MALPASO DANCE COMPANY
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
When: Friday, April 28 (7:30 p.m.) and Saturday, April 29 (7:30 p.m.)
Tickets: $39-$119 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or rmts.bc.ca
The to-do list for Bernard Sauvé is becoming lighter by the day, which is good news for the general manager of Dance Victoria.
With only weeks remaining in his tenure with the performing arts company, the Montreal native said he didn’t want his impending exit to leave any tasks incomplete. He’ll soon make the transition into what he calls “semi-retirement,” after nine years with Dance Victoria, with zero regrets.
“I’m leaving Dance Victoria in very good shape, financially,” Sauvé, 61, said. A search for his replacement is currently underway.
Sauvé is leaving on a high note, with performances on tap Friday and Saturday at the Royal Theatre from Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company — the first-ever Victoria performances by the 11-member troupe, and the final ones for Dance Victoria in 2023 under the stewardship of Sauvé as general manager.
Malpaso Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Osnel Delgado, is presenting a program spotlighting four acclaimed contemporary choreographers, Daile Carrazana, Mats Ek, Aszure Barton, and Ohad Naharin. “It’s a good note to leave on,” he said.
“We were supposed to present Malpaso during the 2020-21 season [the event was postponed due to the pandemic], and I really wanted to fulfill that commitment. It took a few years, but here we are.”
The most widely toured Cuban dance company in North America, Malpaso’s local debut is representative of what Dance Victoria became under the guidance of Sauvé and former artistic director Stephen White, who retired in July 2022 after 22 years with the non-profit charitable society. Accessible, contemporary, and sustainable is how Sauvé described it.
He supported White’s replacement, Gillian Jones, during what was a smooth transition. The company’s current season has been artistically and financially successful, after two years of pandemic-influenced programming.
“For me, it was important to make sure the organization was financially viable,” Sauvé said. “It had been so difficult during the pandemic, doing virtual presentations, it was important to me for us to have a full year of success.”
He left Montreal for a position as a dancer with Vancouver’s Ballet B.C. in the late 1980s, somewhat unaware of the greater dance community out West. He never regretted the decision. In 2014, he landed at Dance Victoria. The company was carrying a deficit at the time, but Sauvé had experience in arts administration and quickly bolstered its bottom line. More importantly, he did so while supporting the artistic direction of the company.
“Internationally-renowned choreographers, internationally-renowned dance companies, the goal was to bring these to Victoria. It would be easy to do something that everyone likes, and make budget and present yet another ballet, but it’s also very interesting to challenge the audience with new works. Sometimes you might like it, sometimes you don’t, but it shows that dance is always evolving. It’s not ossified. It’s all malleable.”
He‘ll be on-board through early summer, with his official departure from Dance Victoria’s Quadra Street office set for June 30. He won’t be far from the company as it moves into its next phase, however, and will help out on a contract basis from time to time, he said.
Nor will he leave the provincial capital. “Victoria is a great city. When you think about the size of the city, and the size of the arts community here, it’s pretty much incredible.”
mdevlin@timescolonist.com
