Stage Review

Show: Elles

Company: Les Productions Figlio

Choreographer: Serge Bennathan

Composer: Bertrand Chenier

Dancers: Ali Robson, Alison Denham, Carolyn Woods, Darcy McMurray, Erin Drumheller, Linnea Swan, Susan Elliott, Valerie Calam

Venue: The Cultch

Run: March 13 – 17 2012

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins

Winner of the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, Elles is an aggressive, mesmerising work that celebrates the beauty of pure movement and the female form. Choreographer Serge Bennathan describes it as “the beginning of an exploration of an emotional history of dance through bones, muscles, and mind.”

I really enjoyed watching these eight dancers move so fluidly around the stage in a unified group. The piece began with live piano accompaniment that was very tranquil and suited the slow, focused movements. The backdrop was a subdued outline of trees which emphasized the animalistic quality of the dance making it seem like they were outdoors or in a forest or jungle somewhere.

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Production: Gordon

Presented by Arts Club Theatre Company

Written and directed by Morris Panych

Starring Patrick Costello, Pippa Mackie, Todd Thomson, Andrew Wheeler

Running: Now – Mar. 24, 2012

Reviewed by: Taryn Hubbard - Vancouver

Imagine a homecoming. A childhood street you haven’t seen in decades. A house, slowly crumbling. A dining room table you used to hide under. An alcoholic father. Memories of a worn out mother. Now, say the man returning home is a convict on the run, a growing pile of bodies and robberies in his path, a teenage girlfriend with a baby on the way, and a sidekick who is on the verge of becoming a born again Christian with a nasty case of irritable bowel syndrome. This is Gordon. And he’s deeply angry, aggressive, and thinks he’s got the world of drug dealing all figured out. That’s until his dad, Gord, puts a damper in his big thinking plans.

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Theatre Review

Production: THE HAPPY WOMAN

Author: Rose Cullis   

Company: Nightwood Theatre

Director: Kelly Thornton

Principal Actors: Barbara Gordon, Ingrid Rae Doucet, Maev Beaty, Maria Vacratsis, Martin Happer

Venue: Berkeley Downstairs Theatre

Location: Toronto, Ont.             

Run: March 7 to March 24, 2012 

Reviewed by James Karas

The Happy Woman is a new play by Rose Cullis that is now playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, in a production by Nightwood Theatre.

You don’t have to be a member of Mensa to guess that the title is meant ironically and that no play can have a beginning, a middle and an end with the word “happy” having straight-faced applicability.

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"All three of these works were innovative and intelligent in their representations of various themes, but they were each very different and had a style all their own."

Stage Review

Show: Walking Mad and Other Works

Company: Ballet BC

Choreographers: Emily Molnar, Aszure Barton, Johan Inger

Dancers: Alexander Burton, Darren Devaney, Livona Ellis, Alexis Fletcher, Maggie Forgeron, Alyson Fretz, Conner Gnam, Rachel Meyer, Andrea Pena, Rachael Prince, Gilbert Small, Peter Smida, Makaila Wallace, Jed Duifhuis, Chisato Ide, Dario Dinuzzi

Venue: Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Run: March 8-10 2012

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins

Ballet BC presented another provocative evening of new works with two world premieres as well as a Canadian premiere. All three of these works were innovative and intelligent in their representations of various themes, but they were each very different and had a style all their own. I think the dancers of Ballet BC showed great versatility in their ability to skilfully perform each work and convey the message contained within it. 

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