News

FILM

Scorsese, Mendes, Harold and Kumar

RICK GROEN

This, you may have noticed, is the time of year when rear-view mirrors compete with crystal balls, when journos proudly drape themselves in pundits' garb, looking back to assess the past and peering ahead to predict the future. Happily, in an industry so rooted in tradition (read: sequels, remakes and rusty formulas) as the movie biz, predicting is a much easier game. There, the rear-view mirror is the crystal ball, and what was is always a pretty good indicator of what will be. So, a squinting Nostradamus, I am prepared to eyeball the coming months and offer these modest but bet-the-house-on-it musings.

There will be, in 2008, movies with numbers after their titles, and most will prove yet again that the bigger the number, the paler the imitation. The exception? Bond 22, of course, only because Daniel Craig is an actor with serious resurrecting powers, blessed with the brains and the brawn to put the "Oh!" back in 007. Elsewhere on the franchise front, Harry Potter will continue to potter away in the late fall, Narnia will chronicle anew in the early spring, and neither will disappoint too much or amaze in the slightest. Dearly hoping to amaze after his recent spate of relative clunkers, Steven Spielberg will be remining that old motherlode, the Indiana Jones saga, with Harrison Ford out to show that age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his finite variety. We'll see about that.

There will be continued advances in the kind of CGI technology that allows intrepid directors to make the puerile action of comic books look really, really realistic. This will remind me of the continued advances in technology that allow John to text-message Mary instantly from across vast distances, an innovation that neatly sidesteps the niggling question: "Yeah, but does John have anything to say to Mary?" Speaking of comic books and their cinematic adornment, Hollywood talent scouts will do what they have long done best: Spot a smart and visually gifted foreign director — in this case, Guillermo del Toro of Pan's Labyrinth fame — and offer him big bucks to fritter away his skills on the likes of the Hellboy series. Yep, watch for Hellboy II on July 11 — that would be summer blockbuster season.

What else? There will be another Michael Moore doc, complete with more accusatory wagging of his chubby middle finger. And there will be our very own Mike Myers, attempting in The Love Guru to combine in a single movie his twin passions in life: the sensible one for humour and that twisted, risible, tragic one for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I'm guessing, too, there will be plenty of romance comedies dotted with that ubiquitous love-in-bloom montage, followed by the breaking-up-is-hard-to-do montage, each scored with some sappy tune telling us what we already know. More predictable still, there will be lots of celebrated thespians giving lots of brief interviews to lots of attentive media, all confirming something else we already know — that the famous have precious little to say, and the fawning abundant time to listen.

Yet this also will come to pass: The movies, as they always do, will offer pleasant, even joyous surprises. The surprise could be delightfully small — just a fancy-tickling line of dialogue, or a lovely shot bursting out of an otherwise mundane palette. Or it could be major, like the emergence of a talent as vibrantly unique as Ellen Page, or of a film so gripping, and so rich in emotional fallout, that you leave the theatre with your world view momentarily changed — the same streets look different, the same heart beats faster. Here, then, are five upcoming pictures that could alter your landscape and quicken your pulse. No guarantees, but maybe, just maybe.

Shine a Light: Martin Scorsese, who has borrowed so liberally from the Rolling Stones to score his own movies, now goes directly to the source. This is a concert film, and, since the Stones can still put on a credible concert, and Scorsese knows a thing or two about capturing rock on film, here's hoping. (April 4)

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: They were a hoot in White Castle and, if terrorists and torture and wrongful detention can be made the stuff of politically incorrect yuks, these two are just the boys for the job. (April 25)

Revolutionary Road: Based on the once-neglected and now-revered Richard Yates novel, this tale of suburban angst is directed by a veteran of the genre — Sam Mendes, brandishing his American Beauty credentials. With Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in the warring leads, Yates's dispatches from domestic hell threaten to be searingly raw. (Slated for release on Dec. 19)

Where the Wild Things Are: Take Maurice Sendak's groundbreaking children's book, then add to the mix director Spike Jonze who, in Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, has been known to break a little ground himself. It might be a sublime match. (No release date yet.)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Curious, indeed, given the mix of talents here: Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton starring in a David Fincher adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, the one about a man who's born old and ages backwards. Sounds like a fine idea in this youth-worshipping culture, and, perhaps, if we just began the calendar in December and reversed to January, we could all trick ourselves into doing the same. In which case, Happy Old Year. (Nov. 26, on the current calendar)

 

THEATRE

The first look at Stratford's new gang of four

MICHAEL POSNER

If buzz is any criterion, it promises to be an exciting year for theatre in Canada.

