In Paradisum in California
Soar to the heavens with the breathtaking dancers of Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie's In Paradisum, a program of works by one of Canada's greatest choreographers, James Kudelka.
Featuring Laurence Lemieux (CLC), Gioconda Barbuto (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal & Nederlands Dans Theater III ), Kevin Thomas (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal & Dance Theatre of Harlem), and Robert Regala (Limón Dance Company ) with Michael Sean Marye, Andrew Giday, Sasha Ivanochko, Kate Alton, Kiri Figueiredo, Jay Gawer Taylor, Laura Bolton, and Peter Trosztmer.
Let yourself be swept up in the swirling, hypnotic work In Paradisum itself, an "outpouring of movement invention", a "maelstrom of anguish, grief and acceptance" (The New York Times), a masterpiece of emotional power and technical brilliance.
On the other end of the spectrum is the haunting, poignant Soudain, l'hiver dernier, a delicate duet that leaves the spectator "spellbound by the emotional drama on the stage" (The Gazette, Montreal).
And finally, Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, one of Kudelka's most beloved dances, "a work of great ingenuity and charm, a plotless comedy that touches on the sublime" (The Globe and Mail, Toronto) - originally commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre in 1991 and winner of a Dora Mavor Moore Award, the work explores "amorous emotion from passion to tenderness to humor" (Times Argus) and features duets that are "remarkable for their fluency and variety" (The Globe and Mail).
James Kudelka is a prolific artist who expertly and effortlessly blends classical and modern dance. Resident choreographer and artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada from 1996 to 2005, creator of over seventy dances for companies and artists as diverse as the San Francisco Ballet, the American Ballet Theater, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Margie Gillis and Peggy Baker, Kudelka "creates movement so exhilarating, it makes everybody watching wish they could dance" (In Profile, Toronto).
Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC), led by the husband-and-wife team of Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux, is one of Canada's most accomplished and innovative dance organizations, known for its original stage productions, its reconstructions of major modern dance works, its collaborations with avant garde composers and visual artists, and its ground-breaking community-based events. With In Paradisum, they bring together some of Canada's finest dancers for an exhilarating voyage to heights of paradise and the depths of the heart: Coleman and Lemieux, Sasha Ivanochko, Michael Sean Marye, Robert Regala,
Fifteen Heterosexual Duets
... it was their execution that dazzled - the split-second timing during complex partnering, and the gratifying lightness of low-to-the-ground leaps and lifts. (Joy Goodwin, The New York Sun)
Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, cree en 1991, est une suite ininterrompue de rencontres fugaces entre un homme et une femme, dansees avec precision par des interpretes aux sommets de leur forme. (La Presse, Montreal)
Le choreographe James Kudelka signe un poeme vivant ... (L'Actualite, Montreal)
C'est donc tout un echeveau de desirs, d'humeur creatrices, de talents averes et emergents, d'histoires passees et presentes, dont les fils se denoueront avec delice cette semaine. (Le Devoir, Montreal)
Most heartening too was the sight in the audience of members of both the ballet and contemporary dance communities (that's a sight not seen enough). (Maisonneuve, Montreal)
In Paradisum
A Canadian classic ... (Encyclopedia of Dance in Canada)
The work is hypnotizing, leaving the viewer carried away in a succession of visual and rhythmic curves. A chorus-like effect takes hold of the audience: a community is formed in dance. ... The protagonist faced sufferings and trials until he finally achieved peace. Constantly goading and nagging at him was a tempter or counselor ... In contrast to this disquieting figure was the angelic messenger who led the protagonist toward his destiny. Contributing to the turbulence was the way a corps danced with taut, rushing movements that could have symbolized the inexorability of passing time. And the ballet's urgency was further reinforced by Michael J. Baker's rhythmically insistent taped score for woodwinds, piano, electric organ and percussion. ... For above and beyond the hypnotic trance, what this ballet celebrates is the power of dance to transform, to go beyond and outside of itself ... In Paradisum is one of the emblematic works of its day .... (Chantal Pontbriand, Dance Collection Danse Magazine)
... In Paradisum is by no standard a private work: its meditation upon death comes out of an outpouring of movement invention that takes the piece beyond the particular into a creative existence of its own. ... The fact that the leading roles are not gender specific accents the universality of the choreography. ... The dancers are swept into a maelstrom of anguish, grief and acceptance. (Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times)
Powerful sculptural images crystallize amidst an incessant flux of simple but compelling movements: sudden leaps, whirls, off-balance swayings, stylized gestures of grief, pleading compassion. (Penelope Doob, Dance in Canada)
Photos of the rehearsals for In Paradisum, by photographer Michael Slobodian, are available.