The National Arts Centre's intimate Dance Series C kicks off the new season with Australia's Lucy Guerin Inc performing Weather on November 7-8-9
Celebrated Melbourne-based dance artist Lucy Guerin – one of Australia’s most renowned choreographic talents – has created an atmospheric new dance work, an homage to the breathtaking power of the elements. Weather explores the extremities of our ever-changing climate. An immersive voyage into the elements around us, Weather pits the human form against the uncontrollable power of nature, conjuring the thrill and awe that these forces always inspire. Lucy Guerin Inc performs Weather in the Studio of the National Arts Centre on Thursday November 7, Friday November 8, and Saturday November 9 at 8 p.m.
ABOUT WEATHER
Weather is a unique, dynamic exploration of the human body’s reaction to the tides, sun, wind, and rain – powerful yet ephemeral forces that shape our lives. An emotional and physical reaction to weather is one of the few remaining connections between the human body and the natural world. This atmospheric and arresting new work is Lucy Guerin’s return to pure movement, highly visual and kinetic. Hypnotic and intense, Weather incorporates inventive design, relentlessly rhythmic music, and textural sound which echoes fragility and brutality, sensations both visceral and physical.
Lucy Guerin’s six dancers rehearsed with plastic bags, fans, a snow machine, a confetti cannon, and several hairdryers. Distilling all this work, discovery, and exploration has resulted in choreographed movement alternating with moments that feel chaotic, wild, almost improvised. Dancers spin and leap, caught in a maelstrom, their limbs responding to unseen forces. There is tension between controlling and being controlled. Bodies often move like puppets; torsos lead and limbs flail wildly in directional response. But there is also a purity in Weather, with clean lines and precise rhythms balancing the sense of randomness evoked by the weather. Guerin says, “Weather affects the way we dress, the food we eat, our dwellings … weather is like choreography; it’s really kinetic, it’s very visceral, it’s about movement and displacement of air, it is has limitless possibilities for dance.”
Australian Stage (October 19, 2012) wrote that “Weather is a stunning showcase of some extremely talented dancers who perform with a beautifully understated intensity. The beautiful shapes and synchronicity of the dancers’ bodies as they bend to inescapable forces will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.”
ABOUT LUCY GUERIN INC
Lucy Guerin Inc was established in Melbourne, Australia in 2002 to create and tour new dance works. Renowned for the skill and originality of its small group of performers, it is a flexible organisation dedicated to challenging and extending the art of contemporary dance. The company is committed to the exploration of everyday events and the redefinition of the formal concerns of dance. New productions may involve voice, video, sound, text and industrial design as well as founder Lucy Guerin’s lucid physical structures. This choreographic exploration strives for visual, emotional, and physical revelations that could not be communicated in any other art form than dance.
WEATHER (2012)
DIRECTOR Lucy Guerin
CHOREOGRAPHY Lucy Guerin with the dancers from the premiere season
SET DESIGN Robert Cousins
LIGHTING DESIGN Benjamin Cisterne
COMPOSER Oren Ambarchi
COSTUME DESIGN Shio Otani
DURATION 65 minutes, no intermission
Join us for a post-performance talkback with Lucy Guerin on Thursday, November 7
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Master class with Lucy Guerin Inc This class will allow each dancer to synthesize set choreographic material, improvisation, personal style and imagination to dance beyond familiar physical dynamics and pathways.
The class is for pre-professional-advanced level ballet/modern students and dancers (aged 14 and up). For dance teachers: observation is subject to availability. As space is limited, you MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE with Kirsten Andersen, Dance Outreach Coordinator, email: kirsten.andersen@nac-cna.ca. |
Lucy Guerin Inc performs Weather in the Studio of the National Arts Centre on Thursday November 7, Friday November 8, and Saturday November 9 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 for adults and $16.50 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card).
Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices; to reserve your seats, call 613 947-7000, ext. 634 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.
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