Lately I’ve been taking off to Toronto to find some relief from the heavy propaganda pouring out of the network and cable television commentary surrounding the Afghanistan war. Apparently you can’t escape war no matter where you go, however patriotic you may feel, or how fed up you may be with the repetition of history and the endless flag waving. The resumption of the Empire Strikes Back mythology, with its mirror images of death and defiance, defy reason and sanity. I find Toronto a haven; both for its vital collection of mixed cultures, its lively theatre, dance, music, and art scene, and probably because Canadians usually know the difference between right and wrong in less apocalyptic terms than we do.

In November I notated the Pina Bausch lecture-demonstration at Toronto’s huge Liberty Grand on the waterfront. In December I found myself at the Harbourfront Centre; this time at the Premiere Dance Theatre in the Queens Quay Terminal, a well ensconced space for a dance-drama.

The Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre production of Souls focused on an “ages-old” story of a “war-shattered people grabbling with despair, armed only with hope”. Choreographer Holly Small’s ideas were primarily developed  before the advent of the Afghanistan war, and the production has a prophetic quality because of that assimilated relationship. Small, who is the artist-in-residence at the Canadian Children’s Theatre,  used a secure home base to launch a 14 year old dream about staging the effects of war and devastation.  Souls takes place in a village, any village; the “any” being both its strength and its weakness.

The production highlighted a Toronto dance community effort, combining professional dancers and young talents (from seven to seventy); an intergenerational potlatch, a gift. The young performers added a special dimension to the production, not simply because they are “innocent” – which is not always true -  but because their presence on stage implicitly bears the future of hope. Their blend of exuberance and seriousness brought to the stage the sheer pleasure they have being on stage. It was a delight to watch them work with adults on an equal basis.

Divided into a Prelude, a mourning Kyrie Eleison, composed and sung by Laurel MacDonald - with vanishing children flying into the wings - the work expanded into six dance sequences of varying impact and quality.

In the opening event, The Darkening Sky, with dissonant Stravinsky-like piano work by Alvin Curran, three groupings of couples worked in different styles – supposedly torn apart by war. Despite the repetitive drive of the piano there was no true devastation. The couples worked essentially on their own: the correspondence between the groups haphazard, the painful ravages of separation did not gel. It felt like an improvisation – and it probably was. Robert Glumbeck’s and Lisa Otto’s beautiful and often moving embraces, leaps, and lifts, contrasting with the walking over of bodies, held my attention – for only so long.. When Karen Kaeja walked away from the heap of bodies at the end of the episode, it felt more like languor than exhausted sorrow.

Hope Dies Last was a bold idea; one of great potential. The three generals who destroyed the land in the first segment morphed into the last remaining survivors of war embarking on a “a journey into hope and redemption”. Based on a story about Jews hopping a circus train in Nazi Germany, the buoyant comic qualities of spins and jumps reminded me, in a strange sort of way, of Chagall’s mystical paintings; a hop, skip and jump of dreams in the wake of despair.  

Weeping Sky put an end to all that,.It was full of romance with musical excerpts from Marjean Mozetich’s Postcards from the Sky; a dance for young women and girlsA sylph-like quality reminiscent of Isadora Duncan in her brave new world. Interesting in its allusion to the beginning of the modern dance vocabulary, yet, all in all, the reference to the generosity of the feminine spirit, its freedom, was notable. Again, though, it didn’t feel connected to what was going on in any authentic way.  

Birth of Venus I enjoyed. It was an especially happy dance work highlighting the birth of the goddess of love using the full contingent of the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre. Lyricism here was naturally playful. The village children find a parachute. An Arial-like Lindy Poole floats the parachute with increasing joy and the surrounding buoyancy of two zephyrs, Ryan Adkins and Bryan Lawson. The parachute opening like a signal of the future. Its appeal went beyond the ethereal into something poignantly realizable: a spiritual sense of survival in the ballooning parachute laid down to earth by the children.

In The Returning Soldier the village children welcomed home lead dancer Robert Glumbeck. Reincarnation and the mystery of remembering opened up the story line and lifted it. The reference to Stravinsky’s Ballad of Soldier worked . Suddenly life appeared haunted by hope. Is it an illusion or is it real? The illusive play between the returning soldier, his wife, Lisa Otto, and the village children, creative. Instead of Stravinsky’s enveloping rhythmic beat, the ghost-like presence of the returning soldier shaded into Taylor Rankin’s violin and voice; music of yearning and mystery. The living bear up the dead; or is it the memory of the dead that bear up the living? The choreography was inventive. Grumbeck made full use of the opportunity to bear witness to the human dilemma of loss and hope. If the architecture of Souls was lost; here it was found again - realized.  

In The Haunted Square a young woman’s grief calls out the dead – the full company in a dreamy Day of the Dead without the mocking and uproar –the movements of the dead are those with a thirst for life, movements of drunken abandon – a murky fleeing away into something metaphysical. Leaving only a solitary young dancer alone on stage for a curtain call.

Although the production strived to be epic, with an overall concept of healing binding the elements of war and devastation, the dynamic between the segments of the story line were at loose ends. Souls side stepped into a demonstration of dance vocabularies that distracted from the development of incipient, explosive images of devastation and the struggle to survive; ostensibly the building blocks of the production. I had no idea initially of what the dancers were being moved by, and I constantly had to look at the program to know where they were at. The “drama” was laid out but not delivered. If the choreographer had worked from an authentic source,  initiated by the dramatic situation and developed by the characters from segment to segment – whatever their dance background or vocabulary, or their age and training – the production  might have had potentially powerful roots. The pace and kinetics of the dancing better served by the use of contrasting rhythms and the alternation of elements in conflict. There was no climax in Souls and it never was resolved. Although many moments were captivating, imaginative, zestful and finessed, Souls remained, for the most part, abstracted – kindling wood rather than fire. I never believed that the cycle of dances materialized into anything more than an artistic statement. Where was the Butoh in all this – the existential collapse – the soul of the soul?

However well meaning the concept of Souls, and the undeniable purpose of the choreographer’s commitment,  the initial jumping off point became muddied and it never quite reached a consistent vision of war, devastation and reconciliation – a tall order. The Harbourfront Centre is to be congratulated for hosting the home team – especially a production so daringly conceived and risky. It was a noble effort that brought the dance community together for an important statement about war and peace; a near miss – a very worthy near miss. 

©2002 Ned Bobkoff

Ned Bobkoff is a playwright, director and teacher.
He has worked with performers in a variety of community
and cultural settings throughout the United States and overseas

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