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Toronto Dance Theatre’s 50th Anniversary Season GLASSFIELDS MARCH 20-24, 2018 Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre . Photo by Omer Yukseker Glass Houses in Devon Snell and Roberto Megumi Kokuba Soria, Christianne Ullmark, Tia Kushniruk, 2 TORONTO DANCE THEATRE -GLASS FIELDS 2018 Premier of Ontario - Première ministre de l’Ontario March 20, 2018 A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM THE PREMIER On behalf of the Government of Ontario, I am delighted to welcome everyone to the opening night performance of GLASS FIELDS, Toronto Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary program. As Premier, I believe in a strong arts and cultural sector. Dance, theatre and other performing arts help foster a culture of creativity, which creates a positive climate for innovation and economic development. They also enhance our reputation as a global destination for lovers of the arts and entertainment. I commend Toronto Dance Theatre for bringing the beauty and power 2018 -GLASS FIELDS THEATRE DANCE TORONTO of contemporary dance to audiences across Canada and around the world. Through the creation of exciting, groundbreaking pieces, the cultivation of new talent, and audience outreach, Toronto Dance Theatre is helping ensure the vitality of Canadian dance for generations to come. Please accept my best wishes for a wonderful evening! Kathleen Wynne Premier 3 MESSAGE FROM CHRISTOPHER HOUSE Welcome to Glass Fields, a special program for Toronto Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary season. Thank you for joining us to celebrate this milestone in the company’s remarkable journey! The nature of contemporary dance is that it speaks to the present moment, moving forward with a curiosity about and appetite for new ideas that can often sideline the past. TDT is currently in the second year of a project called Reimagining Repertoire in which works from the past are approached not simply as artifacts but as a resource for further artistic growth. We are using several lenses to consider the potential of repertoire: the lens for Glass Fields is the question of adaptation and response to an existing production. The subject for this program is my 1983 work, Glass Houses, set to a piano score by Ann Southam. Ann Southam, one of Canada’s most loved composers, was resident composer of Toronto Dance Theatre from the earliest days. Her brilliant electronic scores helped define the company’s style in such works as Against Sleep; Boat, River, Moon; and Seastill. When I met Ann in 1981, she had become more interested in acoustic music. I thought it would be interesting to choreograph something she wrote for herself rather than as a commission for others, and Ann gave me several cassettes of her piano compositions. I was immediately inspired by Glass Houses No. 5, a work that, in the hands of Christina Petrowska-Quilico, has become a classic of Canadian contemporary music. Truth be told, I was as excited by the structure of Glass Houses No. 5 as by its melodies and rhythms. The score itself is only two pages long: an ostinato for the left hand, a series of tunes for the right, and a chart that describes the progression in which these two elements live together. It all looks very choreographic just sitting on the page! In the fall of 1983, in partnership with Merle Holloman, Helen Jones, Benoît Lachambre, Grace Miyagawa and Luc Tremblay, I began work on what became a signature work for TDT for a dozen years. I chose Glass Houses as the subject for tonight’s program partly through a desire to celebrate Ann, and partly because I felt that the structure of the dance, the form of the music, the source materials I used (club dancing, Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities) and the zeitgeist of 1983 itself offered much for five choreographers to work with. It has been wonderful to see how Amanda Acorn, Jasmyn Fyffe, Hanna Kiel and Tedd Robinson have responded to my invitation, marrying their unique signatures so generously to my own. And it has been a delight for me to re-enter the world of something that I made 35 years ago. In the spirit of this evening, I hope you will consider contributing to our Future Moves campaign, a fund to ensure fifty more years of creativity by supporting the development of the next generation of choreographers. Please see the back page of the program for more details. Christopher House TORONTO DANCE THEATRE -GLASS FIELDS 2018 -GLASS FIELDS THEATRE DANCE TORONTO 4 GLASS HOUSES (1983) Written by Chantal Pontbriand, reprinted with