At Stratford, there's eager anticipation about what the new creative team of four will achieve. Antony Cimolino, Marti Maraden, Des McAnuff and Don Shipley — have replaced Richard Monette, festival artistic director for 14 years.

Befitting the recently renamed Stratford Shakespeare Festival, this season is rich in the Bard — Romeo and Juliet (directed by McAnuff), Hamlet (Adrian Noble), The Taming of the Shrew (Peter Hinton), All's Well That Ends Well (Maraden) and Love's Labour's Lost (Michael Langham).

But there are several novel productions as well, including Fuente Ovejuna, by Shakespeare's Spanish contemporary Lope de Vega, The Trojan Women by Euripides, Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw and the Canadian premiere of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Emilia Galotti, directed by Germany's Michael Thalheimer.

A few hundred kilometres southeast, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., Shaw Festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell has assembled an appealing playbill that features two Bernard Shaws ( Mrs. Warren's Profession and Getting Married) and two musicals ( Wonderful Town and A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim's musical adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night, directed by Morris Panych).

Black Watch, an acclaimed production of the National Theatre of Scotland arrives in Toronto as part of the city's Luminato festival in early June. Based on interviews conducted by playwright Gregory Burke, the drama deals with the lives of British soldiers who served in Iraq, focusing on the Scottish regiment.

Jointly with the CBC, the Mirvish organization is staging The Sound of Music — the lead part of Maria to be cast during a six-week reality TV series called How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria.

Next month, the Mirvish organization is importing a much-celebrated production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Part I and II, adapted from the Dickens novel in a new version by David Edgar.

Meanwhile, impresario Aubrey Dan unveils the crown jewel in his inaugural subscription season, Des McAnuff's Tony Award-winning production of Jersey Boys, at Toronto's Centre for the Performing Arts Aug 21.

The smaller Toronto companies have yet to announce their 2008-09 programs, but there are intriguing possibilities in what remains of the current seasons. Factory Theatre has two short works by a much-talked-about young playwright, Hannah Moscovitch, Russian Play and Essay, opening Jan. 19. The Canadian Stage Company has assembled a formidable cast — Fiona Reid, Seana McKenna and Joseph Ziegler — to mount Sarah Ruhl's comedy, The Clean House, starting Feb. 11. And the Tarragon is offering Michael Frayn's acclaimed Democracy, directed by Richard Rose, starting Feb. 26.

While Olympic hoopla is some way off, Vancouver's theatre community has claimed 2008 as its year for athletic achievement — and border crossings.

Clark and I somewhere in Connecticut is shaping up to be the didja-see-it star of the always-stellar PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Jan. 16 to Feb. 3). When actor/writer James Long discovered a suitcase full of photo albums, he and his buddies from the theatre underground embarked on a quest to reconstruct the archivist's life — and turn her into a play.

The Playhouse also has at least one new trick up its sleeve: Morris Panych will direct his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's The Amorous Adventures of Anatol, a story, laced with that classic Panych snarl (Feb. 16 to Mar. 8).

And Canada truly comes to town when The Magnetic North Theatre Festival (June 4 to 14) corrals the finest English theatre in the country on Vancouver stages. At the centre of the action is Hive 2, a bento box of small, interactive dramas presented by 11 British Columbia companies.

With files from Michael Harris in Vancouver

 

MUSIC

The buzz is that The Fly is coming to the opera house

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN

Given what we're doing to the planet these days, 2008 may find no better musical outlet for the state of things we're in than the forthcoming opera version of The Fly, David Cronenberg's 1983 film about a guy whose DNA gets scrambled with that of a housefly when his teleporter device acquires one bug too many. Howard Shore is writing the music, Dante Ferretti (who won an Oscar for art direction on the film The Aviator) is doing the sets, and the show will open at the Paris Opera on July 1 and at Los Angeles Opera on Sept. 7. The L.A. premiere comes one day after former standup comedian Woody Allen's debut as an opera director (talk about a freaky transformation) with the same company in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.

