Ballet BC’s dancers will be lifted to new heights this week, when the acclaimed contemporary dance company teams up with the Chor Leoni men’s choir for the first time. Only instead of lifting with their hands, the all-male choir will be powering the dancers with their voices, singing the words of Leonard Cohen on stage in a reprise of the Vancouver vocal ensemble’s stunning 2015 world premiere, “Wandering Heart”, by Latvian composer Eriks Ešenvalds.
“The bulk of the piece that we’ll be singing and they’ll be dancing to is this Eriks Ešenvalds piece with text by Leonard Cohen,” explains Erick Lichte, Chor Leoni’s artistic director. “It’s a real tour de force for the singers, but also connects so deeply emotionally. Its premiere in April was one of the first times I’ve turned around at the end of a performance and the audience is just in tears because they are so with you,” he recalls.
Calling Ballet BC a “jewel in Vancouver’s artistic crown”, the Portland-based Lichte says he felt compelled to reach out to its artistic director Emily Molnar last fall after watching them perform, to see if there was the possibility of collaboration sometime in the next few years.
“I just emailed Emily out of the blue, she didn’t know me at all, and said, ‘Hey do you want to go for coffee?” says Lichte. “I was thinking, oh, we would plan for two or three years out like most arts groups do, and she said, ‘Well, actually, we can do something next November!’”
Despite their annual Remembrance Day commitments, Lichte says his men jumped at the chance to work with the ballet.
“Dance is such a natural fit with singing, because essentially we are using our bodies to create the music, and the dancers are using their bodies to create the dance. There’s something very organic about that,” the energetic young conductor explains.
And opening night of Ballet BC’s 30th season, Nov. 5-7 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, marks another first, with Belgian-born choreographer Stijn Celis using Chor Leoni’s music as the starting point for his first work for Ballet BC – a rare creation made outside his own company, Saarländisches Staatstheater. His piece will be accompanied by the Canadian premiere of Solo Echo, a wintry work by Vancouver-based choreographer Crystal Pite, and the return of 2014’s critically lauded Twenty Eight Thousand Wavesby resident choreographer Cayetano Soto, making it a night of three very different works of dance.
At half an hour, the Chor Leoni collaboration is an unusually long piece for the Ballet BC dancers, but according to Lichte it gives the music a chance to see its natural sonic narrative – from darkness to light – all the way through.
“You don’t want to make anything too literal because most dance doesn’t work in that way – dance is mostly an abstraction – but if you’re going to program almost a half-hour of music, you’ve got to give yourself some kind of arc, some kind of storyline,” says Lichte. “I knew that the Ešenvalds-Cohen piece ends in this place of shimmering light and warmth, so I was kind of starting in the middle with the piece I knew I wanted to do, and it was finding two other pieces that added on in the right way.”
To do that he bookended the Cohen set, which also sees the choir playing hand chimes and tuned wine glasses to exquisite effect, with music by Carl Orff and a moody Psalm by polish composer Piotr Janczak.
“I don’t know how I discovered that piece,” says Lichte. “The beginning of it is almost very chant-like – the vocalism is very smooth but the musical intervals are very claggy and angular. And the translation is, ‘Out of the depths I cry unto thee, oh Lord’... If you’re going to have this progression from darkness to light, you better start as dark as you can!” he explains with a laugh.
Lichte says watching Celis and Ballet BC’s accomplished dancers bring his selections to life has left him with not only a new appreciate of the music, but of his medium.
“As a conductor, I certainly have my interpretation of how these pieces should go musically, and Stijn has reinterpreted that in the dance. So, to me, the truth lies somewhere in between,” says Lichte. “I think there will be something really potent about singing that right at the dancers. What they’ll be hearing from us is that unadorned acoustic phenomenon, and for me that’s where choral music always has its magic.”
• Ballet BC presents Program 1, running Nov. 5-7 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets start at $30; BalletBC.com.
Q&A with Ballet BC dancer Racheal Prince
Racheal Prince was raised in Wasaga Beach, Ontario and received her early training at the Quinte Ballet School under the direction of Brian Scott. She attended the School of Alberta Ballet’s Pre-Professional Program and received the prestigious Ali Pourfarrokh scholarship. Now in her ninth season with Ballet BC, Prince began her professional career with the Alberta Ballet Company, where she danced for four years. She has performed works by William Forsythe, Crystal Pite, Itzik Galili, and Lar Lubovitch and her performance highlights include Jorma Elo’s highly physical 1st Flash, Emily Molnar’s sparse In Between Disappearing and Becoming and William Forsythe’s avant-garde Herman Shmerman.
