Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s Highgate is about Victorian funerary culture. The choreographer was inspired by her visit to London’s Highgate cemetery.Wendy D
When Vancouver choreographer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg ventured into London's Highgate Cemetery three years ago, the ornate and lushly overgrown tombstones and mausoleums entranced her.
It was her second time through the famed resting place – the first was to see Karl Marx's grave "as you do when you're 19," she quips – and this time, the grand, sinking stones made her reflect on our own mortality, as well as the Victorians' unabashed passion for death.
"People were going broke. They were spending their children's inheritances on these great tombstones and mausoleums," Ms. Friedenberg says. "It's like a city in there – these beautiful streets, all made for the dead."
Soon after, Ms. Friedenberg began transforming her experience into Highgate, a richly dark piece that features some of Vancouver's top dance artists, and tangles horror and humour as it digs into Victorian funerary culture. During the process, she experienced both the birth of her first child and the sudden death of the show's director, English dance luminary Nigel Charnock, which brought the subject matter into even sharper focus.
"In some ways, the Victorians really beautifully respected death, and it was present. The body would be laid out in your home for three days – whereas now, as soon as somebody's a little feeble, they're off to a nursing home. So it struck me that we're not dealing with something that we cannot escape," says Ms. Friedenberg, who has won international acclaim for her sharp, witty choreographic style.
"And there is no choice on that one. Maybe you don't get married, maybe you don't have kids, but you can't say, 'Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do the death thing. I don't think it's for me.'"