A performer in "Bash on Regardless"Photographer: Leif Norman
97 Positions of the Heart
- Choreographed by Brent Lott
- Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers
- At Rachel Browne Theatre in Winnipeg on Tuesday
Dancers speaking difficult language while executing very physical choreography is bound to diminish the impact of the words. That is the challenge Brent Lott and Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers face with the very ambitious 9 7 Positions of the Heart, a dance theatre piece evoking the turbulent love affair between Canadian-born poet Elizabeth Smart and British writer George Barker. The acclaimed novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) is Smart's fictionalized account of that famous relationship.
In the program, Lott refers to the piece as "Dance, Theatre, Poetry," which is an apt description. The movement is propelled by the highly poetic text of Winnipeg writer Jaik Josephson, yet spoken text drowns out the attractive original score by Shirley Grierson and Tim Church. The WCD dancers have always been committed performers, and they pour their hearts out in this piece. There is a problem with optics, however. Lone male Mark Medrano is a baby-face, small frame guy who looks like the five women could eat him for lunch.
There is a lot of creativity in the duets, in how the Barker and Smart figures embrace, entangle and repel. And the five women portray Smart's journey to self-awareness as a clear throughline, from flailing, outthrust limbs, to a vocabulary that is straight, proud and tall. The piece would be stronger if the dancers talked less and danced more.
97 Positions of the Heart will be performed at Ottawa's Canada Dance Festival on June 13.