Les Grands Ballets Canadiens are presenting the same two ballets we saw recently in Park Lafontaine at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA. Here's a review (via Montreal City Weblog) that I liked not only for its enthusiasm but the additional information on the scores for the two ballets, which were - I thought - a huge part of the excitement and innovative quality of the pieces. The first ballet, TooT, is choreographed to Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2 in its circus-reminiscent sections, and music by the Balanescu Quartet for the more inner, reflection sections. This ballet has one of the most ingenious sets I've ever seen: curved mirror-clad risers that become a circus ring, tables, buildings, a forest.
The other ballet, Noces, is set to Stravinsky's score of the same name, which the NY Times reviewer called "riveting and barbaric". It evokes a Russian peasant wedding, and was originally choreographed by Nikinsky. In the Montreal troupe's version, the corps of women dancers, all clad in different versions of white tulle and satin "wedding dresses" are set against lines of dark-suited men in what is certainly a clash, even war, of the sexes.
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