Review: Tournée Montréal/Séoul/Tokyo

Yunjung Kim's Meeting You, photo by Kenki Iida

No fewer than three countries are represented this week at Tangente: Korea, Japan, and Canada. It is Mélanie Demers who takes the stage for the latter with a truncated version of Les Angles Morts. I have already established myself as a Demers groupie many times before and you can find my review of the long version of this work by clicking her name at the bottom of this page. With this in mind, let’s focus on the two pieces that come to us all the way from Asia.

The first, Yunjung Kim’s Meeting you, does a fantastic job representing Korea. On the stage lies a white igloo-like tent. The public witnesses a long pink ribbon traveling across the stage to the sound of music, only to realize that it is the quickly unraveling dress of the choreographer/dancer, who is forced to pivot to let the thread loose. A piece of pink ribbon becomes the frame for a magical door through which our Alice steps into another world.

And what a world it is. Inspired by books for children, Yunjung Kim is just as playfully inventive as the best authors. In fact, her work looks like the concrete extension of an unbridled imagination into the physical world. Rationality is cast aside to allow the two dancers to explore their every whim without any inhibitions and, as a result, Meeting you is full of delightfully inspired choreographic moments. It is 30 minutes of pure pleasure.

Follows Ayako Hamaguchi’s muteki [invincible], from Japan. It also uses a door in some key moments, though this one is more concrete. The scenography is limited to the bare essentials. A helmet is all the three dancers are given to protect themselves from the violence of the world. And they definitely need it.

Almost everything is abrupt in muteki, from the transitions to the rough movement, which is sometimes downright violent. Even the entrances and exits appear as (and this is not a criticism) gratuitous acts of aggression. The dancers lift themselves off the floor only to throw themselves back down again. Sometimes the gentlest blow can cause humans the greatest violence. muteki does lose a bit of momentum near the end, but luckily it finds its footing again in the final moments, when it matters.

With Demers closing the evening, Tournée Montréal/Séoul/Tokyo is an undeniably strong program. It’s just about the maximum quality you can find for a minimum amount of money. In other words, it’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Tournée Montréal/Séoul/Tokyo continues until Sunday, October 12. Tickets are 17$, 13$ for students. For more information, call 514.525.1500 or visit www.tangente.qc.ca

A LOOK BACK Last week, Tangente closed its annual Extracurricular Dances with its second week of offerings. Out of this year’s crop, we especially remember Dany Desjardins’s All Villains have a broken heart. Once again, Desjardins has crafted creatures with strange bodies, sometimes synchronized swimmers, at other times more akin to insects. Desjardins may get inspiration from the horror movies of Eli Roth, but he makes every image truly his own. All Villains packs so much punch that it’s hard to understand why it ends on one of its tamest moments, but it’s a minor slip in an otherwise unforgettable work.

PREVIEW A “heads up” for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Myth, the season opener for Danse Danse, since it only plays for two nights at Place des arts, October 10 and 11. The monumental work (it lasts 110 minutes and includes 14 actor-dancers and 7 musicians) strives to be a rite of passage, a race against the shadows. Tickets start at 24$ and can be purchased by calling 514.842.2112. For more information, visit www.dansedanse.net