Dance Me - Ballets Jazz de Montreal

[Sim]

Dance Me – Ballets Jazz Montreal

Music/Lyrics:  Leonard Cohen

Choreography:  Ihsan Rustem/Andonis Foniadakis/Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa

Sadler’s Wells, London 

****

 

Much has changed in the world since the last visit of Ballets Jazz Montreal to the UK, more than a decade ago.  However, the beauty of lyrics and poetry that manifest the human condition provide a constant, irrespective of what is happening in the world around us. 

 

The music of Leonard Cohen has often been described as ‘misery music’, and him as ‘the prince of pessimism.’  This 90-minute programme of dance to 20 songs and pieces of poetry does much to change that perception.  Yes, Cohen’s lyrics are often downbeat or downright sad, but there is also a musical joy that underpins them, a joy that is reflected in the dancing and choreography of this production. 

 

Cohen had quite the life, as is the case with many artists and free spirits.  However, as is similarly the case with such people, he was taken for a financial ride by his so-called friend and manager, who fleeced him of almost everything he had.  In his 70s, he had to start touring again to try to recoup some of his losses.  He dreaded it, but much to his surprise the world tours were sell-outs everywhere he went, and a new generation discovered his music. 

 

Dance Me is the perfect vehicle for yet another generation to appreciate this immensely talented lyricist.  As with Bob Dylan, Cohen doesn’t have the greatest voice, but he knew how to impart his lyrics, in his deep coffee/whiskey/cigarettes kind of way. The dancers of Ballets Jazz Montreal know how to interpret and impart not just the lyrics, but the rhythm of Cohen’s poetry, and the movement of the songs.   Usually, when three different choreographers are used for one piece of dance, there are breaks in order to differentiate them.  Here, the dances flow seamlessly one into the next.  There are no breaks, no intervals.  There is no corny attempt at literal interpretations of the words.  This is all about feeling, and some may think that the movement is removed or disjointed from what they are dancing to.  Not at all.  The dancers (very impressive, highly skilled) let go, sometimes conveying beauty, sometimes conveying ugly.  This is what Cohen’s lyrics do, and the choreographers and dancers get that. 

 

Being used to seeing classical ballet most of the time, it was wonderful to be reminded of how good contemporary dance can be.  Here, bodies of all shapes and sizes can liberate themselves into shapes and movement that some people find unattractive when unused to it.  This company makes it all look easy.  The fluidity of their movement is spellbinding.  Together with very clever and effective video projections (none of which overpowered what was happening onstage, as can often be the case) that complemented and enhanced the lyrics, 90 minutes flew by.

 

It seems almost churlish to highlight any of the pieces, but Dance Me To The End of Love (choreographed by London-born Ihsan Rustem) was fun, all the women exhausting the one man, and Tower….all about words and reflected by typewriters and clever projections, was also a highlight.  Suzanne has long been a favourite song of mine, and here it was movingly interpreted by Rustem and dancers Yosmell Calderon Mejias & Tuti Cedeno.  Work from Andonis Foniadakis, a Greek choreographer, was fun and sometimes frenetic as in Everybody Knows.  Yosmell Calderon Mejias & Shanna Irwin danced Seemed, the only piece by Colombian/Belgian Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.  This piece showed the in-demand choreographer’s range;  it was very different from other things I have seen from her, such as her Frida Kahlo ballet Broken Wings for English National Ballet. 

 

Hallelujah has become one of those songs, like House of the Rising Sun, that makes me turn off the radio if it comes on because I’ve heard it so many times that I can’t stand it anymore, no matter how good it is.  Here, it was refreshing to hear it sung by two of the dancers (Hannah Kate Galbraith & Astrid Dangeard).  The song sounded natural and harmonious and therefore I didn’t cringe.  Ms Dangeard had earlier sung Marianne, Cohen’s moving tribute to an old lover (to whom he had written some very touching words as she lay dying of cancer).

 

The choice of songs and poetry for Dance Me reflects all of Cohen’s moods and reminds us that this was a poet, a wordsmith to whose poetry and soul-baring we can all relate in one way or another.  There wasn’t a peep from the audience (young and old) for the 90 minutes; no talking, no noise of sweet wrappers, no surreptitious glances at mobile phones, no slurping of drinks.  There was rapt attention paid from start to finish, at which point the company received huge cheers and a deserved standing ovation.  I would have loved it if they had included Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye as it’s a beautiful song and would have made a gorgeous pas de deux, but that’s my only niggle.

 

Before last night, I never would have imagined that I could call an evening of Leonard Cohen’s music uplifting.  Ballets Jazz Montreal shattered my preconceptions in the most impressive, original way.  I am only sorry that Mr Cohen (represented by a shadowy figure in raincoat and porkpie hat weaving his way through the dancers, like some benign spectre) passed away before he could see the end product of something he had blessed at conception, and which does such fine justice to his art. Although he can't see it, we are lucky that we can.

 

Dance Me is at Sadler’s Wells until 14 February. (All photos copyright Rolando Paolo Guerzoni)

[LinMM]

Thanks for that wonderful review Sim I now wish I had gone (it’s too late now) 

I’ll never forget a friend telling me that when her father came to visit her and hubbies new flat they had a black carpet white furniture and dark purple paint on the walls and as he came into the room Leonard Cohen was on the record player ( yes that long ago) 

His first remarks were “blimey are you two feeling suicidal or something” 

So yes Cohen can be sad but there is also something hypnotic about his voice and I do like some of his songs.