Strand (1997)

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In 1997 Peggy Baker Dance Projects joined forces with Toronto Dance Theatre - led by Artistic Director Christopher House – and Arraymusic – led by Artistic Director Michael J. Baker – to co-produce and co-present a two-week performance run of dance and live music titled musicDANCEarray. TDT and Peggy each had their own concert program featuring live music performed by members of the Arraymusic ensemble; and Arraymusic’s program included works contributed by both of the dance companies. This week Peggy looks at one of the new works on her program for this season, entitled Strand.

“One of two premieres for me was Strand, performed to a delicate, spare and nuanced piano score by Ann Southam. I had known Ann’s music since in the early 1970s through the repertoire of Toronto Dance Theatre, and I had first danced to one of her electronic scores in 1974 for Anna Blewchamp’s powerful and disturbing Arrival of All Time. When I approached Anne for a solo piano piece, she offered Spatial View of Pond, which had been commissioned by Arraymusic for pianist Henry Kucharzyk, so it was a perfect fit for our shared project.

Strand was choreographed bar by bar to Ann’s music with the movement arising as a response to phrases of text extracted from the writing of American author May Sarton, whose journals eloquently chronicle the way in which our lives arise through the detail of each small act. For the dance, Ann allowed me to have the pianist release the sustain pedal to cut the last note off at the moment that my final gesture completed.

The photographer V. Tony Hauser invited me to dance Strand for his camera, and his portraits – which I love – capture the essence of gesture and unguarded emotion that lay at the heart of the dance.”

Discover more about May Sarton’s journal writing here on newcriterion.com.

Completely unrelated, but awesome nevertheless, read about Ann Southam’s extraordinary contribution to the Canadian Women’s Foundation here at cbc.ca.

Photos of Peggy Baker by V. Tony Hauser

Beautiful Day (1992)

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The final work from 1992 is Beautiful Day, a duet by Mark Morris, created in part on members of his company, and in part on Peggy and her duet partner for this piece, Christopher House.

“It was with no small measure of regret that I left The White Oak Dance Project and the company’s repertoire of magnificent dances by Mark Morris. So once I was settled in Toronto I contacted Mark to ask if he might make a duet for Christopher House and me. I hadn’t yet had the chance to dance with Christopher, and I thought a duet by Mark would be a spectacular way of thanking him for The Windows, the solo he made for me in 1989. I also thought it would be a way of sharing some part of the incredible world that had opened up for me during my time in New York.

Mark had just begun a new duet with some of his company dancers – work he would have to interrupt to fulfill a commission for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens – and he suggested that Christopher and I work with him in Montreal, learning the first half of the duet from video of his dancers and then finishing the work with us to take back to his company. The time together was absolutely magical, and the duet a jewel!” PB

“I was working on Beautiful Day with three couples from my company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, at the same time as I was working in Montreal with Les Grands. Peggy, Christopher House, Teri Weksler (as my assistant) and I worked together to finish the piece. It was premiered by my dancers (originally Clarice Marshall and Keith Sabado) at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom in 1992. The dance gets its title, and is set to, the aria “Schlage doch, gewünste stunde” from a rarely performed cantata (attributed to J.S. Bach, but unlikely) for alto voice, strings, and handbells. It is built on a study in combining angular momentum with spiral force, whatever that means. I must say, it was an enormous pleasure to work with Peggy and Christopher, both fabulous dancers, Canadian National Living Treasures, and my friends. And it’s a beautiful dance.” MM

Listen to a 1992 CBC radio interview with Peggy and host Vicki Gabereau here.
Read more about Melchior Hoffman, the more likely composer of the music than J. S. Bach here on Wikipedia
Read about the history of the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom in The New Yorker here.

White Oak and the Great White North - 1990

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This week we take a brief break from looking back at the repertoire, and focus on Peggy’s decision to return to Canada from New York in 1990 - a pivotal career move that would present her with the opportunity to create her own company and artistic home for the next thirty plus years:

“I danced with the Lar Lubovitch Company for eight magnificent years. That experience delivered me into the deep physical poetry of Lar’s choreographic vision; into the thrilling raucous and thrum of life as a dancer in 1980s New York; out into the wide world on stages across the globe; and into the heart of myself as an artist. But as sometimes happens with a dancer and a choreographer, I eventually found myself out of sync with the evolving form and content of Lar’s work, and in the summer of 1988, I left the company to make the time and space to consider other possibilities for myself.