Also in 2008, Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music will open its much-anticipated expansion of its Victorian headquarters, including a new recital hall. What I saw of the project during a hard-hat tour was very impressive. Maybe we'll also hear some positive news of l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal's continuing efforts to build a concert hall, which has attracted hefty government support but no private development partner as of yet.

Perhaps this year we'll move closer to some more rational, comprehensive model for the distribution of digital music. Radiohead's experiment with a hybrid system (pay-what-you-will for an MP3-quality download album and pay regular price for a later hard-copy issue) may, when all the numbers are in, turn out to be viable for many other musicians.

Maybe people will start to get fed up with the often tinny sound of ear-buds attached to miniature music players, and we'll have a rebirth of interest in what used to be called hi-fi. In my utopian 2008, Neil Young's three concerts at Massey Hall in November could launch a related movement among performers to rethink the merits of the one-night stadium show. A big-box experience may be okay when you're buying a table-saw, but so many musicians end up subverting their own music in these cavernous hockey barns. Recent experiments in high-definition movie-house broadcasts by high-brow organizations like the Metropolitan Opera may spark some similar activity among popular musicians. A lot of people might actually prefer a broadcast of Led Zeppelin from a historic London theatre to an evening spent squinting at them from the upper reaches of Montreal's Bell Centre, assuming the band would even tour.

And I'm hoping for exciting if not life-changing recordings from quite a few musicians next year, including kd lang, Hot Chip, Hayden, Cat Power, Magnetic Fields, Kronos Quartet, Beck, Laurie Anderson, Goldfrapp, Erykah Badu, Sam Phillips, Luke Doucet and Shelby Lynne. And that's just in the first quarter.

Events high on my radar for the coming year include the Canadian Opera Company's production of Janacek's final opera From the House of the Dead, apparently the first full production in Canada (opening Feb. 2); Ben Heppner's Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast of Tristan und Isolde (March 22); New Music Concerts' Toronto celebration of the music of 20th-century pioneer Edgard Varese (next Saturday and Sunday); new-music festival s from orchestras in Winnipeg (Feb. 2-7), Toronto (April 9-17), Ottawa (March 26-29) and Windsor (Jan 28-Feb. 3). I'm also looking forward to the next editions of the Calgary Folk Music Festival, the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont., the Osheaga Festival in Montreal, the Halifax Pop Explosion and the Dawson City Music Festival.

 

PUBLISHING

Trade hopes buyers' focus turns to content, not price

JAMES ADAMS

After all of last year's fuss and fury, huffery and puffery, have Canadians had enough of Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney?

Toronto-based McClelland & Stewart is betting the answer is no. The long-established publishing house, which marks its 102nd birthday this year, is planning to publish an exposition on corporate governance and legal persecution by the convicted former media baron. Black reportedly began writing it early last year after completing his 1,152-page Richard Nixon biography, The Invincible Quest, which M & S published as a $45 hardcover last May.

Meanwhile, Mulroney is on tap to add an afterword to his 1,152-page tome, Memoirs 1939-1993, which M & S is issuing as a trade paperback in early September. The former prime minister is expected to expound on the Karlheinz Schreiber affair, which he only flicks at in the acknowledgments in the current hardcover. It won't, however, be an exhaustive treatment; that's for another, bigger book that M & S hopes will surface by the end of the decade.

More immediately, the Canadian publishing industry is going to be occupied for the next several weeks with fallout from the 2007 autumn/Christmas season. How many unsold copies of, say, Jean Chrétien's autobiography will be flooding back to Knopf Canada from the Indigo chain, which, depending on whom you talk to, accounts for 65 to 80 per cent of Canada's retail market? And what impact did the various discounts that multinational publishers, distributors and booksellers offered on U.S.-originated titles have on their bottom lines as the industry tried to adjust to the rise of the Canadian dollar?

Just how volatile the swings in the exchange rate will be in 2008 is, of course, anybody's guess right now. That said, expect to see fewer dual prices on U.S.-originated titles for sale here — and if a book does carry both a U.S. and Canadian suggested list price on its cover, there's probably going to be no more than a 10 or 12 per cent discrepancy between the two. Simon & Schuster Canada, for one, has indicated it's adopting a blend of the two regimes: It plans to have a Canada-only price on about 150 U.S.-originated titles for sale this spring, but that price will be slightly higher than the American price.

