John Alleyne looks like a man possessed as he oversees a rehearsal for Orpheus, Ballet British Columbia's second full-length work, which had its world premiere in Vancouver Thursday night.
Sitting perfectly erect on the edge of his seat last week, the 42-year-old choreographer, who will celebrate his 10th anniversary as artistic director this year, follows the dancers with wide, transfixed eyes.
Orpheus is the story of a young poet and musician who descended into Hades in search of his dead wife. Armed with his enchanting lyre, he convinces the god of the dead to let him take Eurydice back to Earth. There is one irrevocable condition: If Orpheus should turn around to look at his wife as he pulls her up to the Earth's surface, she will slip back into the netherworld and be lost to him forever.
This premiere is a test, of sorts, for Ballet B.C., as well. The world of dance will be watching closely to see whether Alleyne can transcend his triumphant Faerie Queen after overhauling his troupe.
At the beginning of the season, Ballet B.C. replaced six dancers, or nearly half its 14 members. Alleyne declined to comment at the time, and many in the dance community wondered whether the turnover was a sign of internal discord. He now explains that the change was a necessary step in realizing his long-held ambition to propel the company onto the international stage.
It appears, however, that Alleyne has learned his lessons better than the tragic young hero of his new ballet. In Alleyne's quest for excellence, there will be no looking back.
"I have no regrets," says Alleyne, stabbing at tiny particles of dust and looking more wide-awake and charged than any mortal deserves to feel after a day of rehearsals, with only one week to go before opening night and a full scene to finish choreographing.
"I have an enormous amount of respect and gratitude to the people who were working with this company for a certain amount of time. I believe that sometimes people reach a point where they need to change, they need to go on with their lives. They've gathered as much as a company can offer."
Alleyne's eyes brighten at the thought of his new dancers, a young athletic group, whom he describes as "gorgeous."
In classic Greek myth, the westward journey is a symbol of progress. One glance at the dancers in this troupe -- a robust rainbow of short and tall, with powerful biceps, legs sculpted from steel, wild dreadlocks and pierced lips -- reveals just how far this Pacific Rim company has revolutionized the clone-like image of the classical ballet dancers.
"It's a very exciting time," Alleyne says. "There is a group of old and a group of new and the collision is extremely exciting. There's a knowledge and understanding of what we're doing and then there's the questioning of why the hell are we doing it. That's very good for me to ask those questions again. It forces me to articulate what it is that we're trying to do here."
So what exactly is it that Alleyne's trying to do? Since assuming command of Ballet B.C., which was on the verge of financial collapse in 1992 and thoroughly demoralized by frequent changes in management, the autocratic style of one artistic director and the death of another, Alleyne quickly stabilized the company, built upon its six-year-old tradition of creating new contemporary works and turned it into one of the most esteemed corps in the country.
"When I joined here . . . we knew we were insolvent. Then at one point, we said 'No more surviving. It's all about the art.' That has affected everything."
The debut of Faerie Queen signalled an artistic evolution for the Barbados-born, Montreal-raised choreographer, who graduated from the Toronto-based National Ballet School in 1978, went on to Germany's Stuttgart Ballet (where he began honing his choreographic skills) and back to the National Ballet, where he was danced as a soloist for six years, before being promoted to resident choreographer.
During that time, Alleyne had built a reputation for abstract impressionist pieces that fused classical dance with modern techniques and a collaborative approach. But as he has matured, Alleyne says, and his focus has turned to narrative dance.
"It's a form that has been linked together for a long time. And as ballets have been created and recreated, it seems to be the form that lives longest. The ones that really capture the hearts of audiences and the imagination of audiences is this narrative, full-length story.
"But what we are doing? We have broken so many rules. I believe we have brushed it off and brought some life to it again," he says.
So how is Orpheus going to take the company beyond Faerie Queen?
" Faerie Queen, I love," Alleyne says, dreamily. "It was the first one of these ballets that I've done, so I love it and I will continue to love it. But this, this has more texture. That was a romantic comedy, this is what we call a noble tragedy."
Alexandra Gill