We caught up with Prince by phone on a break from rehearsals last week to find out more about Program 1 and life inside the Ballet BC studio.
What attracted you to Ballet BC?
I was dancing with Alberta Ballet and I found that my passion for dance was not what it used to be, and my career was coming to a point where I didn’t know if I should look for something else or keep dancing. Something told me I needed to go for something different, because that was my first job in Alberta, so I auditioned everywhere and I got the job with Ballet BC and it pretty much changed everything. The work, the repertoire, the people... I’ve stayed because I haven’t ever felt that something was missing or the urge to go somewhere else.
What gets you most excited for the start of each season?
I personally love the group. I love working with [artistic director] Emily Molnar in particular, but also the dancers that we’ve brought together. Having that team excites me and, of course, the choreographers and the repertoire that we have.
Do you feel that Ballet BC gets better each season?
I do, for sure. And also knowing our past, when Emily took over the company – where we were – I don’t think it feels that way; I think it does [get better]. As we become more stable and as we grow financially and artistically, we grow more and more.
As a dancer, how have you grown under Ballet BC and Emily Molnar?
I think at first, coming from a more classical company, I really struggled and I think that’s part of the reason why it pushes me and continues to push. It didn’t used to be my go-to movement and I think I’ve grown so much. It’s hard for a dancer to say that about themselves, but I can see huge steps because of the way Emily pushes us, and the rep she brings us and the opportunities we’re given. We’re all just constantly putting things in our toolbox. Every piece we do I’m gaining a new skill set that I can take to the next piece.
With Program 1, you're getting another crack at Cayetano Soto's 2014 piece, Twenty Eight Thousand Waves. What do you learn, performing a work for a second time?
It is my favourite thing to get another chance, after taking some time off, to bring a piece back. You can pick up right where you left off and move it forward. The body has an amazing ability to remember where you were, like riding a bike. When we revisit it, yes there's new people, it's a different point in my life, but I don't have to start at zero. I love that, because it feels so much better this time. More grounded, longer, wider, more sharp. It's just more clear and the nerves aren't at the forefront this time. [laughs]
Tell me about working on Solo Echo with Crystal Pite?
It's amazing. I've been fortunate enough to be in a piece of Crystal's before with Ballet BC, so I was thrilled to be cast again into one of her works. She brings humanity. All her movements have a lot of truth and there's not a lot of... affectation. It's very human, and I just love that. It's a version of myself: Racheal, not as a dancer but, in Solo Echo, it's about one person's journey and we are all that person. We all are each other.
What is the language of Stijn Celis' choreography?
I think with him everything has a very clear intention. And he speaks a lot about emotions when we're doing his work. The technical execution is not at the forefront. Instead, he'll say, 'I need more joy' or 'I need more pain' or 'I need more struggle.' That's a note from Stijn that is amazing as an interpreter. He's trying to get something out of you that's not, 'Oh, bend more or bend less.' Every choreographer will have this – of course they want the humanity. But he chooses his words so wisely.
With the Chor Leoni/Stijn Celis piece, how has it been working with the choral music? Have you had a chance to rehearse yet with the choir?
We’ve been working with just Erick [Lichte], the director, so far, and it’s been amazing. He is so positive and sharing with us how excited the choir is about getting to work with us, and we feel the same. It is just going to elevate the performance to that next level, having 50 men performing live with us.
How do you think you’ll feel when you have all those voices, all that energy coming at you?
I think it’s going to be really emotional. We have our first rehearsal on Thursday and already just hearing the music – we don’t often dance to music with words and so it’s very touching. The piece will open and there’s this beautiful solo and, for me, it’s about asking for forgiveness, and the music is just so beautiful. The first time I watched it I was almost in tears.
What’s your role in that piece?
The whole piece has this penance or asking for forgiveness [theme] – it’s about being part of a group, and we’re like a working-class group. It’s just a journey, for me, of people going through life. Being alone; being part of a group; being supported. There’s a few trios that I’m a part of and a beautiful sextet, and then near the end of the piece there’s this beautiful two by two of couples going by, doing their representations of different relationships.
Do you enjoy these outside-the-box collaborations? Would you like to see more with Ballet BC?
Definitely. At a recent retreat we had that was a big point on the list. We have a community full of amazing artists and we don’t always have maybe the resources to connect with them, but it’s on the top of the list. What we do is just heightened and elevated by working with other artists.
