Human touch

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This article was published 24/02/2024 (595 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s taken three long years for audiences to see renowned Canadian choreographer/performer Jera Wolfe’s Begin Again the way the artist originally intended.

Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers features a full evening of Wolfe’s works as the penultimate production of its 59th season, including its first commissioned piece by the choreographer, a 24-minute creation presented on film in January 2021, owing to COVID-19-related protocols at the time.

The Toronto-born dance artist of Métis heritage has roots in Winnipeg as a graduate of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. He won the prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Award in 2019, and his compelling works have been performed by the RWB, Red Sky Performance, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Canadian Stage, Festival des arts de Saint-Sauveur and many others.

It’s impossible to watch Begin Again without reflecting on its coronavirus-sparked need to avoid physical contact between dancers; the show scrupulously avoids Wolfe’s glorious trademark lifts. However, the piece performed during Thursday night’s preview by Carol-Ann Bohrn (also appearing in 2021), Justine Erickson, Shayla Rudd, Cameron Fraser-Monroe (Warren McClelland and Jace Hodges switch in during the four-show run, which wraps up Sunday) resonates as a soulful journey into the power of human connection.

Lighting designer Hugh Conacher’s looming shadows and a haunting soundtrack featuring the Iskra String Quartet and Manchester-based composer Danny Norbury heighten its ethos further.

The work is structured primarily as a series of lyrical solos and smaller ensembles; the dancers, wearing pedestrian trousers, sleeveless tops and socks, perform Wolfe’s organic lexicon of balletic and contemporary movement vocabulary with palpable conviction, including long sweeping lines punctuated by sudden bursts of propulsive, gestural punches, and athletic tumbles and rolls.

Three years later, there is a sense of elegy with this live performance, originally viewed via pixelated computer screens. Its often jaw-dropping imagery, including many magical trompe l’oeil effects, is fully intact, with dancers taking turns wheeling large “barn door” theatrical lights about the stage during key moments to alter perspective.

One of the most gasp-inducing moments comes during Bohrn and Rudd’s evocative duet, in which they slowly move their bodies to merge their shadows into one towering figure projected on the upstage brick wall, as flesh-and-blood mortals perform with ghostly counterparts, evoking ephemeral souls lost during the pandemic.

There is also a newly reworked ending, which nonetheless arrives too abruptly. In 2021, the (filmed) dancers finally removed their masks to reveal their humanity, packing a punch during that unprecedented time. Now, seeing them standing on wooden chairs, reaching their arms out into the darkness as lights fade, while still poetic, feels strangely benign; it’s the only time this writer will ever pine for those dark days of distance.

Wolfe’s second offering, the world première of Play Cowboy, pokes fun at American cowboy lore and archetypes, while celebrating the joy of “play.” The full, six-member ensemble, wearing blue jeans, cowboy hats and chaps, delivers a highly stylized heckuva good time, underscored by country singer Ryan Bingham’s twangy score and often eliciting open guffaws from the weeknight crowd.

It also showcased the breadth of Wolfe’s artistry, which includes hip hop, breakdance and jazz influences in addition to his training in ballet and contemporary dance. The dancers toss off his syncopated kicks and tricks like wild buckaroos, executing his intricate choreography and including spoken text that underpins the piece’s vernacular vibe with solid rigour.

Surprises — in the spirit of play — abound in the 30-minute piece. Seeing dancers performing a puppet show with googly-eyed finger puppets in cowboy hats under a spinning mirror ball is a surreal trip down the proverbial rabbit hole, and arguably too much of a good thing.

Having said that, Bohrn’s profession of undying love for McClelland, despite his sage admission of “I’ve done murder,” is memorable, speaking to the complexities of love as they entwine their limbs and bodies together in a sinewy duet.

After McClelland simply walks off, abandoning her, Bohrn’s expressive face reveals an ocean of subtext.

The final section, which builds in intensity and features tricky tempo changes, oozes with unapologetic sex, due in no small part to the now bare-chested Fraser-Monroe, clad only in a black Stetson and leather chaps, and flanked by the other dancers in a scene that could be a Chippendales’ casting call.

The final image of Fraser-Monroe snapping his fingers and then blowing on them like a smoking gun, adding a wink-wink to the audience, brought more steam into the Rachel Browne Theatre then it’s had for years, with this second Wolfe work performed with the precision of a sharpshooter and with plenty of sass.

holly.harris@shaw.ca