ON STAGE: Reveal + Tell
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
When: Friday and Saturday, March 12-13, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $35.50-$65.50 from rmts.bc.ca or 250-386-6121
Dance Victoria has not taken the Royal Theatre stage since live events have returned to full capacity, but the company will do so Friday and Saturday with performances of Ballet B.C.’s Reveal + Tell.
Producer Stephen White is thrilled to see live audiences back in the theatre, but remains cautiously optimistic about his own ability to shake off the rust. Two years of lockdown-related programming has had the longtime producer playing catch-up in recent weeks.
“We’re going to have to do some work to rebuild, and we feel capable of that. We’ve got a great season for next year, which we’ll be announcing this weekend, but we have to roll up our sleeves and do some work, for sure.”
Three premieres of varying degrees are part of Reveal + Tell, which should help in the ticket-selling department. Woke Up Blind, from German choreographer Marco Goecke, will have its Canadian premiere this weekend, while The Statement — from Victoria native and Ballet B.C. alumna, Crystal Pite — is new to audiences on Vancouver Island. The third entry is just BEFORE right AFTER, by Vancouver company Ballet B.C., which will have its world premiere in Victoria.
Goecke’s piece, which is set to the music of the late Jeff Buckley, is “fast and quirky,” according to White. The polar opposite is Pite’s challenging work, White said, which has a caustic and satiric side that will be familiar to those who have followed her astonishing career thus far. The rousing finale by Ballet B.C. will feature the full 19-person company on stage at various points.
Individual tastes notwithstanding, White expects patrons will be thrilled at the opportunity to see live dance on stage once again; like other performing arts organizations, Dance Victoria was almost exclusively an online entity throughout the pandemic. The company presented a single in-person show at the Charlie White Theatre in Sidney, back in January.
“Ironically, when we had to cancel [all programming] in March 2020, it was Ballet BC’s Romeo and Juliet we had to cancel,” White said.
In another twist of fate, the choreographer for Romeo and Juliet was Ballet BC artistic director Medhi Walerski, who created just BEFORE right AFTER. “It was created during the pandemic, so you can see the pandemic travel through the choreography,” White said.
“In the beginning of the piece, there is a fluid togetherness, but as it progresses, the impact of folks being alone and regrouping at the end, you can see the change physically as the dancers journey through it.”
Walerski’s piece, at 28 minutes, is the longest of the three. They will each be separated by an intermission, which lets the audience take in each performance on its own merit. That’s an important facet coming out of the shutdown, which presented limited performing arts opportunities to audiences, White said. Everything that was old has become new again.
The same could be said of Ballet BC, which in 2020 saw longtime artistic director Emily Molnar leave the company after more than a decade. Walerski was hired as her replacement, but continues to honour the legacy she created while pushing the company forward.
“It was [Molnar’s] model to bring international choreographers to Vancouver and set short works on Ballet BC dancers,” White said. “Their programs that we often brought to Victoria have always been three smaller pieces of repertory by different international choreographers. It was rare that we presented a full evening piece, and increasingly that’s what we’re seeing with contemporary ballet companies in North America.
“For an audience, the experience is wonderful. Each piece is fully contained and complete, so if someone is not crazy about one of the pieces, it’s not long before they get to see the next one.”