The hope here, of course, is that the price issue that dominated discussion and generated so many headlines in the last four months of 2007 will recede, and consumers will concentrate on content more than cost. Certainly the Canadian lists for this year appear to offer an eclectic feast for the eye and mind.

Among the highlights: new fiction from A Complicated Kindness author Miriam Toews (a novel called Who Do You Have?), Rawi Hage (a novel, C ockroach), David Bergen (a novel, The Retreat), poet Patrick Lane (a debut novel called Red Dog, Red Dog), Bill Gaston (a Champlain-themed work of historical fiction called The Order of Good Cheer), Mavis Gallant (a collection of little-known short fiction), Joseph Boyden (a novel following on the success of Three Day Road), 1997 Giller Prize nominee Shani Mootoo (a novel). Also on tap: an anthology of excerpts from the winners of the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Non-fiction authors with new titles that should spark interest include Gabor Maté ( In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Encounters with Addiction), former Globe and Mail science writer Alanna Mitchell ( The Deeps), Taras Grescoe ( Bottomfeeder: A Seafood Lover's Journey to the End of the Food Chain), John Ralston Saul ( A Fair Country) and Stewart Berman, who's edited an oral biography of Broken Social Scene called This Book is Broken.

Other things to keep an eye on:

Canada Reads: The contest begins its seventh annual instalment in February on CBC Radio One. Along with the Scotiabank Giller Prize — which marks its 15th anniversary in November — it's become the only guarantor of bestsellerdom for a Canadian novel or collection of short stories in this country. Look for a repeat of the phenomenon once the winner from this year's short list of five is announced Feb. 29.

Indigo Books and Music: The retailer will continue as the dominant player in the sector but you're going to see more indies and mini-chains opening stores in niche locales in our larger cities carrying a carefully edited selection of titles. TYPE Books in Toronto's Forest Hill Village, which opened barely a month before Christmas last year, and Ben McNally Books in Toronto's Bay Street hub — it opened last summer — are two examples of the trend.

Canadian history: The genre has had a tough go sales-wise in the last five years. But Penguin Group (Canada) is hoping it can buck the trend with its Extraordinary Canadians series, which makes its debut in March. With John Ralston Saul as general editor, the series pairs a well-known writer (and not necessarily one associated with non-fiction) with a well-known deceased subject. Among the combos: David Adams Richards and Lord Beaverbrook, M.G. Vassanji and Mordecai Richler, Charlotte Gray and Nellie McClung, Wayne Johnston and Joey Smallwood, Joseph Boyden and Louis Riel/Gabriel Dumont.

 

TV

Writers' strike may have a silver lining for Canadian TV

JOHN DOYLE

So, what next in the season of the Hollywood writers' strike?

As everyone involved in the TV industry steps into 2008, the atmosphere is twitchy, the mood is acrimonious. Here in Canada, nervousness is pervasive.

The writers' strike in the United States has made the year 2008 the great unknown. When will the strike end? Nobody knows. The pilot season — that time when studios and broadcasters order scripts for upcoming shows to air in the 2008/09 season — would normally already be under way. Now, it's kaput.

This means that come fall, 2008, we might see a new TV season like none before it — one that's hastily done, half-arranged and still very much in development when it starts.

In Canada, January is the real start to the TV season, and CBC plans to launch several major dramatic series in the next few weeks as well as a high-profile reality series. The writers' strike may have a silver lining in Canada — the lack of new episodes of hit series might draw bereft viewers to Canadian content they wouldn't normally choose. On the other hand, all these new Canadian series may fail to have an impact, and the U.S. channels might ignore the Canadian content that's for sale. Hence, the nervousness.

The good news for viewers is that there will be some excellent TV in the first few months of 2008. There are great cable shows coming. And some of those CBC series are definitely worth your time.

First, the U.S. networks: They've got reality shows ready to roll, and the great juggernaut of network TV, Fox's American Idol, returns on Jan. 15, unaffected by the strike. And they've still got scripted series held in reserve for the mid-season.

NBC's Law & Order has already returned (here on CTV) with new cast members. Law & Order: Criminal Intent also comes back to NBC on Wednesday. Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles — airing here on CTV — starts on Sunday, Jan. 13, then moves into its regular Monday slot the next day for the second part of a two-night premiere. A follow-up to the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it chronicles what happens when Sarah (Lena Headey) goes on the offensive against that pesky technological enemy bent on destroying her life and perhaps the world. Her son, 15-year-old John Connor (Thomas Dekker), knows that he may be the future saviour of mankind. Fox also has New Amsterdam, a moody thriller about an immortal detective (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in New York.

