Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Mar 16 17 18
The season continues with an evening featuring a new commission from a local talent, a world premiere from a brand new choreographic voice for Canadian audiences, and the return of an enchanting creation from a brilliant image-maker. Vancouver-based Shay Kuebler and Czech choreographer Jiří Pokorný will each share brand new works exploring dichotomies within the human body and mind, and Israel’s Adi Salant—former Co-Artistic Director of the Batsheva Dance Company—will be back to share her powerfully elegant WHICH/ONE.
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New Creation
Jiří Pokorný
A new voice to the Ballet BC stage and to Canadian audiences, Czech choreographer Jiří Pokorný’s latest creation centres around themes of environmental awareness, human connections with nature, and survival.
The work explores the physicality of living in unknown conditions and the vulnerability and resilience triggered in our own instruments of perception and action—our bodies. In these vulnerable moments our behaviours are spontaneous, disarming, and immersed in the present. It examines the dialogue between us and our environment, and how being vulnerable is an essential part of our journey towards survival.
The dancers are confronted with moments of simplicity within complexity, seeking the balance between intellect and instinct; freedom and responsibility. Their experience may be seen as a deep play that represents both the simplest thing, as well as the most difficult and hard-won achievement imaginable. Expect a captivating creation from a visionary and inventive image-maker.
WorkNew Creation
Shay Kuebler
Vancouver-based dancer, choreographer, and multimedia artist Shay Kuebler makes his Ballet BC debut. The new commission from a stellar local talent seeks to examine the hive mind, and the momentum of the group.
When one element is pushed to an extreme it opens the need for its opposite. When structure is pressed upon us, we require freedom. We instinctively need group connection, but intuitively require individuality. The work explores this concept of duality and opposition: refinement necessitates recklessness, control necessitates freedom, structure necessitates chaos.
The creation places a great focus on the polarity of the individual and the group. We all require groups and social connection for survival. In breaking out from the group’s protective shell, we can openly explore our inner truth.
The work also looks at society as a player in the background driving our choices. Our sense of freedom is framed by its matrix. In a hyper-controlled society under constant surveillance, how extreme would the need be for individuality? How much would we need to peel the armour away and find ourselves?
WorkWHICH/ONE
Adi Salant
In WHICH/ONE, originally commissioned for Ballet BC in 2019, the talent of Israeli choreographer and former Co-Artistic Director of the Batsheva Dance Company shines bright. Salant’s work is both clever and profound, anchored by a deep sense of presence and navigating between explosive physicality and delicate scarcity.
Set to popular musical excerpts in addition to an original soundscape, the piece highlights the entire company and explores contrasting themes of human performance and mundanity.
Work
