There’s a reason why the title of renowned Canadian dancer and choreographer Bill Coleman’s most recent work Is This Tap? is punctuated with a question mark.
However, that reason will not be fully revealed to audiences until they are firmly settled into their seats for the one-night-only production at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (October 10).
What we know for sure from Public Energy Performing Arts, which is presenting the show in partnership with Showplace, is that the performance will be an “immersive theatrical experience” where spectacular lighting effects and projections by Dutch multimedia artist Edwin van der Heide that will “interact, transform, and magnify” Coleman’s presence as he moves around the stage.
We also know that, despite the show’s question mark, tap dance will be involved in some way. Coleman, who 40-year dance career has taken him from Dublin to London to New York to Peterborough, started out in tap dance and in the past few years began to relearn how to improvise it lyrically.
“Returning to his first love, he’s been tap dancing again,” reads a media release from Public Energy about Coleman. “Not just rhythms, but sound scores and special effects, on railroad tracks and sheet metal, down urban streets, and on stages with sound artists, neuroscientists, and Aboriginal storytellers.”
We also know that Coleman has called upon a cast of artists to support him as he works with van der Heide (who he only recently met), including Canadian contemporary dance icon Peggy Baker, musician Curtis Driedger, costumier Martha Cockshutt, prosthetist Andrew Litner, and puppeteer Brad Brackenridge.
Finally, we know that the performance will give audience members a welcome respite from their daily worries, with Public Energy noting “dance is a lifesaver in the face of hard and unsettled times.”
Beyond that, intriguing questions remain.
Why is the show being billed as “not a dance show” even though it promises a lot of dance? Why is it being called an immersive experience when it takes place in a theatre with a traditional stage? Last but far from least, who is the mysterious three-legged man appearing in the show’s promotional material and what is his role in the performance?
Coleman himself provides only a few clues about the show.
“My love of vaudeville-era comedy/performance and my newly found expertise in tap dancing has — I believe — found the perfect home in this new work, one that comments on the human spirit through humour and invention,” he says in the release.
For those familiar with Coleman, including his lengthy relationship with his newly adopted home town of Peterborough which began in 1987 when he brought his satirical dance work Baryshnikov: The Other Story to the Artspace New Dance Series at Market Hall, they will know that — as Public Energy puts it — “any Bill Coleman show has the power to invoke joy and surprise. And confusion.”
For those experiencing Coleman’s work for the first time at Showplace on October 10, joy, surprise, and even confusion may be the words of the day.
In fact, there may be a few audience members expecting to see a tap dance show who turn to the person beside them and whisper, “Is this tap?” — before becoming mesmerized by Coleman’s performance and van der Heide’s multimedia effects.
Tickets for Is This Tap? are $65 for friends, $55 for adults, $40 seniors and those under 30, and $35 for students and artists. Tickets are available in person at the Showplace Box Office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, one hour before the show, or online anytime at showplace.org.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a long-time media sponsor of Public Energy Performing Arts.