Over the next year I gave more of my time to teaching, looking for the voice and values that would emerge outside the framework of the company. I considered pursuing an apprenticeship with my teacher Jean-Claude West, but got side-tracked when I agreed to undertake a self-produced concert at Danspace Project, St Mark’s with two colleagues. When one of the dancers took another opportunity it was suddenly a concert of solos and duets. Now in my late thirties, I imagined that I might only dance for a few more years, so I began seeking out choreographers whose work I loved to make solos for me – Christopher House, Doug Varone, Annabelle Gamson, Molissa Fenley, Tere O’Connor.

And then, my relationship of six years suddenly collapsed. I needed to find a new place to live, but I was traveling so much to teach - and I was at such loose ends as a dancer - that I thought “where would I live if I wasn’t living here?” Vancouver? Too far away. Toronto? Going back and not forward. Montreal? Yes! It is a fantastic scene! I will learn to speak French! One of my closest friends lives there, and bang! he invites me to be his roommate! So I complete the Danspace concert with Janie Brendel, and I arrive at the home of James Kudelka in Montreal as the city is reeling and deep in mourning in the aftermath of the massacre at l’Ecole Polytechnique.

By January 1990, Tedd Robinson had programmed me for his Winnipeg dance festival in May, and James had introduced me to Marc Parent, a young lighting wizard who would be my lighting designer/technical director/stage manager for that first concert in Winnipeg. I arranged to revive Paul-André Fortier’s masterwork Non Coupable, learning the dance from Susan Macpherson who originated the solo.

Out of the blue I got a phone call from Barry Alterman, then the manager of Mark Morris Dance Group, to say that Mark was starting a new company with Misha (aka Mikhail Baryshnikov) called the White Oak Dance Project and would I join? So with my things from New York still in a storage unit in Montreal, and with the contents of one suitcase in the bureau of my bedroom at James’ apartment in the old city, I repacked my second suitcase and began shuttling between: Montreal; Winnipeg (where I debuted as a soloist and, oh yes, fell in love with someone who lived in Toronto); Jacksonville, Florida (the closest airport to the rehearsal location for the White Oak Dance Project) and New York (the second White Oak location); Durham, North Carolina (for a teaching gig at American Dance Festival); Toronto (because now I had Ahmed Hassan to visit!); and touring destinations across the US with White Oak.

After that rollicking ride with White Oak in 1990, I realized that what I wanted to do most was follow Misha’s example and be a dancer in charge of my own creative life. And so in December of that year, I found myself in Toronto, going forward and not backward. No master plan about a solo career; just a tremendous appetite to explore the solo form and to find out what would happen if I stepped into a studio alone and no one told me what to do.” - PB

For a window into the contemporary Euro-American dance scene in 1980s New York City watch Making Dances here.
For an expansive article on Mikhail Baryshnikov from 1998, read The Soloist in The New Yorker here.

The Windows (1988)

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Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Christopher House created The Windows on Peggy back in 1988. He is our guest writer for this Creation Catalogue blog entry:

The Windows is an eight-minute solo I made for Peggy Baker, set to Philip Glass’s gorgeous String Quartet #2. I can’t remember where the title came from, but I think it was Peggy’s idea. Watching a VHS recording of the piece, the first time I’d seen it in thirty years, I was blown away by her performance.

Making a solo for another dancer is an intimate act. In sharing your kinetic impulses with just one other artist, you often make them a surrogate for the dancer you imagine in your dreams. You always learn from this experience and when you work with a singular artist like Peggy, your habits and assumptions can be transformed.

Rediscovering The Windows, I was reminded that watching Peggy dance is a master class in space and phrasing. She carves, sculpts and extends the space around her with uncanny skill, using her hands, feet, limbs, torso and head with legato mastery. Every surface of her body participates in every gesture. The clarity of her trajectories leaves afterimages and her innate sense of time makes her body sing. When confronted with more challenging passages of fast footwork and percussive changes of direction, she unleashes her inner warrior, holding nothing back. Her presence resonates with her ardent commitment to each passing moment.

My favourite moment in this solo comes at the end of the third movement as she turns slowly to the floor and melts into a series of knee crawls on an upstage diagonal. Facing away from us, her expressive back compels us to join her on her mysterious, touching journey.

I love Peggy as a friend and as an artist. Working with her on this solo was a rare privilege. - C. H.

“Mr. House is superbly served by a dancer who more than completes every sharp, slicing gesture. A fast dance of enigmatic tension involving kicks, pounces and clenched fists, it plays up to Ms. Baker’s grace and power and goes beyond the traditional psychological study.” Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times, 1989.
Full review here.

For more about Christopher House visit CBC Gem here.