Kemal Payza | The Ottawa Dance Weblog

Mythologies

Reviewed September 22, 2019

Gesù Theatre, Montreal

This previous weekend, I ended in to see the opening of Mythologies on the intimate Gesù Theatre within the basement of the ornate 19^th-century Gesù Church on Montreal’s Park Avenue. This was the debut of a recent dance manufacturing by native scientist/artist/musician Kemal Payza.

Mythologies opens with Montreal-based up to date dancer Susannah Haight (Spirit Mom) performing a brief mesmerizing dance of magnificence and mystique. Knowledgeable by a harp accompaniment known as Imaginary Prelude, composed and carried out by New York-based up to date composer Hannah Lash, Haight is the epitome of grace on this piece. It’s as if her physique performs the harp, so seamlessly is the motion married to the music.

Because the “story” unfolds, we meet Spirit Father, danced by David Campbell, daughter Kyzyl, performed by Catherine Dagenais-Savard and, about midway by means of the work, The Stranger, portrayed by Adrian W. S. Batt. Batt enters a darker stage, to a stringed accompaniment performed on an outdated Center Jap oud.

All of the dancers are sturdy, every displaying a particular character, however the standout dancer in Mythologies is Dagenais-Savard, who additionally choreographed a strong vignette midway by means of the present highlighting herself, Campbell and Batt dancing to a commanding piece of music that includes the enthralling Altai throat singing by an ensemble of Central Asia. Dagenais-Savard additionally choreographed the finale for all 4 dancers, to a second extract of the Altai track.

The Altai musical choice is sudden, and the dancers reply instantly and forcefully to its magnetic sound. This flip in this system energizes the total forged and takes the story to a different degree, one which grasps the breath with a promise of one thing pressing to come back.

Whereas producer Kemal Payza is reluctant to expose any sense of the story, preferring to not bias the viewers’s creativeness, the names of the characters (Spirit Mom-Umai, Spirit Father-Tengki, daughter Kyzyl and The Stranger) trace at what the story is about. Kyzyl is a metropolis within the Tuva Republic in Jap Russia which means “crimson” in Tuvan in addition to Turkic languages, and the character Kyzyl is dressed utterly in crimson. The names alone counsel one thing unique and international from Central Asia. The Stranger might be the threatening unknown Different or just the untrodden highway which may result in prosperity or a brand new imaginative and prescient for the longer term.

Both means, the daughter is drawn to The Stranger after which turns into caught between the recognized world of her dad and mom (their conventional mythology) and the beckoning world of thriller past her childhood confines. A poem, written by Montreal songwriter Andria Piperni for the present, seems in this system and is learn aloud throughout Dagenais-Savard’s final solo dance. It hints at “a fruitful backyard within the distance/Its arms open large with the promise of tomorrow.”

Is that this not an age-old story? And is it not inevitable that youth ought to search the brand new frontier?

On this story, The Stranger, at first feared by the dad and mom, is in the end accepted into the fold. This seems to be a twist, the place The Stranger turns into assimilated to current custom – that is portrayed in a dance the place Batt as The Stranger imitates the mysterious hand gestures of Campbell as Spirit Father — moderately than custom being upended by a international factor, for instance.

A number of Canadian choreographers have collaborated for the present, however illuminating all the work is a various soundscape of songs by no means earlier than heard, together with classical guitar compositions by producer Kemal Payza, new music composed by veteran Nova Scotian singer/songwriter Peter Pringle on a reproduction of an historical Sumerian lyre in addition to French Baroque and historical Turkish music. The music brings an otherworldly factor to the work and helps construct the narrative to a crescendo as Kyzyl’s loyalty is torn between loyalty to her household and the lure of a stranger.

Mythologies is anticipated to play in additional venues within the Quebec/Jap Ontario area within the coming weeks.