who we are in the dark (2019)

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We have arrived at another landmark production for Peggy’s company - a large-scale work with a cast of 7 contemporary dancers and 2 rock-star musicians performing live, which toured across Canada and internationally. Peggy writes:

The impetus for who we are in the dark was the urgency of seizing the moment with a new musical collaborator in the wake of a dazzling but brief first project. A 2015 commission from Fall for Dance North threw me together with the sensational indie-rock violinist Sarah Neufeld for a duet we titled fractured black. Sarah’s lyrics for the duet opened with the line, “who we are in the dark” and, with a ferocious appetite to carry on creating together, we zeroed in on that opening line, embracing darkness as the subject for a hugely ambitious project.

Our universe emerged out of darkness. Each of us emerged from the darkness of our mother’s womb, and darkness will swallow us when we die. We live with darkness as we live with light: the alluring darkness of night, intimacy, sexuality, the unconscious; the creeping darkness of uncertainty, malice, suspicion; the confounding darkness of bafflement, mystery, secrets, the unknown and the unknowable; the dreadful darkness of treachery, violence, cruelty, suffering, and grief; the comforting darkness of solace, condolence, and contemplation.

Rather than building the choreography in relation to music, I worked from text as a foundational source for movement invention. The words of Rainer Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, Jeanette Winterson, Jean Genet, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, Henri Michaux, as well as my friend, Toronto poet and translator, Roger Greenwald, and even the horror writer Dean Koontz, are deeply seeded in the choreography. The dancers were crucial, primary collaborators in the creation of movement language. An intense period of initial movement exploration was undertaken with Kate Holden, Sarah Fregeau and David Norsworthy, and their artistry permeates the choreography. Every dancer in the studio during creation has also left their imprint: Sahara Morimoto, Mairi Greig, Jarrett Siddall, Benjamin Kamino, and Naishi Wang, as well as – very early on – Ric Brown and Corrado Cerruto.

A two-week residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity brought Sarah Neufeld into the studio with us, where she developed musical ideas in response to the choreography and where I choreographed to a wildly virtuosic violin solo she brought ready for a scene I hadn’t yet touched. Much of the score was composed in that glorious place during an intense period of undivided concentration that also included access to a theatre. This enabled our first experiments with projections by Jeremy Mimnagh and with the placement and movement of drops by visual artist John Heward, masterminded by lighting designer Marc Parent.

I’d known the work of John Heward since the 1980s. With black paint on un-stretched, repurposed rayon or canvas, torn and gouged with clamps, his works carry a physical history. John’s images had never been used as a part of a stage production before and I took the trust that he placed in me fully to heart. His ill health prevented him from being with us in Banff, and John’s death four months before the premiere marked the devastating loss of a great artist. Sharing the grief of his loss with his family, friends, and colleagues, we dedicated our work to his memory.

Fides Krucker created a remarkable vocal score for the dancers that wove their voices within the sonic design and elevated and amplified their embodiment in powerful and significant ways. Costume designer Robyn Macdonald designed a wardrobe in black, grey, and dark blue that included sheer, black hoodies – cut long and wide – that were worn in many of the scenes. Jeremy Mimnagh’s projections covered the full extent of the floor and the cyc and offered – among many visual pleasures – a startling technicolour finale in the closing scene. John Heward’s many drops slowly accumulated from one scene to the next before being violently torn down and thrown to the floor amid a cacophony of music and movement. Marc Parent – my primary collaborator since 1990 – worked closely with me on every single element of scenic design as well as devising tremendously evocative lighting that transformed the stage for each scene, focusing the visual richness of this work.

The intimate compositional collaboration between Sarah Neufeld and her Arcade Fire bandmate, drummer Jeremy Gara, was a constant source of intense inspiration for all of us, above all the dancers, who revelled in the music and their virtuosic musicianship.

Every planning meeting, design meeting, vocal warm-up, rehearsal, and costume fitting, every on-stage dance party called at the half hour by our tech team of Gabriel Cropley and James Kendal, honestly EVERY moment on this project was an occasion for the deep joy of collaborative creative work.

This was an epic project, and it COULD NEVER have been accomplished without the investment of the Canada Council; the Ontario Arts Council; the Toronto Arts Council; BMO Financial Group; the NAC’s New Creation Fund; the CanDance co-production partners Danse Danse (Pierre Des Marais and Caroline Ohrt), the National Arts Centre, (Cathy Levy), The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Fall for Dance North (Ilter Ibrahimof) and Canadian Stage (Matthew Jocelyn). And furthermore, this project COULD NEVER have been accomplished without my company’s manager Meredith Potter, whose vision, skill and care guided this endeavour. I am filled with gratitude to the splendid artists who went on this adventure with me.

premiere: February 21, 2019, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto
for Canadian Stage & Fall for Dance North

subsequent performances: Danse Danse / Montreal, The Socrates Project / Hamilton, The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The National Arts Centre / Ottawa, Kingston, Whitehorse; The Cervantino Festival, Guanajuato, Mexico; The Holland Dance Festival, Den Haag, Netherlands.

dancers: Sarah Fregeau, Mairi Greig, Kate Holden, Benjamin Kamino / Lukas Malkowski, David Norsworthy / Calder White, Sahara Morimoto / Nicole Rose Bond, Jarrett Siddall / Jera Wolfe

All photos by Jeremy Mimnagh.

