ARTS

ARTS Child’s question inspires Rachel Meyer’s new show

The Vancouver choreographer hopes to immerse audiences in a fantasy world from the moment they arrive

by Charlie Smith

Many artists create a piece—whether’s it’s a play, a song, a dance performance, or a work of visual art—then hope to find a venue where it can reach an audience. Vancouver choreographer Rachel Meyer, on the other hand, prefers to choose a site that’s specific for her work.

For her latest production, Mama, do we die when we sleep?, she decided ahead of time that she wanted it performed in the Russian Hall in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. That’s because it lent itself well to a show that explores how childlike wonder about everday objects can open up all sorts of possiblities, including building even bigger objects or flying to other worlds.

“I try to immerse the audience within my world and my creation as soon as they arrive,” Meyer told the Straight by phone.

She elaborated by saying that when this physically demanding work is presented at this month’s Dancing on the Edge festival, the audience will enter the hall and see lots of wooden chairs scattered about. They will have to move through the set to find their seats.

“What I try to do is bring my audiences into a different realm, or a feeling of a different world—and also to evoke memories in that,” Meyer said. “It makes them feel surreal or fantasylike.”

Yet she added that in this instance, it will also still feel very connected to real life.

Mama, do we die when we sleep? was inspired by her daughter asking this question when she was two years old. It led Meyer to contemplate how the feeling of wonder changes as people age and how it can lead to greater intellectual thoughts.

As with her previous productions, there are many pieces in the set, this time including ladders and articles of clothing.

“We automatically know why they were created and why they were in the space,” she said. “And I think that wonder allows us to see beyond that.”

Meyer emphasized that she choreographed the show in collaboration with fellow dancers Stéphanie Cyr, Josh Martin, and Calder White. And she gave plenty of credit to other members of the team, saying she came up with the “base” and everyone else made important contributions.

The dancers began by reflecting on and talking about childhood dreams and memories. Then, in the piece, they explore what the objects mean to them.

A central component is the music, according to Meyer, a resident artist at Left of Main. She said that she asked composer James Maxwell to base Mama, do we die when we sleep? around a recognizable classical work. They agreed on a lullaby—Frédéric Chopin’s Berceuse Op. 57 in D-flat major—because they felt it could be adjusted to reflect different emotions and moods, and it worked for a dance piece.

Because Maxwell has experience incorporating different sounds into his work, including a metronome, Meyer felt that he could create something totally different while maintaining the root of Chopin’s composition.

“I feel like it really brings in this idea of memory or thoughts or things from our everyday lives in with the music,” she said. “He’s totally brilliant.” g

In Mama, do we die when we sleep?, Rachel Meyer explores how childlike wonder manifests itself. Photo by David Cooper.

Dancing on the Edge presents Mama, do we die when we sleep? at 7 p.m. on July 15 and at 9 p.m. on July 16 and 17 at the Russian Hall.

Loneliness at the heart of Wen Wei Dance’s Two

by Charlie Smith

Vancouver choreographer Wen Wei Wang likes to describe dance as a physical language. “You use your body to speak,” he told the Straight in a recent phone interview.

But Wang noted that the language of dance became exceedingly difficult to communicate during the pandemic because bodies could not connect. When his company, Wen Wei Dance, began holding rehearsals for its latest creation, Two, dancers Justin Calvadores and Calder White could not touch one another. In addition, Wang and the dancers had to wear masks.

“It is so hard, physically,” Wang said. “It’s so hard to breathe.”

One thing he found especially troubling—from a choreographer’s perspective—was having to keep the dancers two metres apart, which was required under provincial health protocols.

“Of course, you have to go with the restrictions,” Wang noted.

The isolation, silence, and loneliness that are so common during the pandemic resonate through Two, a duet that will premiere at the Dancing on the Edge festival. Wang described Calvadores and White as “gorgeous dancers”, both emotionally and physically. The show, which focuses on the longing for connection, mirrors what so many have had to endure over the past 16 months.

“It doesn’t matter your colour or your cultural background,” Wang said. “As human beings, we want to be able to connect. We just want to be touched or hugged. I think that’s a simple thing, but we cannot do it.”

Wang has enjoyed an illustrious career as a dancer and choreographer since moving to Vancouver from China in 1991. He started here with the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, which was followed by a seven-year stint with Ballet B.C. He launched his own company in 2003.

But it wasn’t until the pandemic that he was forced to become a movie director. He explained that the live dancing in Two runs from 25 to 27 minutes, and it will be augmented at Dancing on the Edge by 13 minutes of film in two parts.

The first section features the dancers in the natural world. The second part shows them in urban Vancouver, in a back alley, Gastown, and Chinatown.

Wang said that he wanted to make it look like an indie film rather than a hightech movie with special effects. That’s because Two is about human emotions.

“I want people to feel like ‘I was there. I feel it. I’ve been there,’” Wang said. “It’s about me, about you, about everybody.”

The Vancouver dance artist said that on film, the camera directs the audience’s eyes. He contrasted that with a performance on-stage, where audience members can choose what they want to focus on.

In the future, he’s hoping to turn Two into a full-length show, perhaps lasting as long as 55 minutes.

“Maybe the next stage is they can be able to touch,” Wang said. “But right now…they still wear masks.” g

Dancers Justin Calvadores (left) and Calder White (silhouette) long for connection on-stage and on film in Two. Photo by Daria Mikhaylyuk.

As human beings, we want to be able to connect. We just want to be touched or hugged.