ABC has the Sex and the City-inspired Cashmere Mafia, starting tomorrow, with Lucy Liu and Bonnie Somerville, about four women pals in New York. In direct competition is NBC's Lipstick Jungle, starting Feb. 7. Written by Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell, it stars Brooke Shields and Kim Raver ( 24) as successful women seeking love in New York. Meanwhile, ABC also has Eli Stone, starting Jan. 31 (in Canada on CTV), a drama starring Jonny Lee Miller as a hallucinating lawyer. The eight completed episodes of Lost are expected to air on ABC and CTV at the end of the month.

Whatever happens in the coming months, the key issue behind the strike by U.S. TV writers — the streaming of TV shows on the Internet — is likely to dominate the TV landscape for the year and beyond. The manner in which TV is delivered to viewers is changing constantly. Fortunately, there is still a lot of quality TV to be delivered and enjoyed.

Here are five to watch:

The Wire (HBO/TMN, Movie Central): The show, returning for its final season tomorrow about cops and drug dealers in Baltimore is easily the most ambitious, intricate and powerful U.S. TV drama ever made. And the new season doesn't disappoint. Creator David Simon, an ex-newspaper man, uses The Baltimore Sun paper as a backdrop to the continuing battle between forces that are equally flawed and compelling.

In Treatment (HBO/TMN, Movie Central, starts Jan. 28): This production stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, a psychotherapist who seeks therapy for himself because, under his calm demeanour, he's a total mess. A half-hour drama-comedy, it will air Monday to Friday, with four episodes devoted to Paul seeing his patients and the fifth episode covering Paul's session with his own shrink.

Would Be Kings (CTV, date to be announced): This two-part miniseries loosely based on Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, is about two cousins, both police officers, dealing with corruption on the force. Starring Ben Bass and Natasha Henstridge, it's written by Esta Spalding and Tassie Cameron, two of our best TV writers, and directed by David Wellington.

The Border (CBC, starts Monday): Worth your attention not because it's brilliant — it isn't — but because it is anchored in highly charged, headline-grabbing Canadian issues. Outrageously melodramatic at times, it deals with big, big political and social matters in a big, broad manner.

MVP (CBC, starts Jan. 11)

CBC's new soap isn't so much about professional hockey as it is about the bedrooms of the players and the boardrooms of the teams. Sexy, funny and fresh, it's a gloriously entertaining series.

 

VISUAL ARTS

Toronto awaits the AGO reopening; Cuban art comes to Montreal

SARAH MILROY

In the visual arts, there will be three big stories unfolding in 2008: the opening of the Art Gallery in Ontario in Toronto in the late fall, the future direction of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the yea or nay on the Vancouver Art Gallery's bid to move to a city-owned site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The closing of the Art Gallery of Ontario for the completion of renovations back in the fall has deepened the stillness of the art scene in Toronto.

But preliminary omens (glimpses from advance tours of the building itself, plus the news of acquisitions and commissions) are encouraging that the project will be worth the wait. The recent appointment of Catherine de Zegher (formerly of The Drawing Centre in New York) to head up programming also augurs well.

At the National Gallery of Canada, director Pierre Théberge, at the helm since 1998, will likely turn over the reins toward the end of next year, allowing for the most significant viz-arts head-hunting expedition on Canadian soil. My wish list for consideration includes Douglas Druick, chief curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, Louis Grachos, director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and Willard Holmes, who recently resigned as director of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn. (all three of them high-achieving expat Canadians), as well as Marc Mayer, currently director of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and possible dark-horse candidate Louise Déry at Montreal's Galerie l'UQAM.

Lastly, the Vancouver Art Gallery is still in a holding pattern on its building project, but it will be presenting to city council in the early spring and hopes are high for a swift resolution. Meanwhile, the volume of visitors at the VAG this year (more than 400,000) and the difficulty of installing contemporary art in the converted-courthouse spaces has made clearer than ever the need for action.

Canadians looking for a major international contemporary-art hit will have two must-do trips this year south of the border: the Whitney Biennial in New York (March 6 to June 1), and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (May 3 to Jan. 11, 2009).

