By Carol Anderson

Dance Collection Danse Press/Presse

192 pages, 39.95

   Because of her unique versatility, focus, intensity, and longevity, Peggy Baker defies categorization as a dancer. Every time one praises a certain facet of her dancing, another marvelous aspect surfaces to demand recognition. Colleagues and critics reach for superlatives, sometimes straining for an original apercu. Mikhail Baryshnikov (who supplies the Foreword to this book and who danced with her in the White Oaks Project) praises her personal body language and incredible athleticism. He draws attention to her “definitive serenity,” and maintains that “borders do not scare her” because she is a “dance bohemian.” Carol Anderson, former dance colleague of Baker, and now an expert choreographer, director, teacher, and writer, calls Baker “an Olympian of the dance” because of her feminine strength and career longevity. Usually, it is inadequate to describe Baker’s dancing purely in terms of dance, for with her background in acting (she studied at the Herbert Berghof studio in New York), she doesn’t merely move or realize choreography; she acts out a dance role much the way an actress would enact a character, while remaining within the frames of dance. When she danced Ophelia a few years ago, she was stunning and far better than many young actresses who essay the role. She has often reminded me of Vanessa Redgrave because, even discounting the fact that both she and Redgrave are tall and long-limbed, she dances (as Anderson notes) “from the inside out.” She is also fearless and possessed of that indefinable but exciting quality of danger—things that define the great Redgrave far beyond the mastery of technique. Like Redgrave, Baker takes extraordinary risks in performance. I am not just referring to the fact that she has danced bare-breasted in David Earle’s Atlantis or that she follows impulses from anywhere within her body. Like Redgrave, she can exude an androgynous quality. (In fact, Baker as a child detested any dance that was “feminine” or “girly,” and she later danced a male role in the Lubovitch repertoire.) Like Redgrave, she transcends gender and technique. Like Redgrave, she transports me to places I have never been before in my imagination.

   Peggy Baker, now in her late fifties, has had an unparalleled career. She was one of the founders of Dancemakers, then spent almost 15 years in New York after Lar Lubovitch invited her to join his company. In 1990 she returned to Canada to found the Peggy Baker Dance Projects. She became the first-ever Artist-in-Residence at the National Ballet School, overcoming early resistance by her students to become an inspirational force. For decades, she has influenced dancers and has captivated audiences across North America, Europe, and Asia. She has worked with Baryshnikov, Paul Andre-Fortier, James Kudelka, Lar Lubovich, Mark Morris, Doug Varone, and others. Honours have been piled on her, from dance and choreography awards to honorary degrees to the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada. But Carol Anderson’s book is the first detailed investigation of her life and career. It is a much-needed one, and though it has small faults, it is a very good one, indeed, embellished by superb black and white photographs by eminent photographers such as Cylla von Tiedemann, Brian Kelley, Andrew Oxenham, Frank Richard, David Hou, Michael Slobodian, et cetera. In fact, these photographs are eloquent testaments to Baker’s virtuosity, showing her range from Isadora Duncan (Revolutionary Etude) and Martha Graham (Sanctum) to disco and pop parody (Disc), classical ballet (Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica), and the manifold examples of dances where she is indubitably and indomitably herself.

   Anderson, whose dance notes are extremely popular with audiences, focuses on Baker’s professional career. Her book draws mainly on interviews with Baker and personal knowledge. She has been acquainted with Baker ever since Peggy moved to Toronto in  1971. The two were part of Toronto Dance Theatre and later danced together as founding members of Dancemakers. This book is not a biography, however. Though it provides a sketch of Baker’s background (she was born Peggy Laurayne Smith in Edmonton, Alberta, on October 22, 1952, the second of Murray and Rean Smith’s six children, and their first daughter), Anderson reflects mainly on Baker’s dance, choreography (“her focus for her characteristic line, musicality and sense of design in space”), teaching, philosophy of the body and dance, her work with neuromuscular specialist Irene Dowd, her collaborations with pianist Andrew Burashko and cellist Shauna Rolston, and her creation of pieces for Susan Macpherson, Carolyn Woods, Nova Bhattacharya, and Sarah Chase. Anderson is skimpy on many biographical details, particularly Baker’s two marriages and her private life, but when it comes to capturing or suggesting the planes and urgencies and marvels of Baker’s dance personality and choreography, or of the distinguishing characteristics of other choreographers, the book is often brilliant. Anderson shows how dramatic power, whether or not text is part of the work, is a constant in Baker’s interpretation, and how Baker incorporates life experience into dance. She also articulates Baker’s themes in artistic progression (“Freedom within structure, liberation through knowledge”), her continuous aesthetic refinement, and the dancer’s integration of motion and metaphor, though this latter point would benefit from a more extensive consideration. Anderson is particularly good on the movement signatures of other choreographers: Lar Lubovitch (an ecstatic expressiveness of the dancer’s experience and the subject of the dance), Doug Varone (ferociously energetic, alternately swooping phrases and rhythms), Molissa Fenley (driving, quick, exquisitely detailed solos), Paul-Andre Fortier (acerbic social commentary), and James Kudelka (dark, comedic explorations), and, so, it is a pity that parts of the book are flat recitations of Baker’s curriculum vitae. Anderson also fails to consider why and how other wonderful dancers sometimes struggle with Baker’s choreography, especially pieces that Baker has danced herself. So, Unfold is not perfect, but as a resource for dance students, critics, and fans, it is excellent, and the collection of photographs often expresses what words do not achieve. Best of all, it is a tribute to Peggy Baker, a dancer for whom there can never be a surfeit of tributes. 

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