Aleatoric Trio No. 1 (2016)

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Preparing for a concert in 2016 she titled Phase Space, Peggy created the first (and only) trio in her Aleatoric series. She writes:

I remained fascinated by the richness of developing dances as part of the aleatoric series (in which I had the dancers call up remembered movements from past works and then explored their potency within a new choreographic framework), and during the research for locus plot I encountered the concept of “phase space” which provided a powerful and stimulating new model for working in this way.

In physics, “phase space” is a term used to describe a disruption of time and space in which the laws of dimensional continuity and evenly paced, sequential time no longer hold true. Phase space can be transformed like working bread dough by stretching, flattening, folding, rolling, punching, and shaping so that the original relationship between any two points in time and space shift in radical and unpredictable ways.

I think of memory as functioning along the same lines as phase space. Certainly, it is a realm that exists outside of the usual conventions of spatial boundaries and linear sequencing. Memory unravels, floats, dissolves, reverses, contracts, expands, and spirals. In my experience, memory has more in common with dreams, fantasy, poetry, music, literature, and painting, than with the chronological experience we expect it to capture.  A memory can languish in the constant flux of reinterpretation or become a narrative so polished it takes on the shining luster of a brittle shell. 

Working with Ric Brown, Sarah Fregeau, and Sahara Morimoto, I reconfigured the movement vocabulary they each brought forward as memories through the use of compositional structures, textures, energies, and themes that I pursued; by disrupting the space with a group of chairs (including two that were child sized) plundered from The Transparent Recital; by the integration of a demanding and far-ranging vocal score by Fides Krucker; and finally by situating musician John Kameel Farah on a ledge about 12 feet up on the back wall of the stage where he could look down to improvise an electronic score according to an open and spontaneous reading of his bird’s eye view of the performance.

Together, these contributions seeded a dreamscape unfolding within a shifting landscape of chairs, and revealing impulses, images, and oblique storylines that emerged from beneath the surface of the steps, amplified by voice, light and electronic sound. Reminiscing about this trio six years later, Sarah Fregeau said, “I loved that piece. All those chairs that were growled at and sung to.”

Aleatoric Trio No. 1 premiered as the opening work in a four-part program titled Phase Space, that also included Aleatoric Solo No. 1 for Sahara Morimoto, Aleatoric Duet No. 2 for Andrea Nann and Sean Ling, and the brand new Aleatoric Solo No. 2 for Kate Holden.

Split Screen Stereophonic (2013)

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Although Peggy had folded mixed gender duets into some of her other works, 2013’s Split Screen Stereophonic is one of only two dances to focus solely on male/female partnering. Peggy writes:

I had a lot of different ideas rattling around in my head when I set out to make the double duet Spilt Screen Stereophonic. Covers of pop songs, vinyl records spinning on turntables, neighbours in apartment buildings living their personal lives on the other side of adjoining walls. I was thinking back on past relationships, about how distinctive the chemistry was within each of them, and I became intrigued by the idea of having two women perform the same choreography as the basis for duets performed simultaneously but developing very differently due of the actions, reactions, and interactions of the men.

Collaborating with Sarah Fregeau and Sahara Morimoto, we developed foundational material working with movement scores based on text from Eduardo Galeano’s sublime writing in The Book of Embraces. Once I brought in the women’s partners, I shifted to rehearsals focused on just one couple at a time – Benjamin Kamino with Sarah, and Sean Ling with Sahara. For a while we played with music by Joni Mitchell and Jane Siberry using the originals for one couple and covers by k.d. lang for the other.

When the time came to move away from the songs and consider music that would be more opened-ended, I thought instantly of a CD Debashis Sinha had released a couple of years earlier with his Berlin-based collaborator, Robert Lippok. I began matching tracks from Nuukoono with scenes from the dance and the fit was effortless – the shifting emotional tones and driving percussion of the music super charged all of the choreographic images.

Jennifer Dallas contributed the costumes – dark reds and browns for one couple and navy and slate grey for the other. Larry Hahn constructed a set that provided each duet with its own backdrop, and Marc Parent created a gorgeous lighting design filtering light through the drops and framing each side of the stage with sharp edges. The title calls up for me John Alleyne’s Split House Geometric, a dance that I always admired.

