A production company can put on hundreds of shows over 31 seasons, but Public Energy Performing Arts founder Bill Kimball will undoubtedly remember the last before his retirement.
For his swan song production, the Peterborough company Kimball founded in 1994 will be taking over the Peterborough Memorial Centre to present Murmuration by Montréal contemporary ice skating company Le Patin Libre.
Tickets are still available for the performance, which takes place for one night only on Tuesday, April 8 beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Le Patin Libre, which translates to “The Free Skate,” was founded by former high-level competitive skaters and ice show performers who desired to turn their athleticism into artistic expression.
“One of the unique aspects of Murmuration is that it doesn’t feature the kinds of flashy jumps, spins, sparkles, and sequins that a traditional figure skating exhibition does,” says Kimball.
“It’s much more about the choreography of 15 different skaters moving about, sometimes in combination with each other and sometimes completely apart. It’s about the patterns that they’re creating on ice.”
VIDEO: “Murmuration” by Le Patin Libre
Murmuration is inspired by the collective actions of birds that flock together, moving rapidly apart and then regrouping in new formations. With nearly a 900-seat capacity at the Peterborough Memorial Centre, the audience will be immersed in the storytelling and artistry formed by the high-speed and fluid choreography as theatrical sounds and lighting complement the skaters’ movements.
“There is a lot of sound involved with the skates cutting through the ice, from stopping and throwing snow on different performers,” Kimball says, noting that one of the performers will be sporting hockey skates rather than figure skates. “It’s an important aspect that that you don’t get with your traditional shows.”
The choreography is inherently complicated because some of the movements are improvised in the same way as birds in flight, such as when one bird suddenly changes direction and is instantly followed by the rest of the flock. To find performers who could flawlessly execute such improvisation, Le Patin Libre spent nearly two years recruiting international skaters.
As Le Patin Libre toured a previous show, they held auditions around the world, resulting in a 15-member cast of skaters with a vast collection of backgrounds coming from Canada, the U.S., France, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Many had quit skating altogether to pursue other education and careers, only to return when they discovered the artistic skating offered through Le Patin Libre.
“That’s where the uniqueness comes in, as they can handle this unusual choreography and the need to improvise because of their rebellious positioning in the world of figure skating,” Kimball says. “It’s why we call them mavericks on ice. These skaters have a mindset that doesn’t follow tradition and does allow them to express themselves in an unusual way being from outside the skating world.”
VIDEO: Public Energy’s Bill Kimball speaks with Alexandre Hamel
The 15 skaters who are performing Murmuration include Le Patin Libre founder and artistic director Alexandre Hamel and two other members of Le Patin Libre, who are also the show’s choreographers. Hamel — who will perform a few spins and jumps during the performance — brings a wealth of skating experience from competing at the international circuit to skating professionally for Disney on Ice, though he is also an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been shown at international festivals.
His fellow choreographers are Pascale Jodoin, who trained as a figure skater though often pursues her own styles and has performed in circus projects in Montréal, and the France-born Samory Ba — the only founding member of Le Patin Libre who is not Canadian — who carries more than a decade of international competition experience and has toured for international ice shows like Holiday on Ice (the most visited ice show in the world).
Other Canadians skaters performing in Murmuration include Taylor Dilley, who previously performed with the National Ice Theatre of Canada and explores the performance potential of rock climbing, Haley Alcock, a Montréal-based micrometeorologist and ice dancer who rediscovered a love for skating through the contemporary forms, Jenn Edwards, a multidisciplinary artist based in Labrador who has performed across the country with her choreography presented at festivals internationally, and Maude Poulin, a Quebec competitive skater who first worked with Le Patin Libre as part of the inauguration of the Olympic Ice Oval in Vancouver 2008.
American skaters include Arizona’s Jacqueline Benson, a triple gold U.S. figure skating medallist and master-rated coach and choreographer, multidisciplinary performer Isaac Alan Lindy whose professional skating resume includes Holiday on Ice and German contemporary company IceLab Leipzig, and Bethann Weick, a former competitive ice skater with experience doing numerous ice shows.
Those hailing from Europe include French skater David Billiau, who trained as a mechanic before pursuing a freestyle skating career that has taken him across France, Switzerland’s Pauline Oxana Irman, who won the Swiss national title in pairs figure skating, and Sweden’s Melanie Kejanne Källström, who blends her figure skating with street-style influences discovered in Oslo where she is the co-founder of Skate Jam Norway and founder of contemporary skating company Synthesice.
Rounding out the international contingent are Kristýna Mikulášová, who hails from Czech Republic but has studied with one of the world’s most prestigious dance schools in the U.K., and Oktawia Scibior, a podium-finishing Polish national level figure skater who has performed in skating shows across Europe and who founded the Slippery Art Project to nurture the emergence of artistic creation through skating.
Kimball says Murmuration — which will appeal not only to those who love the performing arts but anyone who enjoys figure skating shows and competitions — perfectly embodies what he has always aimed to do over his 31 seasons with Public Energy Performing Arts.
“One of my great goals in my time with Public Energy is to get new audiences and broader audiences for contemporary performance,” he says. “The fact that we managed to put a show into an almost 900-seat venue does perfectly represent my idea of getting as wide an audience and exposing contemporary performance to as many people as possible.”
In a review of a recent Murmuration performance in Vancouver, Emily Lyth of the digital arts and culture magazine Stir called the show “jaw-dropping,” “downright breathtaking,” and “exhilarating to watch.”
Kimball, who attended a performance of Murmuration in Toronto last year and was “blown away,” is encouraging everyone to see the one-night-only performance at the Peterborough Memorial Centre on April 8.
“If you don’t come out to this show, you’re going to regret it later once all your friends tell you about it and you start hearing about it on the news,” he says.
To ensure Murmuration is accessible and affordable to everyone, Public Energy is offering tickets on a sliding scale from $10 to $50 plus fees, with a suggested price of $30 plus fees.
Tickets are available in person at the Peterborough Memorial Centre’s box office at 151 Lansdowne St. W. from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, by phone at 705-743-3561, or online at tickets.memorialcentre.ca.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a long-time media sponsor of Public Energy Performing Arts.
