic opens the second half of the evening with Sarah Fregeau,
Benjamin Kamino, Sean Ling, and Sarah Morimoto in duets performed seamlessly in front of beautifuil
screens executed by Larry Hahn. This premier dance sequence features a kind of
call and response tone as the two ‘couples’ divide and conquer within their
separate spheres - with evocative music selected form Nuukoono (2010 -
Knuckleduster/Debashis Sinha & Robert Lippok).
Epilogue - The highlight of the evening occurs at the end with Baker taking the stage in gorgeous slimly tailored goucho like trousers, with evocative slits, a long sleeve form-fitted top, and elegantly designed bountiful shoes that allow her tall lithe frame to relate with impeccably sharp gesturing and powerful poses. Baker skillfully relates to and artfully denies the presence of two earnest chairs that become a kind of minimal existential set for the seated figure who rarely sits, yet embraces the sense of
these spare supporting props with choreography that speaks beautifully of form following function,
yet straying form it at every beautiful extension and each breathtaking turn.