The original cast was sensational, but dancers who stepped into this work later – David Norsworthy, Ric Brown, Jarrett Siddall, and Kate Holden – also gave unforgettable performances. PB

“Split Screen Stereophonic dove right into the kind of chemistry and constant negotiations… in male-female couplings. Here the (Stereophonic) idea… was conceptually and physically split further in half as the women — Sarah Fregeau and Sahara Morimoto — entered, and in their separately halved sections of the stage, embodied in their active movements and ever-changing gazes, the similar yet different experiences in their relationship with a male partner…” David Fujino, Greater Toronto Chapter of the NAJC.

Piano Quartet (2012)

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Having created three works to piano music by John Cage – In a Landscape, Why the Brook Wept, and furthermore – and with a deep appreciation of his tremendous influence on the development of western music forms, Peggy marked the 2012 centenary of Cage’s birth with a new work in his honour. Peggy writes:

Immediately following its publication in 1996, I began working my way through the dense and stimulating MUSICAGE: Cage Muses on Words Art Music (John Cage, Joan Retallack). Cage had died four years earlier, and this book documented an extraordinary series of in-depth interviews in the last months of his life during which he reflected upon the full breadth of his artistic endeavours. Among countless pleasures, this book provided my first encounter with Cage’s poetry. More than any other writing I know, Cage’s poems (he calls them mesostic texts) feel to me like choreography – in the way that a single idea is pulled apart and reconfigured over an expanse of time, moving beyond the explicit language employed to call up images and juxtapositions that emerge, transform, catalyze and dissolve.

As the centenary of Cage’s birth approached, I began experimenting with his mesostic texts as the basis for movement scores. The process was instantly exciting and generative, so I began listening in earnest to his many works for prepared piano. Commissioned to create a brief solo for dancer Brian Lawson, I chose Cage’s Music for Marcel Duchamp, composed in 1947, and the beauty and fascination I found in that first dance led directly to the decision to tackle Cage’s epic Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.

Piano/Quartet arose through that foundational solo for Brian Lawson (who worked alongside Sahara Morimoto); through subsequent choreographic research during two residencies in Philadelphia (Dance Advance, Pew Centre for the Arts and Heritage / Bill Bissell, director) involving dancers Gregory Holt, Bethany Formica and Shannon Murphy, and ultimately through intensive work with dancers Ric Brown, Sean Ling, Andrea Nann, and Sahara Morimoto.

Caroline O’Brien created a sensational wardrobe that allowed the dancers to switch up costume pieces for each scene; Marc Parent devised a gorgeous and eventful lighting design; and the production was completed with a series of beautiful, painterly projections by Larry Hahn. Upstage centre seated at a grand piano, completely unflustered by the flashing changes in the lighting and projections, and by the rustle, footfall, heavy breathing and constant movement of the dancers, pianist  John Kameel Farah gave an astonishing series of virtuosic performances of some of the 20th Century’s most challenging and daring music. PB

“…mesmerizing…Epic in scope, inventive in structure and emotionally nuanced…” Michael Crabb, The Toronto Star

coalesce (2010)

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coalesce is Peggy’s first ensemble work to be included in her company’s main stage programming. It premiered in Toronto in a concert titled Confluence, presented at EnWave - now Harbourfront Centre Theatre.

Peggy writes: After 20 years of making solos for myself, I was extremely curious about what might happen if I engaged in a creative process with a small group of dancers. I thought that a trio would be within reach for me and brought together as the cast three dancers I deeply admired – Kate Holden, Sean Ling and Sahara Morimoto. I had used one of Sylvia Safdie’s films as a foundational resource for my solo earthling, but there were several others of two insects together and of whole groups of insects that were also fascinating, so I started there.

The dancers and I dug in to learning about communication among insects via pheromones, and played with movement patterns inspired by the many insect appendages including 3 sets of limbs, antennae, wings and mandibles. A very particular sensibility arose by shifting concepts around sensory discernment and by working with the idea of an exoskeleton – a hard, brittle exterior. The trio that arose was highly stylized and absolutely fascinating to watch.

Debashis Sinha was present in the studio with us, sitting at his computer and wearing a set of headphones so that he could develop the sound design parallel to the emergence of the choreography. It did take me some time to land on the proper costuming, but in staging an excerpt of coalesce for the graduating class at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Jennifer Dallas created a fantastic set of costumes and I turned to her to make a new set for my company using the same design.

I took intense pleasure in creating this dance with Kate, Sean, Sahara, and in the new ways of working that arose with Deb and with lighting designer Marc Parent. I knew without a doubt that I had found a way forward beyond making and performing solos, and I moved eagerly into a new phase in my dance life. PB

“Baker's new program indeed transports us to an otherworldly place beyond conventional human experience.” Read more from Michael Crabb’s review in The Toronto Star

The dancer and the insect expert is an article about the involvement of Dr. Darryl Gywnne, a behavioural ecologist and professor of biology at U of T Mississauga in Peggy’s presentaton of Confluence.