NUIT BLANCHE 2009: PEGGY BAKER INTERVIEW
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 3:34PM | Zhina Jalali 
Photo: Cylla von TiedemannNuit Blanche Interview: Peggy Baker, Canada’s National Ballet School
It can cost hundreds of dollars, but, on October third, it’s free. You can watch a performance crafted by one of the dance world’s best while sitting, even relaxing, in a sixth floor studio surrounded by hundreds of other audience members and faced by the performers, live.
Baker has earned plenty of recognition for her work as a dancer and a choreographer, including a Governor General Award for Lifetime Achievement, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Calgary.
This year, Baker, artist-in-residence at the National Ballet School in Toronto, will introduce a never-been-done-before performance to Nuit Blanche.
SHARP OBJEX: This is the first year you will be at Nuit Blanche. What should audiences expect?
Peggy Baker: That’s right. I’m bringing a new piece [Move], the biggest I have ever choreographed. It’s for twenty-four dancers – at least twice as many as I have used in the past. They are going to be partnered, so there will be duet couples of men together, women together, or men and women.
We’re dancing for the first twelve minutes of every hour all night. The dance is happening on the floor, where these duet couples will be rolling on and pushing on the floor.
I have a kind of ritual attached to it. I think of it a little bit like the raking of the sand or gravel in a Japanese dry garden to create a pattern on the ground. It’s based on that idea.
When the dance is not taking place, the space will be animated with an audio-visual installation by Debashis Sinha.
SO: So there is a spiritual element in this choreography?
PB: Yes there is. I’d say in a very general way, it’s meditative. The audience will be in a very charged space that’s also extremely open to their thoughts during the performance because the actual dancing is extremely slow. The audience can experience the same thing that people who go to a Zen garden and sit and do an eyes-open meditation do.
SO: What inspired you to create this choreography?
PB: I was teaching in Philadelphia last year, and I was working on a movement sequence some of the dancers were having trouble with. I put them in partners where they would manipulate each other’s bodies. Something that had been really, really simple looking before, when they were alone, became extremely beautiful when they were partnered up.
I had this image in mind and was wondering what I could do with it. This was the germ of the idea, and now I am expanding it to be a full performance piece.
SO: Where will the performance be?
PB: Oh, gosh, it’s a beautiful studio. The National Ballet School is on Jarvis St, just south of Wesley, and the whole front of the building is glass. This studio faces on to Jarvis St with the full wall of windows. So as the night wears on, the changing sky into the night and back to morning again will be the backdrop for the dance.
SO: The audience will likely be casual. Did this affect the making of the choreography?
PB: No; I have a great interest in pursuing this material right now, and just thought that Nuit Blanche was the perfect opportunity for that. On that night, I feel the dancers and audience have something in common in terms of the duration they are staying up engaging in, and committing to, art.
Reader Comments (5)
This was a really admirable topic! I was luck to come cross your website in digg Also I get much in your theme really thank your article very much i will come later.replica ulysse nardin watches
Roosevelt's Cameras expedition, abercrombie uk Robert Peary's Arctic expeditions, Hemingway's shotgun, Hoover and Eisenhower The reef fishing tackle, movie star Clark Gable's clothes are from the abercrombie and fitch uk come. In 1900, an exciting new York lawyer named Ezra Fitch to become a partner, taking large sums of money, so the provider renamed the abercrombie & fitch Corp. Unfortunately, this is a major problem of co-operation, they rarely have What consensus, last but not least one day in 1907, abercrombie and fitch aren't able to stand this endless dispute, sold his stocks and shares in his left fretting hand to establish the company, though AF did not receive efficiency impact to the method high.
The abercrombie and fitch sale Model is the glimpse, the feel, the image on the abercrombie sale physical appearance for which virtually all will strive. abercrombie sale Denver often uses men model abercrombie & fitch only once, letting campus guys to take to expand abercrombie and fitch modeling professions
We are international trade that specializes in the Christian Louboutin High Heels. The high heels will not be harmful to our health.The latest styles of Christian Louboutin shoes are on large sales now! There are so many high heels on the street.
11You can search Cheap Coach Bags and Coach Purse Outlet Online Coach Factory Outlet Store that will Cheap Coach Pursesshow you where to Coach Outlet Online Coach Bag for much Coach Outletcheaper. You willCoach Factory Outlet save a lot Coach Factoryof money buying from Coach Factorythese particularCoach Factory Outlet Online sites.To save moneyCoach Factory Store Online on that perfect Coach Outlet Online be sure that you shop Coach Store Online to save that Coach Outlet Storesmuch needed moneyCoach Outlet Online Store. You no Coach Outlet Online Storelonger have to leave the Coach Outlet Store to shop when Coach Factory Outlet Onlineyou can shop and save online for your Coach Outlet Coupon