At home in Canada, a number of shows are also worth cashing in the air miles for:

Simon Starling (at Toronto's The Power Plant, March 1 to May 11): Winner of the Turner Prize in 2005, Starling is one of Britain's most interesting emerging artists, making installation and sculptural works that take artistic process as their implicit subject. For the Toronto show, Starling is making a work that responds to the legacy of his historic fellow countryman Henry Moore. Starling has suspended a replica of Moore's sculpture Warrior with Shield in Lake Ontario, where it has served as host to a colony of zebra mussels. This paradoxical object, which will be displayed in this exhibition, comments on the issue of national autonomy and the colonizing force of invading cultural norms.

Joe Fafard (at Ottawa's National Gallery Feb. 1 to May 4): The travelling survey exhibition of quintessential Saskatchewan artist Joe Fafard includes his bronzed miscellany of cows, horses and prominent Canadians from Margaret Atwood to John Diefenbaker. The show is followed by the gallery's summer blockbuster, The 1930s: The Making of the New Man (June 5 to Sept. 7). Under the artistic direction of Parisian curator Jean Clair, this compendious show will describe the way in which new concepts of man altered by advances in science find expression in art. It will include work by Giacometti, Arp, Kandinsky, Ernst, Picasso and Dali.

KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art (at the Vancouver Art Gallery, May 17 to Sept. 7)

This exhibition will explore the interface between the world of fine art and the burgeoning field of animation, and includes Art Spiegelman's graphic novels animated cartoons by Tim Johnson and anime/manga images by Toshiya Ueno and Kiyoshi Kusumi. Krazy! is followed on Oct. 4 at VAG by WACK! Art and Feminist Revolution, the landmark touring show from the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art that aims to chart comprehensively the rise of the women's movement in art from 1965 to 1980.

Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today (at the Montreal Musuem of Fine Arts, Jan. 31 to June 8): A massive exhibition will take us through Cuba's history as a Spanish colony, a playground for U.S. capital and, most recently, a communist state, all the more timely now with the recent mention of a formal withdrawal from political life by the ailing Fidel Castro.

Geoffrey Farmer (at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Feb. 8 to April 20): A career retrospective of this Vancouver artist, who has developed a strong following over the past 10 years for his photographs, videos, drawings, sculptures and installations.

 

DANCE: An embarrassment of riches on the horizon

PAULA CITRON

Looking ahead to dance in 2008, it is a very rich landscape indeed in terms of international companies.

Ottawa dance fans continue to be the luckiest in the country, with the motherlode presented by the National Arts Centre. Between January and June, a starry array of eight big names from abroad will appear at the NAC (www.nac-cna.ca). To a lesser extent, Montreal is also blessed as several companies going to Ottawa pass by that city as well. Perhaps the most notable ensemble appearing in both is Belgium's Rosas (Montreal/Usine C/Jan. 29-Feb. 1; Ottawa/NAC/Feb. 5). Revered artistic director Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, herself a genius of contemporary dance, has taken on as her muse another genius, minimalist American composer Steve Reich, with Fase. Montreal does have a plum of its own with Danse Danse presenting Nacho Duato's always exciting Compania Nacional de Danza from Spain (Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier/March 6-8).

Thanks to both World Stage and Luminato Festival, Toronto is also picking up big names. The former is presenting Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company from the United States (Enwave Theatre/April 16-19), a company that has transformed socio-political statements into high art. Also of interest is New Zealand's all-male, testosterone-driven Black Grace (Premiere Dance Theatre/April 30-May 3) that is also appearing in Ottawa (NAC/April 15).

Luminato (June 6-15) is bringing in the iconoclast American Mark Morris Dance Group and Frankfurt, Germany-based ballet bad boy William Forsythe and his The Forsythe Company (dates/venues to be announced/www.luminato.com). On the Luminato national front, Alberta Ballet is sharing the stage with the National Ballet of Canada (Four Seasons Centre/June 13- 22). AB is remounting its huge hit The Fiddle and The Drum choreographed by Jean Grand-Maître to the songs of Joni Mitchell. The National performs Harald Lander's ultra-classical Etudes and Forsythe's cheeky The Second Detail.

