Ballet Edmonton: An extraordinary Le Quattro and the premiere of Le loup de Lafontaine - Vancouver Ballet Society
By Robin J. Miller
Wen Wei Wang’s choreography to Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is, in a word, magnificent. Performed by Ballet Edmonton — the Alberta company Wang has directed since 2018, on tour in Victoria, BC — his Le Quattro reached into the heart and squeezed.
The 2019 work opened a triple bill co-produced by Dance Victoria and the Victoria Symphony, which played live onstage at the Royal Theatre on April 23 and 24, bringing together two largely separate audiences. Judging by the whoops and hollers at Le Quattro’s end, however, both dance and classical music fans recognized they had been part of something extraordinary.
Adding dance to a well-known orchestral piece is iffy: the best music requires nothing extra to make it land in head and heart. The risk with a piece as well known as The Four Seasons is even greater. Using Richter’s 2012 reinvention of the Baroque original — Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons — may seem like a safer bet, except that it is just as popular as the original. Vigorous, spiky, and complex, the 27-minute Recomposed loops short sections of Vivaldi into the German-born British composer’s own minimalist and electronic work, making it sound familiar and alien, comfortable and radical, all at once. What could dance possibly add to this unique creation?
A lot, as it turned out, in the hands of Wang and his 10 strong, technically accomplished, and characterful dancers.
The curtain rose to show the orchestra, behind a sheer black scrim, set back against the bare brick wall of the theatre, lit only by the lights on their music stands. The musicians were there and yet not there. As the violin soloist (Victoria Symphony’s concertmaster, the excellent Terence Tam) began his first notes, a single dancer in simple white shorts and sleeveless top raised her crossed arms and splayed her fingers, signalling the beginning of a repeated emphasis on arms, hands, fingers that both played with and against the changing meters of the music. Avoiding the trap of dancing always on the note, which is pretty but dull, Wang ensured the movement connected to the music but was not enslaved by it: when the music paused between movements, for example, the dance continued on, telling its own story. And what a story it was.
With long swooping arm movements and beautifully articulated fingers, the men and women of Ballet Edmonton danced in solos, duos, and ensembles that evoked both the human and the avian realms. One image near the end, of a bird breaking out of its shell, exquisitely performed by Ariana Barr, led to what was perhaps the most powerful moment of a powerful work: as she lay prone toward the audience, her long, extraordinary arms spread wide and raised at the elbows like wings, the ensemble came to join her and the whole flock began to fly in a V, arms arching up and out, this time in full agreement with the music, using its momentum to exaggerate the sense that these mortals could indeed soar into the winter sky.
A hard act to follow, and the orchestra was wise to choose Ravel’s more temperate Mother Goose Suite for the music-only part of the evening. Under conductor Guiseppe Pietraroia and the fine musicians of the Victoria Symphony, the score shimmered and shone and made a neat segue to the final piece.
Ian Cusson, who is of Métis and French-Canadian heritage, originally composed Le loup de Lafontaine as an orchestral work for the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2019, but always thought it would suit movement. So when the Victoria Symphony came calling to see if he might be interested in producing a new work for dance, Cusson replied that he already had one. Dance Victoria suggested Wang as the choreographer, and a co-commission was born.
Based on a Franco-Ontario tale that’s part legend, part history, Le loup de Lafontaine tells of a village grimly divided, with enmity spilling over into occasional violence. When a wolf arrives, the village finds a cause to unite behind: they must rid the land of this evil outsider! Cusson’s twist on the original is that his wolf is really quite gentle.
In all-black neo-medieval costumes by Linda Chow — elegant long tunics over tights for one side; for the other, aggressive-looking hoods and deconstructed kilts — the factions face off like the Montagues and Capulets (echoes of Prokofiev were everywhere, in the music and the dance). Then the wolf appears, performed by the exceptional Matthew Wyllie, whose movements, such as sliding his lower body to one side while resting on his elbows, required extraordinary control and power. His first howl, created by an instrument, was unexpected and thrilling.
The townsfolk are terrified, but a child (winsomely danced by Devon McLean), sees the wolf differently. She moves close, touching his head; he, in time, lets her ride on his back. Their relationship is delicately crafted, but cannot hold off the demands of a frightened mob. They kill him anyway.
Le loup de Lafontaine is an attractive score and an appealing, if perhaps not terribly original or sophisticated, story ballet — Wang’s first. Next to Le Quattro, firmly in the choreographer’s contemporary dance wheelhouse, it paled a little. But it had enough lovely moments that, as a whole, the triple bill was a delight. With luck, it will travel to symphony halls far and wide.
