Cirrus (1997/2000)

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A faculty member of The Juilliard School since 1995, Irene Dowd has been a foundational presence in Peggy Baker’s dance life, providing neuromuscular training and creating Cirrus on and for Peggy in 1997. Peggy explains:

“It’s beautiful to think back to this brief and exquisite dance, choreographed by my dear friend and cherished mentor Irene Dowd. Beginning in 1985 – and continuing over the next two decades – Irene guided me in discovering the inner landscape of my body, in all its mystery and magnificence, through an evolving movement practice grounded in functional anatomy.

In 1997 we shifted our focus to a dance choreographed for me by Irene. In a recent exchange of memories around our process, Irene remembers being under the sway of two important paintings by her late husband, Charles Stokes – the dazzling and rhapsodic Perpetua (which he was just completing) and the labyrinthine Inner Temple (which was newly underway).

Irene titled the dance Cirrus, as she felt the definition – “a tendril, a long thread-like organ by which a plant climbs; a light fleecy cloud at a high elevation” – sounded as though it was describing the movement. We had created in silence, but once the work was completed, I suggested dancing it with a John Cage work titled Dream. I didn’t have a chance to perform Cirrus until 2000, when it premiered as part of an evening titled Interior View. Irene allowed me to finish her dance by reaching my hand to the piano on the last note. No photographs of this dance exist, so it remains a treasured memory.” PB

To see an example of Irene’s approach to teaching functional anatomy through choreography, visit her website here.

To learn more about artist Charles Stokes, visit SeattleArtResource here.

Photo of Irene Dowd by Matthew Karas.

Yang (1998/2003)

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Peggy is occasionally commissioned by other artists to make works for them - including Sarah Chase (Garland, 1996), Dancemakers (for Carolyn Woods, Rocket Girl, 1999), and Nova Bhattacharya (Map of the Known World, 2000). The only commissioned work from Peggy to be bought into the Peggy Baker Dance Projects’ repertoire is Yang, made for Sylvain Brochu in 1998. Sylvain writes:

“In 1997 I was awarded a Canada Council grant to commission solos from 5 selected Canadian choreographers. I had studied with Peggy, seen her perform, and was very inspired by her commitment and artistic integrity. Even though I had never been through a creative process with her I had a strong feeling that our connection would produce a powerful piece. Peggy knew me as a dancer and set up to create a dance that would greatly challenge me technically. I distinctly remember the main creation period: I had flown to Toronto for two weeks. The process was very demanding physically, but I applied myself wholeheartedly, and with a level of trust that I had not often experienced before. Yang turned out to be one of the strongest pieces of my solo repertoire, and was the ideal finale for my solo concert. I’m grateful for the gift of this dance, which lives on through successive generations of dancers.”

Peggy adds: “Like Sylvain, I still remember the intensity of the creative process for this dance. I went in from day one with the intention of developing an action language that would provide us with a challenging and exciting encounter, as Sylvain and I are dancers with extremely different movement sensibilities. That encounter was quickly informed by the androgyny we each embody. The forceful, strident movement vocabulary we were working with shifted me more into androgyny, and took Sylvain – a dancer whose movement signature is cushy and lush – further away from androgyny. In order to clarify our intentions, we focused on the qualities associated with the Taoist principle of yang, described as bright, hard, masculine, round, odd-numbered and upward moving. In the first phase of our work we developed the movement language, and in the second we arranged that material in relation to a riveting work called Frisking Prolationum for 11 Percussionists by the Belgian composer and filmmaker, Thierry de Mey.

Sylvain premiered Yang at the 1998 Dance in Canada Festival in Ottawa. Five years later, for The Choreographer’s Trust, I developed a duet version for Sylvain with the magnificent Shannon Cooney. This remains one of my favourite dances, and both the solo and duet versions have been staged many times by my company and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.” PB

If you’re taken with the music of Thierry de Mey, watch this excerpt of a work he created with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for Rosas entitled ROSAS DANST ROSAS.

furthermore (1999)

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If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll know that by 1999, pianist Andrew Burashko and dancer Peggy Baker had been touring Canada and the USA together for almost a decade. They often included a piano work for Andrew to perform without any dance, and in this week’s blog Peggy recounts how Andrew’s choice of Piano Music No. 2 by John Cage led to the creation of furthermore:

“For this particular composition, Cage had employed the chance procedure of taking flaws in the manuscript paper on which he was notating and assigning them musical notes, some of which would be played on the keyboard, and some by striking or plucking the string directly, reaching inside piano. This piece therefore required that the musician stand at the piano in order to be able to play both the keyboard and the strings simultaneously, while also shifting their weight to extend a leg to work the pedals that sustain or dampen notes. I found the movements required of Andrew quite beautiful, and highly choreographic.

