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.

Night Garden (2012)

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By 2012 Peggy was well and truly bitten by the Nuit Blanche bug, and set out to create her third installation for Toronto’s all-night celebration of contemporary art. She writes:

The Betty Oliphant Theatre at Canada’s National Ballet School is a big, square auditorium fronted by the façade of a Victorian house that was designed by Jack Diamond. Seating for an audience of 260 rises for 8 rows from the main floor with a large balcony and box seating on both sides above. Surprisingly, the 8 wide rows of upholstered seats may be accordioned back to fit under the balcony, revealing an expansive floor directly in front of the stage.

Wanting to do something special and unexpected for Nuit Blanche, I was extremely excited about staging a work that could proceed with interruption for a full 12 hours on the house floor of the theatre, with the audience watching from above on three sides and coming and going freely throughout the duration of the work. To add to the surreal beauty of this overhead view, Larry Hahn created a set of 12 standing lamps – each with an undulating silver stalk crowned with a glowing white cone – that were arranged in clusters throughout the space. 

Sourcing and then reworking foundational material from coalesce and Piano/Quartet, I developed a 20-minute choreography to be performed successively by four different casts, and with each cycle overlapping in the last few minutes as the work was passed on to the next trio. The extraordinary dancers for this project were Ric Brown, Sarah Fregeau, Kate Holden, Benjamin Kamino, Megumi Kokuba, Amanda LaRusic, Sean Ling, Sahara Morimoto, Andrea Nann, Jessica Runge, Stephanie Tremblay Abubo, and Natalie Westerbeek. The dancers’ black sequined costumes – each one unique and artfully crafted by Jennifer Dallas – glinted in the glowing lamplight, while a gentle, shimmering score by Debashis Sinha resonated throughout the space.

The emotional potency of this durational dance worked on me more and more deeply as the night progressed, and when the final cycle was completed and the space was left empty, and then quiet, and then dark, I was overwhelmed by the feelings of profound grief I had been carrying for the 20 months since the death of my husband.

Encoded Revision (1997)

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By 1996 Peggy and pianist Andrew Burashko had a repertoire that included 19th century western music by Brahms, Chopin and Liszt, early 20th century music by Tcherepnin, mid century compositions by Prokofiev and Cage, and one late 20th century new music work by American composer Peter Garland. What would be their next focus? Peggy fills us in:

“When I opened a conversation on commissioning a new work, Andrew immediately suggested Michael J. Baker who was extremely active in the Toronto music scene as a composer, conductor, and multi-instrumentalist and had been composing for dance since the early 1970s. We quickly agreed on Michael (whose last name I share because we had been married for 12 years of our young adult lives) and were ecstatic when my newly incorporated company, now called Peggy Baker Dance Projects, secured our first ever grant to commission the music.

The score for Encoded Revision requires a performance of post-modern virtuosity by the pianist who is constantly shifting metre and tempo, has text to deliver throughout and is also called upon to manipulate the score pages as props within the choreography. I loved performing this dance, but the choreography did not meet its potential until it was revived with Benjamin Kamino 16 years after its premiere.

The program notes give a full overview of the form and content of the piece:

The creation of this work was based on the literary form of the palimpsest: a document written upon several times, with remnants of earlier, imperfectly erased writing still visible. A palimpsest simultaneously documents and destroys its own history, encoding the original text within a revision.

Buried inside of Encoded Revision, and serving as the original document for the musical palimpsest, is a newspaper account of the tragic death of the composer’s great grandfather in a train accident on the Canadian prairies in 1898. Three generations later the story existed only vaguely in the family’s oral history until it was recovered more completely through the composer’s research. In every available account – newspapers, CPR telegrams, and North West Mounted Police reports – this intriguing bit of information surfaces: “A tramp, who was stealing a ride, was slightly injured, and started walking east after he had his breakfast.” I dance the role of the tramp in Michael’s story.” PB

“Encoded Revision…dates back to 1997, and the intervening 16 years has not dimmed its raucous swagger. … Everything about this solo works. The high octane energy of the dance itself. The sporadic bits of text shouted by Kamino and Farah. The visuals of the flying music paper. It is an utterly engaging romp…” - Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail

To learn more about palimpsests, watch Contemporary Art Theme on YouTube.