Toronto has one of the world’s most vibrant modern dance scenes. You wouldn’t know it, however, looking through the city’s publications; the shows put on by the community have such short runs that they are rarely reviewed. Toronto Standard hopes to change that. Here, with her debut piece, our new dance columnist Victoria Mohr-Blakeney hopes to reveal Toronto’s forgotten dance community.
Toronto is a city of summer festivals. Every weekend, June to September, something is happening. Few, however, know about the winter TwobyFour Dancemakers’ Festival of Duets. Featuring choreographers from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Berlin the festival runs from January 17th-28th and is currently in its final week. The final show is the internationally renowned duet, Repeater, by German choreographer, Martin Nachbar.
The duet, a basic element of dance, is a choreographic building block–so why create a whole festival of duets? What Dancemakers seems to be suggesting with this biennial festival is that the duet represents the ultimate in human conversations–a relationship revealed through movement.
So how does Nachbar tackle this? In Repeater, he takes the classic father-son relationship (a staple for film-makers, think of this year’s Beginners) and experiments with it, taking to the stage with his 73 year old father, Klaus.
Those who think of modern dance as young, trim bodies leaping and twisting across the stage will be disappointed with this show, but others, who see dance as a form of communication through the vehicle of the human body, will leave deeply satisfied.
With no text or traditional narrative, and only a sparse use of music and sound, Nachbar relies on a minimalistic movement vocabulary made up of gesture and mimicking.
The show opens with the Nachbar and his father carefully laying out a series of Persian rugs, arranging and re-arranging them, showing us how heavily the father-son relationship hinges on problem solving together.
Sometimes poking at each others’ bellies, or sitting in a chair watching the other perform a sequence of movements, Klaus and Nachbar go through the agonizing and humorous task of watching each other age. The rugs form the tapestry of their relationship. Constantly being re-arranged, they are a reflection of the ever-shifting dynamics between father and son.
At 73, with no previous dance training, Klaus gives a focused and compelling performance, impressing the audience with his spry bends and slow twists. At certain points, the two men seem to grow distant, and wander in and out of each others worlds, their gesture-like movements becoming so abstract they are difficult to follow.
Dancemakers is a Toronto dance institution, founded in 1974. The company moved to their new home in the Distillery District in 2003, where they have continued to push the boundaries of contemporary dance. With their unique location, charming candle-lit lounge and intimate 94 seat performance space, it is the perfect venue for dance, especially a show such as this: letting you capture every facial expression, hesitation, furrowed brow and exhale.
Nachbar told me that when he received his first grant to create the piece his father, at first, refused payment emphatically. But Nachbar insisted, saying that if he was going to be telling his father what to do, he’d better be paying him for it. Klaus finally conceded, though only partially, keeping the money in a separate account intended for the family.
Repeater
Jan.26-28 8:00pm
Tickets: $25 ($20 CADA, Senior/Student, Arts Workers)
TwobyFour A Festival of Duets
Dancemakers Centre for Creation
Bldg 58, Studio 313
55 Mill St. Distillery District
For tickets call: 416-367-1800 or visit: www.dancemakers.org
