This weekend (October 29 and 30), Public Energy presents the world premiere of petites danses, by award-winning choreographer Marie-Josée Chartier, at Peterborough’s Market Hall Performing Arts Centre.
This full-length performance consists of a series of eight “little dances” (hence the name) paired to four original musical compositions and performed by 13 dancers.
“petites danses is like a collection of short stories,” says Chartier, the recipient of multiple Dora awards and the KM Hunter Artist Award. “There’s no narrative through-line by any stretch of the imagination, but the tie-in is the music and the performers — that you see them in different situations.”
VIDEO: petites danses trailer
In petite dances, Chartier re-shapes our perception of sound by reimagining four musical compositions through movement — twice, resulting in eight distinct choreographies of solos, duets, trios, and octets.
The movement of the dancers demonstrates the beauty and complexity of the musical works, which are written by four contemporary composers: Linda C. Smith, Rodney Sharman, James Tenney, and Nick Storring.
“In the first half I wanted everybody to hear the music once,” Chartier explains. “For all the composers, we hear one of each. And then in the second half, we hear them again. And people may not even know they’re hearing the same music twice.’
What also makes petite danses so unique is that professional dancers take the stage alongside local performers and members of Old Men Dancing — a group formed in 2002 by men with an average age of over 50 who shared an interest in creating movement-based performance.
Known for their 2009 world premiere performance of Wiser and Still Gorgeous (Do Not Resuscitate) and unique in Peterborough and Canada, Old Men Dancing bring new perspectives on dance and aging to everything they do. They make up for their lack of professional training with a fearless passion to move and tell stories with their bodies.
“They’re so real on stage,” Chartier says in working with the group. “There are no affectations. They don’t hide behind technique. There is an authenticity that’s immediate for people who are not trained for 30 years — that physicality is very interesting to me.”
In a week-long Artist in Residency at Market Hall, Chartier has been crafting the finishing touches on petite danses, working with four members of Old Men Dancing (Peter Earle, Chris Lemieux, Paul Clifford, Jim Angel), alongside local performer Kate Story and eight professional dancers from Toronto (Mairéad Filgate, Shannon Litzenberger, Lucy Rupert, Kassi Scott, Kaitlin Standeven, Brodie Stevenson, Darryl Tracy, and Juan Villegas).
There will only be two performances of petites danses: at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 29th, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 30th at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough). Chartier will be hosting a pre-show chat one hour before each performance.
General admission tickets are $24 ($17 for students and the underwaged, and $8 for high school students) and are available from the Market Hall box office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at tickets.markethall.org. Note: the performance contains some nudity.
And if you’re interested in finding out how a choreographer creates a new dance, you’ll have the opportunity at a free “sneak peek” from 4 to 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, October 27, also at the Market Hall. Chartier and her company will show an excerpt from the performance and answer questions about the creative process. Everyone is welcome to attend and take photos to share the experience with others.
After the Peterborough world premiere, petites danses will go on to be performed at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener on Friday, November 4th, and will be presented next April with a new cast of dancers and local performers in Winnipeg.
For more information about petite danses and the rest of Public Energy’s 2016/17 season, visit www.publicenergy.ca.
