By Sara Porter

Dance Collection Danse

231 pages, $39.95

ISBN 978-0-929003-68-9

   In her Introduction to a book that took her six years to research and write, Sara Porter sends out a perplexing message. She contends that Peter Boneham’s real legacy is “not what he has done [italics mine] but how he has done it and who he is.” Her words, rightly or wrongly, suggest that process counts for more than actual result, and that American-born Boneham (whose career in dance has spanned over six decades, several styles ranging from ballet to Broadway, from nightclub dancing to modern interpretive, and that has seen him serve as the longest serving artistic director in Canadian dance and one of its most ambitious and respected choreographers and teachers) counts less as a dancer/choreographer/teacher/artistic director than as a volatile personality who, never the less, has been a real inspiration in the dance world. A strange beginning, if not a backhanded compliment, for what purports to take measure of a rich artistic legacy. Yet, in a sense, I understand what Porter means. Boneham’s work as dancer was versatile without being particularly outstanding in a way guaranteed to make him a star. He had studied ballet with Olive McCue in his hometown in Rochester, New York, and had even danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal, but he hated ballet. When he teamed with Jeanne Renaud in 1966 for Le Groupe de la Place Royale, he did not take to her controlled austerity (learned from Merce Cunningham) that was abstract and devoid of emotion. When he turned to choreography, his own early work was, by his own admission, bizarre and even junk. When Le Groupe toured Toronto in the late 70s, his pieces (Nanti Malan, Love Songs, and What Happened) were criticized for being abrasive or belaboured or pretentious. The New York critics were lukewarm, complaining that the dancing was inferior to the vocal work in the interdisciplinary pieces, and that the aesthetics were dated. In the 80s, Faustus: An Opera for Dancers, based on Gertrude Stein’s never-staged libretto that drew on Christopher Marlowe, was a flop, and so was Hank’s Place. 

   Then there is the inescapable issue of his personality, temperament, and sensibility. Boneham has been one of the most divisive figures in contemporary Canadian dance, and he is wont to erupt (in his biographer’s words) into “a ferociousness that frightens, insults and drives people away.” But is this so unique with great artists? I can think of many theatre directors and performers who are provocative in the extreme, yet whose artistry is neither diminished nor traduced in the process. As the book wears on, after a pedestrian nuts-and-bolts first half, it becomes clear that Boneham’s legacy extends far beyond the cult of personality.

   As many other dancers and choreographers attest (Tedd Robinson, Susie Burpee, Allana Kraaijeveld, and Serge Bennathan being four of the most significant), Boneham’s influence is paradoxically invisible in that it extends to encouraging people to realize their own potential without showing an obvious debt to him. Under Boneham’s influence, modern Canadian dance became “a more comprehensive art form” in that the dancer was “no longer seen as an instrument but as a partaker in the dance experience and a creator of an art form.” When he took control of Le Groupe de la Place Royale (after founder Jeanne Renaud ceded control to him) and moved it to Ottawa, he attempted to break down the boundaries between the arts, and he insisted that dancers dance not only with their bodies but with their minds and hearts as well.

   There is an important pun in the title of Porter’s book. Its connotation is that Porter will describe Boneham in the process of his life and work. More than this, the book will account for his actual aesthetic process and the fact that he thinks of dance in the present tense. The book gives only a slight account of the offstage life of Boneham. It recounts in short his family history, schooling, and dance training in Rochester, his unhappy army experience (he didn’t always wear full uniform or salute at the right time), and a cursory peek into his love life (including his attachments to Jean-Pierre Perreault and his longtime partner Normand Vandal). Perhaps this is as it should be, given Porter’s self-imposed limits, for she is more interested in revealing him as a respected mentor and teacher, an obsessive worker, and an outrageous, idiosyncratic droll artist.  It is also a relief to the reader who is not likely to be charmed by her lack of flair when it comes to reviewing his work. The best passages of description come from a few dance critics (such as Michael Crabb or writers from dance magazines) who are able to capture the excitement and sophistication of certain pieces.

   However, in terms of its principal case for Boneham as a great facilitator, mentor, and monitor, this book becomes a valuable resource, especially as it is embellished throughout by some superb black and white production photographs. Porter marks the abyss into which Boneham fell when he turned fifty and started drinking heavily, and then shows how he crawled his way out of chaos in the mid-80s, after facing some hard truths about himself. He was floundering as a choreographer, public funding was shrinking as many new dance companies were emerging and demanding their share of the funding pie, but Boneham rose to the challenge, founding the Le Groupe Dance Lab that formalized what had already existed in a different way with its forerunner Le Groupe de la Place Royale. The book then reaches its best section—Part Two—that carries us inside Boneham’s process of work and creation. Porter now writes most interestingly of Boneham’s warm-ups and dance classes (especially for Le Groupe Dance Lab), and it is here that she glories in the key motive for her book: a delving into the very process of creation. She herself becomes part of the process as her writing shows a real engagement with dance or rehearsal in the present tense, allowing us to see an artist in the throes of creation.

   Part Two should also prove the most valuable section for dancers and choreographers for in summarizing Boneham’s peculiar mode of operation, it provides fascinating insights into his aesthetics. Boneham forces dancers and choreographers to confront insecurities about how they create, and he becomes a shrewd monitor or mentor, encouraging visiting artists or Canadian colleagues (such as Grant Strate, Mexico’s Damian Munoz, England’s Shobana Jeyasingh, Tedd Robinson, Michael Montanaro, Michael Trent, Jean-Pierre Perreault, et cetera) to share in similar functions. Porter contends that Boneham’s teaching (which is based on empiric experience rather than ideology) has kept up with the times, deploying its unique and unpredictable wit and humour in the service of transmitting its essential and practical wisdom. Even though he and his life partner Vandal parted ways with Le Groupe (that eventually folded in 2009), and there are probably many dancers who cannot abide Boneham’s personality (with his sudden eruptions of anger or insult), it is astonishing to see the list that Porter provides near the end of her book of the dancers, choreographers, and monitors who worked at Le Groupe de la Place Royale or Le Groupe Dance Lab. Even though Boneham insists that there is no such thing as a great teacher, he should humbly allow his own record to contradict him, if no other reason than to celebrate his acute wisdom about dance. It was he more than anyone else in Canada who first insisted on the totality of the body as an instrument, along with mind and heart. It was he who taught the wisdom of using only the energy required for movement, and it was he who taught that a dancer does not have to eliminate how he or she feels when dancing. Dance is how your body feels and how you feel emotionally. Such wisdom rescues dance from pure abstraction or precise but cold patterns, and it is something that every dancer, choreographer, teacher, or critic should consider carefully.

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