An Evening of Contemporary James Kudelka
A Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie Presentation
at the Fleck Dance Theatre
November 407, 2009

   For my dance taste, it was three earlier Kudelka pieces that impressed me more than his world premiere of Beautiful Movie. The newest Kudelka has merits, of course, but these are in the music of J.S. Bach and Heinrich Schutz, the musicians, and exquisite counter-tenor Daniel Taylor than in any actual movement by Bill Coleman and his dancers. The piece could be broken down into its components quite easily: a solo voice, seven musicians (for violin, cello, viola, organ, and double bass), Bill Coleman, six silent observers, and a doll dressed exactly the same as Coleman (grey suit, white tie) and manipulated by him to distract or provoke Taylor as he sings. What this semiology means is anybody’s guess, but ambiguity in itself does not necessarily release enough range of meaning to justify itself.

   Fortunately, the other pieces are dances where the choreography has enough force or colour to celebrate dancing itself. See #1 (from an as-yet unfinished series) offered Laurence Lemieux performing to von Biber’s Passacaglia Sonata, with strong pivots, twists, extensions, and swift footwork—all rendered in what is surely a restrictive costume and boots—and in dynamic counterpoint to the stillness of violinist Adrian Butterfield. Her amazing fluency would be on further display in the final piece, but this was preceded by Soudain L’Hiver Dernier, more than twenty years old, yet thrillingly fresh in the dancing of Andrew Giday and Michael Sean Marye. This dance, performed to the soundtrack of Gavin Bryars’ affecting spiritual chant of Jesus Blood Never Failed Me, has a rigorous tension because of the competing vocabularies of submission and affliction. It is a male duet with affecting power.

   The highlight for me was In Paradisum, a sequence of movements shaped by attitudes towards death. In their long robes (grey or earth tones), the dancers have an almost classical dignity, and the choreography indulges in bold movements, such as swift turns, leaps, and staccato rhythms. There is a movement that tends towards a tableau, but the overwhelming impression is of dynamism, fluency, and striking arabesques and extensions. This is dance more as pure dance than as pretentious semiotics, and it is thrilling to witness, especially given the virtuosity of Laurence Lemieux, Andrew Giday, and Michael Sean Marye, complemented strongly by a corps that includes Kate Alton, Luke Garwood, Valerie Calam, Christianne Ullmark, Jones Henry, and Graham McKelvie.

photos: John Landauer

pic 1: Laurence Lemieux

pic 2: Michael Sean Marye and Laurence Lemieux in "In Paradisum"


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