Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal,
Toot, chor. Didy Veldman; Noces, chor. Stijn Celis
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Friday, October 6, 2006, 7:30pm

I was charmed by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal on Friday night, when they performed a short mixed bill at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It's a great company of very accomplished dancers, performing fairly interesting contemporary choreography. The program opened Dance at the Music Center's 06-07 season, its fourth full season of dance presentations. It was a bit disappointing to see how sparsely populated the house was, but considering that this was modern/contemporary dance in the ginormous 3000 seat space of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, perhas it shouldn't have been surprising. Still though, this was a wonderful company that could have perhaps benefited from playing a smaller venue.

"Toot," choreographed by Didy Veldman, was wild, random and funny. Set to Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2, plus extra interpolated string quartet music, the piece begins against a black drop - dancers come out in a line facing the audience taking angular poses, dressed as demented clowns. When the actual dancing begins it's very athletic, sometimes verging on the melodramatic. Props come on and off the stage, and set pieces get folded into the dances as the dancers encounter them. In one particularly funny moment, a dancer collapses on the floor in sadness - another comes on with a bullhorn and blasts "What's wrong?"

"Noces," choreographged by Stijn Celis, is based on Najinska's 'Les Noces' and uses the same Stravinsky score. This was a far less interesting piece than "Toot," perhaps because it went the serious route when Toot when the fun route. Because of my familiarity with Najinska's ballet, I could tell that this piece used the same structure and was essentially telling the same story. But if you didn't know that, you wouldn't be able to tell anything that was going on. It'd just be a bunch of wacky modern steps to an even more strange, dissonant piece of music. Either way, there wasn't anything interesting enough going on to make a real point: no new story was revealed in this version of 'Noces,' and no interesting enough movement ideas came out of the choreography. The onstage orchestra and choir were great though (even though some of the vocals were amped).

Still though I enjoyed watching the company. I'd say the whole thing seemed typically French Canadian, with the kooky costumes and white face painting (looked like Cirque du Soleil which is also French Canadian). Visiting the company's home web site, I see that they also do contemporary ballet with pointe shoes, which we did not get to see here. Christopher Wheeldon's "Polyphonia" is on their home page - great ballet - so if they're getting the support of major contemporary choreographers they must be on the right track. I certainly enjoyed myself thoroughly.