Thanks to a 90-year-old inventor from Victoria, dancers will soar through the air to entertain thousands at Toronto’s Panamania festival.
Sven Johansson is the aerial choreographer for The Thirst for Love and Water, a dance-acrobatic-aerial show to be staged at Nathan Phillips Square from July 21-25. Part of Panamania (the cultural component of the Pan Am Games), the show is in a lineup featuring The Flaming Lips, Trombone Shorty, Sergio Mendes and Janelle Monae.
Two dancers in the 30-minute performance will appear to fly, thanks to Johansson’s so-called “dance instrument.” His invention is essentially a long pole (6.5 metres in this case) on a wheeled fulcrum. It works with pivots and counterweights to create the effect of defying gravity.
The Thirst for Love and Water is staged by Toronto’s Cinetic Creations, with choreography by Sharon B. Moore and direction by Derek Aasland. Aasland said audiences of up to 25,000 are expected at each of six performances featuring a 10-person cast.
“[Johansson’s] units bring an unbelievable amount of three-dimensional motion. It’s very fluid,” Aasland said from Toronto.
“When you add a professional dancer in the saddle and a professional dancer operating it, the thing just absolutely becomes an integral part of the piece.
“Sven’s contribution to this is extremely large.”
The show will be mounted on a large stage in the middle of a 30-by-60-metre reflecting pond in Nathan Phillips Square, Aasland said. Dancers will seem to fly over the audience and the water.
Johansson has collaborated with Aasland previously, including on a production of Peter Pan at the Manitoba Theatre Centre and The Great Farini Project in Toronto. He credits Aasland and Moore as collaborators who are “really looking towards the future.”
He premièred his dance instrument in Victoria in 1992. In 1994, Johansson was named to the Order of Canada in recognition of the invention. He also won Prague’s International Dance Festival Award for professional choreography in 1999 and 2000. And in 2007, he won Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for his choreography using the dance instrument.
Johansson says the invention represents a significant step forward in dance history. “Dance has actually been status quo since 1909, when Diaghilev put together classical ballet and modern dance and made neo-classical. But after that, nothing ever happened until Victoria,” he said.