Dance Highlights of 2008 – Long Works

1. Suites cruelles, Hélène Blackburn
Suites cruelles deserves to be at the top of this list if only because it caused in me a reaction that I had never before experienced in the face of a work of art: it filled me with such anxiety that my hands and feet were freezing. Still today we remember the dancer who attempted to perform her solo after having covered her body and the floor beneath it in oil. She would inevitably fall to the ground and then get back up to continue, the tension reaching unprecedented heights each time. Blackburn had the confidence to give her audience an unapologetically adult work, trusting that they could endure pain and, just maybe, find some pleasure on the other side.

2. WARNING, Dave St-Pierre*
In many ways, St-Pierre’s collaboration with MANDALA SITÙ is his most mature work to date, not to mention his most fulfilled in terms of scenography. St-Pierre took the white picket fence myth and shoved it down our throat with a shotgun. It’s a wake-up call to all those blindly wishing to live out a fairy tale, and by utterly destroying this heterosexist fantasy, it also became a deeply feminist work.

3. Sur les glaces du Labrador, Sarah Chase
Chase had already charmed us last year when she performed her dance stories with Andrea Nann, but when she brought the concept to the seven dancers of Montréal Danse, it became that much greater. It grew into a moving web of narratives where the personal and the social merged, the profoundly human emerging out of tales of mortality.

4. GravelWorks, Frédérick Gravel & Grouped’ArtGravelArtGroup
What may be most surprising about Gravel’s show is that despite his interruptions as master of ceremony between his short pieces, they still build up to great effect. In fact, after seeing GravelWorks, I demanded hugs from all my friends to recuperate from the emotions that it had instilled in me. It’s because despite his casual approach to presentation, Gravel’s pieces creep up on us quietly, alternating between tongue-in-cheek humour and self-inflicted violence. Could Gravel be the next rock star choreographer?

5. L’absence/la ausencia, Hinda Essadiqi & Aladino Rivera Blanca (INsiDE The BoDY)
So often itinerary-based dance works are disappointing; the same parameters that constrict the stage are usually reinstated, rendering the entire exercise trivial. But Essadiqi & Blanca made great use of the MAI gallery, gently guiding the audience through the space with a deftly planned lighting design. More importantly, L’absence offered a refreshing view of sexism as a form of instant karma that, poisoning relationships between men and women, is just as toxic for both sexes. Also, it can claim to have one of the most powerful endings of any durational artwork this year.

*NOTE: As was to be expected, the first run of Dave St-Pierre’s WARNING sold out, so there is a series of added shows this week from January 7 to 9 at Théâtre La Chapelle. Do not miss it. For more information, call 514.843.7738 or visit www.lachapelle.org.