Working in an intimate and truly collaborative partnership with her dancers, Bausch created works that speak to her fascination with primitive human experiences. Café Müller and The Rite of Spring are two of her most important, and NAC Dance is thrilled to offer audiences a rare chance to discover these landmark creations in an exclusive evening of superb artistry.
What makes a man, a man? That is the question Finnish dance prodigy Tero Saarinen investigates in a muscular new work with seven male dancers. A reflective, unfettered enquiry into the essence of maleness, Morphed embraces the kinetic volatility of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s music as a soundscape for movement that is raw, multi-layered and expressive, seeming to rise from primal wellsprings.
In How is Now, Berlin-based Canadian Laurie Young collaborates with drummer and sound designer Johannes Malfatti in an observation about time. The space is set with a drum kit, a dancer and a light. Here, Young turns her methodical eye to the ways in which time frames the way we move, thwarts our expectations, and re-imagines the meaning of gesture.
Daina Ashbee's unflinching use of the nude or nearly nude body as a tool to sound the depths of the subconscious, results in movement that is disconcertingly lucid. In Unrelated, Ashbee boldly confronts issues of violence and vulnerability faced by Indigenous women in Canada, while exploring identity, destruction, and the potential for transformation.
The majesty of the royal court, eerie moonlight on a mist-shrouded lake, a mysterious swan princess, a handsome prince, an evil sorcerer, and a curse that can only be broken by the power of true love. Swan Lake is lyrical, romantic and breathtakingly beautiful.
Highly original, L-E-V’s inventive duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar team up with techno trailblazer DJ Ori Lichtik to create a raw, visceral new work inspired by slam poet Neil Hilborn’s sensational text OCD. Harking back to the 90s club scene with its pulsing, rhythmic groove and striking contrasts in light and shadow, this hypnotic, obsessive compulsive piece looks at love and the emotional black holes that lurk in its shadows.
Lee-Chen Lin’s masterful, large-scale works are visually stunning, drawing us into a realm of ethereal beauty and timeless sensuality. In this highly anticipated new work, the oceans serve as muse for a sumptuous and profoundly moving exploration of the never-ending, interdependent cycles of water and life.
John Neumeier’s dazzling ballet is theatrical and unflinching, paying reverent, astute tribute to a tortured genius. In this exhilarating production, the entire company draws on its extraordinary heart and stamina to bring to dramatic life a provocative and fascinating exploration of the artist’s complex inner journey. Nijinsky is an unforgettable, balletic tour de force of artistry, narrative and spectacle.
La Veronal’s signature dance pieces are sophisticated and slyly humorous. Siena serves as a geographical point of reference for a provocative, abstract reflection on the concept of the human body in art and time. The dancers use their bodies as malleable maps to meaning in a meticulously reproduced gallery space dominated by a giant blow up of Titian’s luxuriously sensuous Venus of Urbino.
In a sequence of physically demanding duos, couples connect in a white space that both limits and liberates them, a metaphor for the emotional paradoxes in human relationships. Modesty, passion, indifference, affection and lust are all discovered in movement that is potent, pared down, guileless, and surprisingly tender.
Music by Leonard Cohen
A Canadian literary giant, Leonard Cohen’s songs are poetic evocations of the songwriter’s unerring insights into the human experience. Inspired by his inimitable music, and using a selection of his most beloved songs, choreographers
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Andonis Foniadakis and Ihsan Rustem create a spectacular new multimedia work.
Suspended in air, a platform begins to move, slowly, then faster, spinning, tilting, pivoting, swinging. Six dancers seem to defy gravity, hanging on to the platform, leaning into the spin, climbing, falling, tripping, running with incredible agility, grace and skill. Uplifting and awe-inspiring, acrobat, actor, juggler and dancer Yoann Bourgeois’s beautiful, playful movement expresses an ongoing fascination with the idea of weightlessness, and leaves us breathless.
Celebrating the wonders and beauty of the American southwest, Opus Cactus is a gorgeously coloured, richly inventive work of dance fantasy. Graceful and athletic, the dancers dazzle us with their technique, versatility and artistry, as they morph effortlessly before our eyes into luminous, exotic, many-limbed creatures of the desert, soaring outlandish birds, and skittering insect collectives.
Atmospheric and brooding, Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s deliciously gothic Dracula lives up to the rich history of its famous source material with its smouldering eroticism, mysterious transformations, dancing gargoyles, and flying bats. Performed to the lush, evocative music of Gustav Mahler, Mark Godden’s inventive and sensual choreography breathes dramatic new life into the macabre yet irresistible tale of the immortal vampire and his dark passions.
Text, live music, and movement – these are the three elements with which Frédérick Gravel performs a kind of creative alchemy. Gravel’s vigorous, uncensored, brutally honest collaborations reflect the gutsy curiosity and quirky intelligence that push him constantly to interrogate the state of being human. Seeking beauty in the cracks between what we show and what we live, Gravel electrifies audiences with dance that is rock ‘n’ roll sexy and in the moment.
Singing the body electric! A convulsive synchronicity of bebop, swing, and contemporary dance—and featuring Canadian tap virtuoso Danny Nielsen—Telemetry tunes in to radio sciences and systems to generate a magnetically charged performance from its seemingly indefatigable, hugely versatile company of seven dancers.