In the fall of 1999 Andrew presented his first recital program for a new music performance initiative under his artistic direction, Art of Time Ensemble. Contemporary music by Americans John Cage, Peter Lieberson, George Crumb, Sebastian Currier ,and George Gershwin was brought together in a program titled Fascinatin’ Rhythms. Along with Andrew, the stellar musicians on the program included Steve Dann (viola), Beverley Johnston (percussion), Barbara Hannigan (soprano), and Joel Quarrington (double bass). I danced to Cage’s Piano Music No. 2, and my choreography was an elaboration on Andrew’s actions so that the work became both a piano solo and a movement duet. I titled the premiere and, moreover, and later renamed it furthermore, though I can no longer imagine why I thought it needed to be changed…” PB

To read more about how John Cage redefined music, visit NPR here.

Art of Time Ensemble has become a live performance juggernaut in Toronto. Andrew’s company presents an annual season of concerts that fuse high art with popular culture. To listen to a selection of their recordings visit Soundcloud here, or their YouTube channel.

One Voice (1997)

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Back in 1990, Winnipeg-based choreographer, educator, and dance advocate Stephanie Ballard made a solo on Peggy set to Song from the Thracian Plain sung by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir. Part of a larger work of Stephanie’s called Continuum, this untitled solo found new life seven years later.

Stephanie writes: “Peggy Baker is an extraordinary dance artist. A Canadian jewel. Her unique ability to fulfill movement with power and clarity has inspired me since going across the floor with her at the Toronto Dance Theatre studios in 1973. The creative point of departure for this solo for her came from my interest in the Bird Goddess as described by Marija Gimbutus in her book The Language of the Goddess. Peggy was able to embrace the statuesque and spiritual qualities that numerous bird goddess images and stories portrayed. Our creative process embraced primitive and contemporary movement.” SB

Peggy adds: “I always loved this solo from Continuum, and wondered if it would stand on its own without music. I planned to include it on a program for which all of the other music was performed live. Stephanie very generously allowed me to premiere the solo - which we titled One Voice - in silence for musicDANCEarray in March of 1997. I was thrilled by performing the distillation of this work, and danced it on a several different programs over the next few years.” PB

Collaboration. Evolution. Refinement. These are recurring themes in Peggy’s work and process, and this project with Stephanie is a wonderful example.

PS - Stephanie also wrote “I loved Peggy’s idea to perform the work in silence - and it worked!”

"... the dance equivalent of a performance by a legendary singer...her concentrated movements, in silence, invoke a soulful music." Susan Walker, The Toronto Star

To read more about Marija Gimbutus and her book The Language of the Goddess visit The LA Times here.

a true story (1997)

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This week’s blog post looks at the first dance story that Peggy created. It foreshadows a deep interest in drama, text, and vocalization that she will explore in the coming years, working with artists such as Sarah Chase, Denise Clarke, Michael Healey, and Fides Krucker.

“An invitation to perform at a fundraiser for the December 6 Fund demanded some deep thinking about how to contribute something relevant as a dancer. The Fund provides interest-free loans to women in the Toronto area working to extricate themselves from violent relationships, and their May 1997 event was titled Reclaiming Mother’s Day: A Critical Celebration of Motherhood.

When Ahmed Hassan and I married in 1990, I joined the household he shared with his 13-year-old daughter, for whom he had sole custody, and so became her stepmother. “Stepmother” – what a loaded word. So harsh and intrusive sounding, so laden with negative connotations. I developed a true story, a text and movement piece that unpacked my struggle with that word and with its eventual replacement by a word coined by the young child of a close friend.

For that first performance, I wore street clothes, including my Blundstones, standing at a microphone on the small stage at Trinity St Paul’s United Church. The program was extremely moving and included a performance by Tafelmusik and spoken contributions by actors Shirley Douglas, Linda Griffiths, and Elizabeth Sheppard; writers Irshad Manji, Susan Swan, and Stevie Cameron; politician Olivia Chow; and comedians Diane Flacks and Sandra Shamas. Diane Flacks followed me on the program and when she approached the mic imitating my walk before turning to me with a huge beaming smile I flushed red and felt my heart race at the thrilling embarrassment.

I found it incredibly potent to speak while dancing, and the piece landed for me with a tremendous resonance. I went on the perform a true story many times over the next 20 years.” PB

“Ms. Baker, a Canadian whose superlative dancing and clever choreography are well known in New York, started off with a true story. Her initial stamps, violent torso rotations and emphatic arm folding seemed like pure dance. Suddenly the gestures were imbued with dramatic meaning and illustrations of words spoken by the dancer.” Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times

To watch the parentally-themed comedy stylings of Diane Flacks, visit YouTube.com here.