NAC Dance moves from the centre stage to centre ice! Le Patin Libre, a Montreal-based collective of professional skaters, are breathing intoxicating new energy into contemporary skating with their urban street style and high-level artistic expression. Dance, skating, and hockey fans alike will not want to miss seeing them perform the Canadian premiere Vertical Influences, an NAC co-production, showcasing their signature mix of movement, wit, speed, and grace. Presented in association with the Minto Skating Club, there will be two evening and one matinee performance of Vertical Influences on Friday February 27 and Saturday February 28, 2015. All performances take place at the Minto Skating Centre at 2571 Lancaster Road, Ottawa.

“an ice-dance ...unlike any other… it was not about traditional figure-skating spins and jumps … it was about pushing skating choreography into emotional realms far deeper than anything at the Olympic Winter Games or ‘Disney on Ice’ … abundant visual wit, irony and sophisticated humour”                                                                                Victor Swoboda, The Gazette

 

ABOUT LE PATIN LIBRE AND CONTEMPORARY SKATING
Le Patin Libre is a five-strong collective of prize-winning performers (four men and one woman) who specialize in the unique art of contemporary skating, creating a new kind of ice dancing, far beyond the confines of traditional figure skating. There are no sparkles, no stereotypes, and no fuzzy animal costumes. Founded on the frozen ponds and canals of Montreal, skaters Alexandre Hamel, Pascale Jodoin, Samory Ba, Taylor Dilley, and Jasmin Boivin formed Le Patin Libre in 2005 and quit the world of figure skating for which they had trained for many years.

They first began appearing at outdoor winter carnivals, and within a short time, they had appeared at Quebec’s biggest winter events, inaugurated a new Olympic site at the 2010 Olympic Games, toured the U.K., France and Switzerland, and self-produced many events.

They now use their skating skills as an artistic vocabulary, exactly as dancers use their dancing skills. Le Patin Libre is proud to initiate many of its spectators to the joys of contemporary performance art with a cool attitude and the virtuosity of world-class skaters.

 

ABOUT VERTICAL INFLUENCES

VERTICAL INFLUENCES (2014)
BY Le Patin Libre

music Jasmin Boivin

DRAMATURG Ruth Little

Lighting Design Lucy Carter

Associate Lighting Design Nia Wood

Costume Design Jenn Pocobene

DURATION 1 hour 15 minutes including one intermission

 

This double bill program begins with Influences, where the performers play with how our body language can influence others, even with just a casual glance. Here the dancers move together as an urban tribe accompanied by electronic beats. Influences is a choreographic reflexion of the survival of the individual within the group.

In the second piece, Vertical, audiences are invited to view the performance up close, with seating placed on the ice itself, inches away from fast-gliding artists. They sweep towards the audience in a flourish of danger and speed. They divide and reform in choreography of exhilarating inventiveness.

Vertical Influences is a co-production of NAC Dance, Dance Umbrella (London, UK) and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris). As the company’s newest full-length work, it received its world premiere in London in October 2014. Writing in London’s The Guardian (October 30, 2014), dance critic Judith Mackrell said, “But the wonderfully fresh and inventive Canadian group Le Patin Libre are worth the wait: a quintet of bearded, dreadlocked, baggy-jeaned dancers who spark with movement ideas that I’ve never seen on ice before, let alone on stage. The group are former championship skaters and at moments they remind us of the fact, pulling off dizzying spins and spiralling arabesques with a fine insouciance. But much of Vertical Influences plays with choreography and imagery that rinses viewers of all conventional expectations. All five are joyously engaging performers, communicating a pure body rush of liberation and space. Vertical Influences is one of those rare shows I could willingly have sat through all over again.”

TICKETS AND PERFORMANCES

Le Patin Libre performs Vertical Influences at the Minto Skating Centre (2571 Lancaster Road, Ottawa) on Friday February 27 at 7:30 p.m. and on Saturday February 28 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for children and students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card).

Tickets are available for purchase:

In person at the NAC Box Office
At all Ticketmaster outlets
By telephone from Ticketmaster, 1-888-991-2787 (ARTS)
Online through the Ticketmaster link on the NAC’s website (http://www.nac-cna.ca)
A service charge applies on all purchases made through Ticketmaster

At the Minto Skating Centre one hour prior to performance times, if tickets remain available.