Ballet BC Presents 2024/25 Opening Program ‘DAWN’

Vancouver, BC – Ballet BC enters a new season of performances at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre with DAWN on November 7/8/9, following a tour of Quebec (Danse Danse) and Ottawa (National Arts Centre) throughout October. The program marks the opening of the fifth Ballet BC season curated by Artistic Director Medhi Walerski and will also be the mainstage debut of Ballet BC’s new Emerging Artists for the 2024/25 season. DAWN features three exciting works: Crystal Pite’s Frontier, re-imagined for Ballet BC; the return of Dutch choreographic duo Imre and Marne van Opstal’s Heart Drive; and a world premiere from visionary French choreographer Pierre Pontvianne.

“Entering my fifth season as Artistic Director, I’m especially excited about what the company will share over the next three programs here at home, starting with DAWN,” says Ballet BC’s Medhi Walerski. “Pierre is a brilliant and visionary artist, deeply invested in all aspects of the creation and production process. Imre and Marne’s Heart Drive is quickly becoming a company repertoire favourite, wowing audiences around the world. And Frontier is a work of Crystal’s which I have wanted to bring to Ballet BC audiences for some time—it will certainly be worth the wait.”

BC-born and raised Crystal Pite was a dancer with Ballet BC and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt before launching a globally-renowned choreographic career which spans 35 years and includes more that sixty works for companies such as The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, and the National Ballet of Canada. Ballet BC’s long relationship with Pite includes brilliant and beloved pieces of repertoire Solo Echo and The Statement—a collaboration with playwright Jonathon Young—which have been performed to sold-out houses around the world.

Originally created in 2008, Pite’s Frontier is a work for 24 dancers reimagined for Ballet BC, and a rare opportunity for West Coast audiences to experience a large-scale Crystal Pite work. In Frontier, the choreographer explores the concept of dark matter, shadows, and the unknown. “As a creator,” Pite says, “I find a pleasing parallel between what we don’t know about the universe, and what we don’t know about consciousness…I want to portray something that cannot be portrayed—something that by its very nature demands that it be unknown. What the audience will see onstage is just an impression of what the unknown looks like, feels like, to me.” In order to support the large cast, five dancers from Vancouver’s Arts Umbrella Dance will perform in Frontier alongside the full Ballet BC company.

French dance artist and choreographer Pierre Pontvianne won the prestigious Lausanne Prize in 1999. After dancing with Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Frankfurt Ballet under the direction of Jiri Kylian and William Forsythe respectively, he went on to form his own company, PARC, in 2004. His choreographic works have been presented at venues and festivals around the world. For the past three years, Pontvianne has been an Associate Artist at CDCN Atelier de Paris.

For DAWN, Pontvianne has created a world premiere, Cloud Poem, for 12 dancers. Working collaboratively with the dancers, the creative process explored the idea of quietness. “There were quiet moments in the studio where the dancers experimented with movement to music played at a very low volume,” says Pontvianne. “Two phenomena emerged: the intrinsic musicality within the dancers’ bodies—something I find profoundly beautiful and powerful—and the realization that silence in space is incredibly rare.” With the concept of internal music as a guide, Pontvianne incorporated tools such as metronomes and gentle soundscapes which he thinks of as ‘harmonic clouds.’

Imre and Marne van Opstal are a celebrated choreographic duo based in the Netherlands. The collaborative nature of their work often speaks to the human condition, and the limits and possibilities of the body and mind. They have partnered with numerous musicians, designers and artists including Dior, Lykke Li, Asaf Avidan, Anna Zak & Fat Joe, Theo Lindquist, András Ladocsi, Replay, Escada, and Paco Rabanne. Their work is known to be multi-layered and surrealistic, with a strong and outspoken dance language full of eclecticism, theatricality and partnering elements.