Her Heart (1992-93)

/

This week Peggy looks back at a work that is very close to her, inspired by her mother, Rean Smith:

From 1991 to 1994 I was director of the summer dance program at Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain, and I often stayed on in Vancouver to teach for EDAM at the Western Front. Peter Bingham had picked up the reins of EDAM as Artistic Director in 1989, (it had been a collective that included my husband Ahmed Hassan up to that point), and during those Vancouver teaching stints Ahmed and Peter and I spent a huge amount of time together – sharing meals, discussing art and politics, listening to music. One evening Peter put on a record of late piano music by Johannes Brahms and the Opus 117 and 118 Preludes immediately suffused me in waves of memory connected to my mother.

In 1992, I was invited to create a work for Joysanne Sidimus and Susan Macpherson for a gala in support of the Dancer Transtion Resource Centre, and I took this as an opportunity to work with Opus 117 No. 1. As I made this duet I held the image of my mother at her age at that time, 64. My mother was just 24 when I was born, and other of the preludes captured vivid memories of her in her thirties (Opus 118 No. 2), forties (Opus 117 No. 2) and fifties (Opus 117 No. 3). In 1993, I distilled the duet into a solo and brought it together with the other preludes in a work I titled Her Heart.

My mother died in 2018, a few months before her ninetieth birthday, and only a matter of weeks before a concert in Toronto for which the superb dancer Jessica Runge would perform Her Heart. The great Brahms interpreter Peter Longworth was to have performed with Jessica, but he went into the hospital just days before the opening and tragically died soon afterward at the age 53. With just three days to prepare, pianist Cheryl Duvall stepped forward to play the Brahms in a series of performances that held love and longing and a profound sense of loss. - PB

"A rhapsodic memory dance addressing themes of the aging woman." Elissa Barnard / Chronicle Herald / Halifax

For an introduction to the music of Brahms visit The Guardian here.

Non Coupable (1982/1990)

/

Peggy’s connections with Paul-André Fortier, the ground-breaking choreographer from Montreal, are many but they begin with the acquisition of his solo Non Coupable early in her company’s history. Paul-André writes:

“This solo first premiered in 1982, masterfully performed by Susan Macpherson. The piece was later performed by three other remarkable dancers: Michèle Febvre, Manon Levac and Peggy Baker. Each drew upon their background, experience and physique to plumb the depths of this work in a unique way. Peggy embraced this solo body and soul, crafting the darkest, most nuanced portrayal of a woman caught between her fears and her desires.” PAF

Peggy adds: “I learned Non Coupable from my friend and teacher Susan Macpherson before being coached by Paul-André, and from the first moment he and I were alone in the studio together, a particular mix of responses arose in me that have held true over the years since: awe and some intimidation in the presence of a great and uncompromising artist; intense attraction to Paul-André as an extremely intelligent, funny, physically charged, and outspoken person; fascination and respect for his provocative work; and a direct confrontation with my vulnerabilities and limitations as a dancer.

I performed Non Coupable for the first time as part of my solo debut in Winnipeg in 1990, and I continued to come back to it for another 17 years. The shock and charge of the actions, acts, and images that drive the choreography remain as vivid sensory memories for me: the rumble, scraping strum, and metallic hammer strikes of the prepared piano in Henry Kucharzyk’s searing score; the tight wrap of the costume against every contour of my body, and the binding of the rope on my arms; my vision distorted by the mask; the tremendous weight of the stones, and baring my breast to suckle one; sitting over my heels, knees open, the crack and thud of one stone slamming the other against my crotch. It is an intense piece for both the viewer and performer, but one that stands out for me as an incredible work of art.” PB

Tying together the Creation Catalogue blog posts since late May is the brief critique of Peggy’s 1991 solo show for NYC’s Danspace Project by James Sewell in Ballet Review. Covering Non Coupable, Sanctum, This Isn’t the End, Inner Enchantments and The Volpe Sisters, this review has provided the Peggy Baker Dance Projects’ management team over the years with one of the best pull quotes an arts manager could dream of: “There are good dancers. There are great dancers. And then there is Peggy Baker… From the essence of gesture to the unrestrained explosion in space, Baker moves with eloquence and force. It’s like seeing the human body for the first time.”

The first - and iconic - photo below, taken by Cylla von Tiedemann, supports Mr. Sewell’s thoughts.

From more information on the reviewer, visit James Sewell Ballet here.

White Oak and the Great White North - 1990

/

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.