TO Stay/A a | a B : B E N D, choregraphed by Aszure Barton, composed and stay music by Ambrose Akinmusire, Bluma Appel Theatre, closes Dec. 6; tickets here.
Dance is within the eye of the beholder. No matter what the intent of the choreographer could also be, it’s how the work lands with the viewers that in the end counts.
A a | a B : B E N D, the joint creation of New York–based mostly Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton and American composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, is a daring piece that may imply one million various things to one million totally different folks.
Barton and Akinmusire see it as an equal partnership between music and dance, every bending the opposite to create new, summary, ethereal kinds.
I see one thing extra.
How BEND Presents Itself
On the floor, B E N D is a sound and light-weight present, merging live performance and dance.
Whereas Barton and Akinmusire supposed B E N D as an equal artistic sharing, a brand new approach of presenting music and dance, I noticed an apocalyptic world solid by the anonymity of the hoodies costumes and the relentless absorption of the person into the collective that happens all through the dance.
The Stage Image
The composer sits on a platform in the back of the stage. a desk in entrance of him. Akinmusire lays down a recorded driving rhythmic base over which he improvises on his trumpet. Round him, the dancers transfer by means of dazzling visible environments.
A mirror ball hangs above. Rings of sunshine encircle each the highest and backside of the stage. Behind the musician is a financial institution of lights, and one other ring surrounds him. Every set of lights strikes at its personal pace, making a hypnotic world of shifting illumination. Technically it’s remarkably complicated, and visually it’s beautiful.
With the pounding beat reverberating by means of our our bodies, and the moody jazz trumpet floating above us, the work turns into immersive, even invasive.
Credit score should go to the creators and designers related to BEND itself. Bonnie Beecher for lighting the Toronto cease. Tobin Del Cuore for video design. Rémi van Bochove for costumes. And particularly Nicole Pearce for the unique lighting and scenic ideas. Their contributions form the surroundings during which the piece unfolds. The result’s a real sound and light-weight present.
The world premiere of BEND occurred in 2023 on the Kampnagel Worldwide Summer season Pageant in Hamburg, Germany. This 2025 manufacturing is a made in Canada effort produced by Pomegranate Arts and TO Stay with assist from the Nationwide Creation Fund, the Banff Centre, The Charles and Joan Gross Household Basis and the Canada Council.
The Dance Itself
The work reveals a world the place individuality struggles and repeatedly fails to emerge. The 11 dancers start in nameless hoodies, indistinguishable from each other. At any time when a person, duet, trio, or quartet makes an attempt to interrupt away, the group inevitably absorbs them once more.
Individuality dies; the group triumphs.
Actions vary from easy, virtually childlike gestures to extremely complicated patterning. At instances there are ritualistic passages, as if the dancers are sacrificing one another or providing themselves to the next drive, maybe even to the musician himself.
But, the choreography is awfully complicated.
Barton deconstructs ballet and modern motion and reconstructs them with road dance, voguing, jazz dance, and complicated group formations. A lot of the choreography entails bending the physique individually and manipulating the our bodies of others leading to tortuous shapes and configurations, including to the alien nature of piece.
The Ode to Freedom
A hanging determine emerges early on, a lady (Nora Brown) who reveals herself with sultry, sensuous motion in stark distinction to the hooded anonymity round her.
Later comes the extraordinary pas de deux during which she is totally seen whereas her accomplice stays fully hidden in a hoodie. She appears to drift in air, manipulated by an unseen drive.
A 3rd dancer mirrors the lady beside him, making a outstanding pas de trois that’s gradual, agonisingly deliberate, and completely singular as a result of it celebrates individuality. This sequence stands because the emotional and structural centre of the piece. Then a fourth determine comes, then a fifth mirroring the lady — that is the ode to freedom, solely as soon as once more to be swallowed up by the mob.
The girl can be the determine who is obtainable to the shrine of the musician, both the priestess or sacrificial lamb. The manipulated girl’s escape at first takes on a higher significance after this pas de deux.
The Improvised Trumpet and the Endings
The trumpet improvisation is aware of the dancers, and the dancers reply in flip.
Though the choreography is ready, the piece is rarely the identical twice. The shifting musical panorama influences the standard and intention of the motion in actual time. This contributes to the work’s apocalyptic tone, its sense of a world the place anonymity triumphs and private identification is erased.
Layered over that is the recurring system of false endings. Repeatedly the piece seems to conclude, solely to surge again to life. After a number of such moments, the true ending comes as a shock — the dancers stand in a big nonetheless circle on the sides of the stage whereas the musician alone finishes the work, his trumpet sounding the ultimate notes.
It’s an sudden and highly effective conclusion as a result of it’s a sputtering trumpet and never the clear mournful sound we have now been listening to all through. It’s a ultimate dying breath.
An Essential Ultimate Phrase
With the collapse of Harbourfront’s funds and the lack of the Worldwide Dance Sequence, Toronto has been starved for the sort of worldwide work that has nourished our dance neighborhood for many years.
Clyde Wagner, CEO of TO Stay, has stepped into the breach with a 5 efficiency Worldwide Dance Sequence, of which B E N D is a component. For a dance hungry metropolis, this dedication issues.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for numerous cultural teams and universities, significantly on the function of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.
