What: Jessica Lang Dance
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
When: Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Starting at $29 (250-386-6121)
There’s something refreshingly tangible and down-to-earth about New York’s Jessica Lang, who brings her dance company to Victoria this weekend.
Take the choreographer’s dance Lines Cubed, part of a program to be performed at the Royal Theatre over two nights. It’s inspired by the geometrical art of Piet Mondrian, renowned for his paintings featuring blocks of primary colours — reds, blues and yellows — divided by thick black lines.
Lang says she loves the simplicity of Mondrian’s art and knew it would “make for a great dance.” For Lines Cubed, the stage is gridded, Mondrian-style, with flexible kraft-paper dividers created by the Vancouver design firm Molo.
Dance Magazine describes Lang — whose father is an artist — as a “master of visual composition.” Interviewed from San Francisco, the choreographer said for her, the visual impact of her dances is the most important thing.
“I get quite inspired by thinking of my work more like a painter, rather than a dancer making steps for dancers,” she said.
Lang is among the most admired choreographers working in America today. The prolific creator of 95 dances since 1999, she has had her pieces performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan and the Joffrey Ballet. Last month, Lang’s dance Her Notes was premièred by the American Ballet Theatre.
The 90-minute mixed program at the Royal Theatre includes Thousand Yard Stare, Among the Stars, Mendelssohn/Incomplete and The Calling. The latter, a tribute to her late mentor Benjamin Harkarvy, features a dancer wearing a stage-covering gown — a spectacular image dominating Dance Victoria’s advertising for the performances.
Lang’s ideas for dances often come in the form of a visual image. She travels with a notebook that she fills with sketches.
“I don’t paint and sometimes wish I could. I wish I did. But I paint with the body. I combine the two worlds, my interest in dance and then my interest in the visual art world,” she said.
Thousand Yard Stare, a 20-minute work for nine dancers, is one of the major pieces being presented in Victoria. During its creation, Lang interviewed soldiers and therapists who worked with veterans suffering post-tramautic stress.
Tellingly, she asked the vets to listen to music and make drawings of whatever images came to mind as they listened. The drawings were transferred to the backs of the dancers’ costumes — another example of the importance visual imagery has in Lang’s work.
Lang aims to make her dances full sensory experiences into which onlookers, whether they be balletomanes or dance novices, can completely submerge themselves. Technique is important. However, Lang said if a choreographer becomes too focused on the steps, there’s a danger of disconnecting from the crowd. Especially in the iPhone age.
“And today there’s so much struggle with audiences and building new audiences. I think it’s really important to embrace the time in which we live and acknowledge it,” she said.
Lang began as a dancer. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she was a member of Twyla Tharp’s dance company for two years. However, she ultimately found performing the same pieces over and over — despite the excitement of world tours — wasn’t for her.
“I thought, I’m not happy right now. Is this the big picture? I don’t want this.”
Friends and colleagues tried to dissuade her from abandoning performance. Ignoring their advice, Lang found success as a choreographer immediately. In 1999, just two years after she graduated from Juilliard, the American Ballet Theatre commissioned her to choreograph a dance called Oblivion. It was well received — and her career as a dance-maker was launched.
Lang, who’s in her early 40s, said she has learned the importance of tenacity. As well, she said any would-be choreographer (and dance company artistic director) must be realistic about their abilities. Lang stressed the importance of developing practical skills, everything from balancing budgets to knowing how to read contracts.
She added: “I never take anything for granted.”