– Wen Wei Wang

Dancing on the Edge will present Wen Wei Dance’s Two at 7 p.m. on Friday (July 9) and Sunday (July 11) at the Firehall Arts Centre. The live show is being filmed and will be available later to stream as part of the Festival Film Package.

ARTS Ex-Cirque stars wed dance with circus in Limb(e)s

by Charlie Smith

As an aerial dancer, Gabrielle Martin ascended to the highest level anyone can rise to in that industry. From 2015 to 2019, as the principal character in the Cirque du Soleil show TORUK – The First Flight, the Vancouver dance artist performed aerial solos that left audiences around the world gasping in astonishment and roaring with approval.

But things weren’t always as glamorous as they may have seemed to the outside world. That’s due to the extreme competition for such a plum role, plus the physical toll of doing seven to 10 shows a week.

“You would be performing with a lot of pain a lot of the time,” Martin told the Straight by phone. “The external validation was nice because there wasn’t always the same internal validation within the company.”

In 2018, during a break in the tour, she and the lead male performer in TORUK, Jeremiah Hughes, visited one of the world’s premiere events for circus and aerial-dance artists, the Deltebre Dansa festival in Spain. Martin said that she and Hughes are “very generous spectators” when it comes to appreciating what goes into creating a show. But they noticed that their sensibilities still weren’t being reflected there.

“Even though it was a festival that was programming both dance and circus, we didn’t see a lot of intersection,” she stated.

It was then that Martin and Hughes embarked on creating their own contemporary aerial-dance show, one that would truly bring those two art forms together and reflect their passion for dance and high-flying wizardry. While on tour with Cirque, they found rehearsal spaces in different cities where they could work on that show. In fact, Martin said, she and Hughes were the only two cast members in TORUK with a dance background, as all the others came from either gymnastics or circuses.

“After so many years of touring, we needed something for ourselves,” Martin revealed. “And something that…demonstrated our own worth and our own voice as artists outside the show we had been doing for so many years.”

The resulting show, called Limb(e)s, was presented live in Montréal and Edinburgh in 2019 by Company Ci, which they created. Half the choreography took place in the air, performed to the music of composer Nicolas Bernier.

“It’s not circus and it’s not dance—it really blends the two,” Martin said. “Just to be honest, I haven’t seen much of this.”

The Dancing on the Edge festival will present the world premiere of the 40-minute filmed version of Limb(e)s, with one screening inside the Firehall Arts Centre and others available through the $25 Festival Film Package.

“The first part is exploring what it means to hold on or let go of one another in our darkest hour,” Martin said. “We really worked with Sophie Tang, the lighting designer, and Jessica Han, the cinematographer, to create this dystopian landscape.”

The title is a play on the French word for limbo, as well as the apparatus of rope cradles designed for the show. Martin revealed that she did a great deal of work on the aerial fabric and ropes so that this contraption resembles a body. According to her, the cradles are like limbs, either holding or constraining the artists.

“It’s also this limbo space that we’re exploring that is the result of loss,” Martin said. g

Vancouver dance artist Gabrielle Martin did a great deal of work with fabric and ropes to make the aerial cradle look like limbs in Company Ci’s filmed version of Limb(e)s. Photo by Jessica Han.

Dancing on the Edge will present Company Ci’s filmed version of Limb(e)s to a live audience at 9 p.m. on July 14 at the Firehall Arts Centre.

CAMP retains its sense of fun in face of hard times

by Charlie Smith

The five members of the Vancouver dance troupe CAMP have gotten to know one another exceptionally well over the past year and a half. One of them, Ted Littlemore, quipped in a phone interview with the Straight that they just might know each other “a little too well”.

Why is that? Because they not only work together but they all live in the same house in Kitsilano.

“Getting through good times is easy,” Littlemore said. “Getting through hard times is what puts us to the test. The pandemic has been hard times with a capital H.”

At 30 years of age, Littlemore is the oldest member of CAMP, which formed in December 2019 with no specific leader or choreographer. The other members—Brenna Metzmeier, Eowynn Enquist, Isak Enquist, and Sarah Formosa—are still in their 20s.

Littlemore is not only a dance artist who has performed with some of the city’s top choreographers but also a musician and drag performer. He said that the sense of overkill from drag and taking something to its extreme—to the point where it becomes silly—is something that CAMP embraces to retain a sense of fun.

According to Littlemore, CAMP is committed to being showy, with elements of Fosse and old-school jazz and a keen interest in lip-sync.

“There’s always space to be silly,” he said. “That really lives—and has its birth—in the drag culture, where stupid is as successful as smart. That drag is good drag.

“And I think that sometimes a little moment of bad dance in a show of great dance is an awesome ingredient to add.”

At the Dancing on the Edge festival, CAMP will present the world premiere of PAM, which Littlemore described as abstract with a trancey and euphoric mood, and very performative.

Each member brings unique strengths. Littlemore praised Metzmeier for her technique, which was honed at the Victoria Academy of Ballet, as well as for having an incredible work ethic.

He added that Formosa, an experienced TV and film actor who trained at Alonzo King LINES Ballet, has “a completely different vocabulary in terms of moving and street dancing”.

As for Eowynn Enquist, Littlemore said she does everything from the heart, emphasizing that “her thematic practice is phenomenal”. Littlemore credited Isak Enquist for being excellent at floor work and lifting and for his keen understanding of soundscape design.

“It’s been great to return to the creative process to test our capacity for mirroring and morphing into each other as we take on everyone’s individual movement vocabularies,” Littlemore declared. g

CAMP’s Ted Littlemore, Isak Enquist, Sarah Formosa, Brenna Metzmeier, and Eowynn Enquist. Photo by Richie Lubaton.