Locally made documentary a loving look at late choreographer Rachel Browne

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This article was published 22/04/2015 (4105 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

although she died in 2012, Rachel Browne’s name has doggedly stayed a presence in Winnipeg arts.

The Rachel Browne Theatre, in the heart of the Exchange District, is the performance home of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, the company she founded back in 1964.

It is also the physical epicentre of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, an event that continues to champion the alternative approach to arts Browne herself embodied as a performer and choreographer.

In contrast to Browne’s experimental ethos, Danielle Sturk’s handsomely mounted documentary on Browne’s life, A Good Madness, is a relatively conventional, good-mannered affair. We meet Browne through old surviving performance footage and hear much of her first-person story from her own voice, playing back from beyond the grave on a reel-to-reel tape recorder of the type that was such a part of Browne’s creative process.

Interspersed with this are remembrances from her three daughters and a dozen or so colleagues and loyal female students, who likewise describe themselves as “daughters.”

If the doc leans towards hagiography, and it does, a few of these participants manage to pepper the tribute with gritty remembrance, especially Browne’s real daughters, who wryly acknowledge that she was typically more interested in dance than motherhood. (Even so, Browne did distinguish herself from other parents: How many other moms eschewed reading and singing in favour of dancing their children to sleep?)

Browne endured heartache in her private life, much of which is here rendered in vague terms. Less vague are the tribulations she endured also in her public role as the founder and creative of the Contemporary Dancers, a position she was forced to resign in 1983 at the behest of an apparently unsympathetic board of directors.

That setback proved to be a catalyst, freeing Browne to redouble her efforts as a choreographer and create some of her best work.

For that reason, Browne would have herself best appreciated lushly staged performances of some of her significant works, including a beach-set performance of the ensemble piece Willow Island, and solos danced by Sharon B. Moore (the decadence-dripping Freddy), Treasure Waddell (My Romance, evocatively shot in the old CP railway station), and most impressively, Kristen Haight’s feral, nervy performance of Mouvement, shot in an appropriately woodsy setting at night.

Filmed within the tight budget of an MTS Stories from Home project, this is a fine, polished piece of work, shot, edited and scored expertly by Oscar Fenoglio.

It does more than put a face to a name. It’s a remembrance of Browne told through music and movement. And if it leaves a few questions unanswered, well, that too may be appropriate.

Browne, like modern dance, should be at least somewhat enigmatic.

A question-and-answer session with Danielle Sturk follows the Cinematheque screenings of A Good Madness from Wednesday to Friday. Sturk will be joined by cinematographer Oscar Fenoglio on Wednesday, dancer Kristen Haight on Thursday and dancer Treasure Waddell on Friday.

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The screening of A Good Madness observes the 50th anniversary of Contemporary Dancers, a milestone that will also include WCD’s annual dinner and dance on Sunday, April 26, at 6 p.m., which features live performances by Winnipeg musicians John K. Samson and Christine Fellows at the Peasant Cookery.

For tickets ($90, including a $40 charitable tax receipt), contact the WCD box office at 204-452-0229.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca