REACHING U Student Dress Rehearsal March 12, 2021 — 1:30pm DANCER MIRIAM GITTENS. PHOTO BY MICHAEL SLOBODIAN. Learning Guide The goal of this Learning Guide is to help students engage fully with the dance performance featured in Ballet BC’s 2021 livestream of GARDEN and Bedroom Folk from the Massey Theatre on March 12, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. TABLE OF CONTENTS 3… Welcome message from the Artistic Director 4… About Ballet BC 5… Ballet BC presents REACHING U 6… Program 7… Before the Performance Lesson 1- Dance 11… Before the Performance Lesson 2 - Music 12… Before the Performance Lesson 3 - Storytelling 13… After the Performance Lesson 4 - Discussion/Review 15… Continue Your Exploration Ballet BC would like to thank the Diamond Foundation and the Beech Foundation whose generous support has helped to live stream this dress rehearsal to students across the province. Ballet BC would also like to thank the R&J Stern Family Foundation for their support of Ballet BC’s Outreach and Education Program. Ballet BC acknowledges the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia for Ballet BC’s Outreach and Education Program. 2 DEAR TEACHERS, Thank you for participating in Ballet BC’s Student Dress Rehearsal for REACHING U. We believe that arts are important for youth and we are so excited to be sharing our art form with you. We are honoured to have you and your students with us, from a distance, during such challenging and limiting times. You will be the first audience to experience this performance before we release it to the public next month! As a leader and innovator of contemporary dance, Ballet BC believes in the importance of arts education and the role that creativity plays in the minds of our younger audiences. They are the inventors and creators of the future, the next generation of change and development in our world. It brings me back to my younger days when I discovered the joy of moving and the power of dance. It felt to me as the most natural method for learning and expressing myself. I hope that your students will be inspired by what they see from us. Today we are delighted to be sharing Bedroom Folk co-created by choreographers Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, as well as my own work, GARDEN. I invite you to encourage your students to build their own opinions about the work, to discuss their thoughts and observations about the show, to talk about what they noticed and how it relates to their world; and lastly to generate a creative response to the ideas that they encountered. Thank you for being a part of Ballet BC’s outreach initiatives and for opening up dance to the lives of your students. We look forward to having you tune into the live stream of our Student Dress Rehearsal. Medhi Walerski Artistic Director, Ballet BC 3 About Ballet BC An internationally acclaimed collaborative and creation-based contemporary ballet company that is a leader and resource in the creation, production and education of contemporary dance in Canada. Founded in 1986 by David Y. H. Lui, Jean Orr and Sheila Begg, with Annette av Paul as first Artistic Director, the company has been under the artistic direction of Reid Anderson, Patricia Neary and Barry Ingham, followed by John Alleyne for 17 years and Emily Molnar for 11. As of July 2020, the company is proudly under the directorship of Medhi Walerski. Ballet BC is an internationally acclaimed collaborative and creation-based contemporary ballet company that is a leader and resource in the creation, production and education of contemporary dance in Canada. Bold and innovative, the Company’s distinctive style and approach has made a unique and valuable national contribution to the development of dance. In 2019, the Company was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production for their tour to Sadler’s Wells in London. Ballet BC’s dancers are a group of open-minded and curious artists, each unique for their dynamic movement while sharing an intuitive passion for dance. Ballet BC is committed to its role as a leader in the community through dancer training opportunities, community and audience outreach, and professional development activities. The Company presents a diverse repertoire of Canadian and international work from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and is a hotbed for the creation and performance of new works. Since 2009, the Company has developed a repertoire of more than 45 new works by acclaimed Canadian and international choreographers including William Forsythe, Cayetano Soto, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Medhi Walerski, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Johan Inger, Adi Salant, Emanuel Gat, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Jacopo Godani, Company 605, Jorma Elo, Wen Wei Wang, Itzik Galili, Serge Bennathan, Walter Matteini, José Navas, Emily Molnar, Lesley Telford, Nicolo Fonte, Fernando Hernando Magadan, Kevin O’Day, Shawn Hounsell, Gioconda Barbuto, Simone Orlando, Robert Glumbek and Aszure Barton among others. Ballet BC actively fosters collaborations that support artists, choreographers and audiences alike, furthering the boundaries of contemporary dance. The company embraces excellence in the practice of contemporary ballet, with its wide diversity of technique and style, honouring its roots and components. 4 REACHING U Student Dress Rehearsal March 12th at 1:30 p.m. Ballet BC is proud to present REACHING U, the company’s featured digital program of the adapted 2021 Season. This special presentation will feature works by acclaimed duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar as well as Artistic Director Medhi Walerski. Audiences will experience the return of the spectacular and hypnotic Bedroom Folk —a percussive and deliciously punchy choreography in which movement, music, and light are equal protagonists — as well as the North American Premiere of GARDEN, a poetic and refined work set to music by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. “What a joy to connect again with all our audiences near and far. Although we might not be in the same physical space, the digital world offers us the possibility to reach you. It is an honour to be leading this exceptional company of artists at this pivotal moment in time and it is with great pleasure and pride that we present you with this exciting evening of dance.” —Medhi Walerski Ballet BC Premiere (Work) GARDEN Choreography Medhi Walerski “Mr. Walerski is a choreographer who makes clear, theatrical choices and seems deeply invested in conceptual coherence” —Globe and Mail Previously nominated by Dance Europe for Best Production, GARDEN is an elegant and sophisticated work inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14. Through a series of duets, unison, and counterpoint, while reflecting the refined dialogue between strings and piano, the dancers shape the space physically in a pure and organic way. North American Premiere — Ballet BC 2019 (Work) Bedroom Folk Choreography Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar “[Bedroom Folk] is a piece where Ballet BC can show its fierceness.” —The Georgia Straight Ballet BC is thrilled to bring back Bedroom Folk from the esteemed collaborative duo and Vancouver audience favourite, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. Visually mesmerizing, a house beat pulses through an intoxicating space as dancers subtly move through this absorbing work in striking ways. An instant success with Vancouver audiences after its North American premiere in 2019, Bedroom Folk has since become a signature of Ballet BC’s touring repertoire across the globe. 5 Program GARDEN Bedroom Folk World Premiere, September 2016, World Premiere, April 2015, Nederlands Dans Theater I Nederlands Dans Theatre I Ballet BC Premiere, North American Premiere, April 2021, Ballet BC May 2019, Ballet BC Choreography Choreographer Medhi Walerski Sharon Eyal Stager Co-Creator Rupert Tookey Gai Behar Music Assistant to the Choreographer Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op. 14: Tom Weinberger Allegro moderato e maestoso & Andante sostenuto Rehearsal Assistant By: Camille Saint-Saëns Lara Barclay Performed By: Ortiz, Cristina – piano Fine Arts Quartet Sound Artist and Music Courtesy of Naxos of America, Inc. Ori Lichtik Lighting & Stage Design Lighting Designer Theun Mosk Thierry Dreyfus Costume Design Lighting Director Medhi Walerski, Joke Visser Alan Cohen Performers Costume Design Brandon Alley Rebecca Hytting Livona Ellis Parker Finley Performers Miriam Gittens Brandon Alley Jordan Lang Livona Ellis Rena Narumi Parker Finley Justin Rapaport Miriam Gittens Rae Srivastava Kiana Jung Kirsten Wicklund Jordan Lang Zenon Zubyk Sarah Pippin Evan Rapaport Justin Rapaport Dex van ter Meij Kirsten Wicklund Zenon Zubyk 6 Before the Performance – Lesson 1: Dance Exploring What We Know About Dance WHAT IS DANCE? Bending, stretching, jumping, turning, sliding and partnering are all activities dancers do. They work hard training their bodies to learn how to transform everyday movements and physical approaches into the language of dance. A movement can originate from an abstract idea, memory, poem, piece of art or music that is then transformed through a dancer’s expressive body. Dance can be a medium for expressing feelings such as joy, sadness, anger, curiosity or love. It is one of the greatest forms of communication we have available to us. Through movement of the body, dancers learn to convey emotions, questions, and sometimes even entire stories, without needing to speak aloud. Dance is a universal language and can connect people from various backgrounds and cultures in the world. Dance is a wonderful way to express our joys and challenges in life. There are many different styles of dance: Classical Ballet, Jazz, Modern, Contemporary, Hip-Hop, House, Voguing, Flamenco, Bellydance, Indigenous dance, Chinese Contemporary and Classical Indian Dance. HISTORY OF DANCE People have always danced. The first dances were part of religious and community ceremonies, but by the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, dancing had also become a form of entertainment.