Vancouver will be getting its own big-ticket series next season, but until then, the city is being well-served in a more modest way by Kokoro Dance and its Vancouver International Dance Festival. During the month of March, the festival is featuring an impressive list of 14 companies from Spain, France, Japan, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (www.vidf.ca).

Home seasons by Canadian companies are also noteworthy. Brett Lott, artistic director of Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, is creating his much-anticipated first full-length work (WCD Studio/March 6-8), while Halifax's Mocean Dance has had a great idea for The Reaction Project (Sir James Dunn Theatre/May 22-24). In the latter, four choreographers (Carolle Crooks, Sara Harrigan, Lesandra Dodson and Lisa Phinney) have created works from the same seed of inspiration.

Veteran choreographer/dancers are touring the country. Margie Gillis is celebrating her 35th anniversary as a performer with M.Body.7, a lavish premiere featuring nine female dancers ranging in age from 10 to 72. Gillis appears in Montreal (Théâtre Maisonneuve/Feb. 29 and March 1) and Vancouver (Centennial Theatre/March 14 and 15). Peggy Baker is taking her own choreography and a new duet by James Kudelka to Calgary (University Theatre/Jan. 23 and 24), Montreal (Cinquième Salle/Feb. 20-23) and Toronto (Betty Oliphant Theatre/March 6-9). Gioconda Barbuto and Emily Molnar have created a multimedia show with photographer/video artist Michael Slobodian that opens in Montreal (L'Agora de la danse/Jan. 16-19) before touring to Vancouver (Scotiabank Dance Centre/Feb. 7-9).

The 2008 season is also seeing new work from ballet artistic directors.

Ballet British Columbia's John Alleyne is creating his rite of passage The Four Seasons (Queen Elizabeth Theatre/Feb. 14-16), his first new work in two years. There are a lot of very good extant ballets to Vivaldi's popular score so the benchmark for Alleyne is high. Alberta Ballet's Jean Grand-Maître is taking on a massive project in Mozart's Requiem (Calgary/South Jubilee Auditorium/March 27-29; Edmonton/North Jubilee Auditorium/April 4-5). This homage to lost soldiers features an 100-voice choir in both cities. On a smaller scale, Ballet Victoria's new chief Paul Destrooper is creating Amsterdam to the songs of Jacques Brel (McPherson Theatre/Feb. 8).

It is a very difficult to list the top five upcoming dance events of 2008. The following choices, in alphabetical order, reflect my personal taste.

[bjm_danse]/Aszure Barton (Ottawa/Canada Dance Festival/June 7-14/Date TBA): The NAC and CDF have commissioned a new work from Alberta-born Barton for the company formerly known as Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal. The brilliant New York-based Barton produces delectable works that are quirky, deep, cheeky and poignant. Her quicksilver, unpredictable movement always astonishes the eye.

The Chimera Project/Malgorzata Nowacka (Toronto/Harbourfront Next Steps/Enwave Theatre/April 3-5): From the very blast of her very first piece, Nowacka shook the audience with her ability to capture the disaffected Queen Street East, mean streets punk culture. Muscular and fierce, her movement is an avalanche of energy. Her new work, The Hidden Spot, is her spin on faith and secularism.

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens/Ohad Naharin (Montreal/Théâtre Maisonneuve/April 3-5, 10 and 12; Ottawa/NAC/April 8): The Montreal troupe is a master at executing the highly charged, spirited and provocatively hip dances of the acclaimed, avant-garde Israeli choreographer. The program Ode to Ohad features his first original work for Les Grands and his first ever ballet-sur-pointes.

Mark Morris Dance Group (Toronto/Luminato Festival/MacMillan Theatre /June 6-15/Date to be announced): This is Morris's first visit to Canada in 10 years and he's coming in a big way with three different programs. For someone who broke all the rules of contemporary dance when he formed his company in 1980, the always passionate and droll choreographer is still reinventing himself with each new innovative work.

Martin Bélanger (Toronto/Dancemakers Presents/Dancemakers Centre for Creation/Feb. 14-16; Vancouver International Dance Festival/Roundhouse Theatre/March 21-22): The dance essay Spoken word/body by the sensational Montreal choreographer/writer is a cunning fusion of language and physicality — or what he calls a "body-consciousness relationship." His personal concerns range from science fiction to the influence of fear, and everything in between. This clever 2003 work made Bélanger's formidable reputation overnight.