permission from “Ten Choreographic Masterworks” in Dance Collection Danse Magazine, No. 55, 2003. In 1983, we were still in the grips of minimalism in dance and in music – that great revolutionary gust that swept up from New York, stamped with an Americaness with which we felt definite affinities north of the border. And that was the context in which Christopher House, just back from New York, still deeply imbued with a combination of Balanchine and Cunningham, put on his wonderful Glass Houses. As with new music (in reference to the New York-based movement, associated primarily with Philip Glass and Steve Reich), it was then that the term “new dance” was coined, as opposed to modern dance, and as something more modern still. After having seen visual artist Robert Longo’s “Man in the Cities”, a work presenting giant photographs of a man gesticulating in a three-piece suit, House produced Glass Houses, which he devised for two men and three women. Composer, Ann Southam, wrote a score of repetitive music for the work, characterized by a quick performance tempo and requiring considerable physicality to perform. Gestures were strictly and exactingly choreographed, allowing the viewer to read the score directly on the bodies of 2018 -GLASS FIELDS THEATRE DANCE TORONTO the dancers. An exactitude was sought after in each dancer’s every movement. For this highly urbane work, House Merle Holloman, Grace Miyagawa, Helen Jones, Learie McNicolls and Luc Tremblay in Glass Houses sought out atypical dancers. In his quest, (1983). Photo by Andrew Oxenham. he met up with Benoît Lachambre in a night club, and the latter agreed to join the initial group for the premiere of Glass Houses. What actually are those glass houses that House built in dance? What is that sought-after transparency, the will to create a work that is so heavily architectural? Such questions are perhaps linked to an era when one sought to eliminate certain whiffs of expressionism in favour of a pure and clearly legible form, an interpretation of man in the city, of the urban and its particular bodily and gestural conduct. The 1980s witnessed intense urbanization, not only in North America, following Europe, but on all the continents. It was a decade characterized by the megalopolis. Glass Houses corresponds to that intense level of urbanization that affected everyone, and every human body. It introduced mechanics into dance, establishing a constructed body. The work brought into play and into dance the highly constructed body, giving scansion to tensions and intensities. Glass Houses remains emblematic of its era which, as citizens of the twenty-first century, remains our own. C. P. 5 GLASS FIELDS Rehearsal Director – Rosemary James Stage Manager – Jennifer Lee Lighting Designer – Simon Rossiter Production Manager – A.J. Morra Costume Designer – Jennifer Dallas Assistant Stage Manager – MP Beauregard THIRTEEN Choreography – Christopher House Music – Ann Southam, Glass Houses No. 13, adapted by Taktus and Thom Gill Performers – Megumi Kokuba, Pulga Muchochoma and Christianne Ullmark Musicians – Thom Gill, Philippe Melanson and Taktus Premiere: Nov. 17, 2017 in Bogotá, Colombia Thirteen borrows movement themes from Glass Houses to animate a performance score in which the dancers are simultaneously movers, musicians and choreographers. MINING TRACING Choreography – Amanda Acorn Music – Jonathan Adjemian Performers – Valerie Calam, Alana Elmer, Yuichiro Inoue, Peter Kelly, Devon Snell and Margarita Soria Premiere: Mar. 20, 2018 in Toronto Mining Tracing activates the spaces between six sensing, responding bodies using elements of the formal structure and movement from Glass Houses. Dancing our embodied histories, through a structured score that calls the past vividly forward into the present moment. RESET IN SUITS Choreography – Jasmyn Fyffe Sound – Sarah Shugarman Performers – Alana Elmer, Peter Kelly, Tia Kushniruk and Pulga Muchochoma Premiere: Mar. 20, 2018 in Toronto The overarching question is: what is our authentic response to what we see and feel and how does this manifest physically in the space? Playing with freedom in structure, interruption, TORONTO DANCE THEATRE -GLASS FIELDS 2018 -GLASS FIELDS THEATRE DANCE TORONTO attention span and the simplicity of “doing” and “being.” I am also interested and responding 6 to deep physicality, resetting, shifting and listening. FIFTEEN MINUTE INTERMISSION GH 5.0 Choreography – Hanna Kiel, in collaboration with the dancers Music – Greg Harrison Performers – Yuichiro Inoue, Megumi Kokuba, Devon Snell, Margarita Soria, Roberto Soria and Christianne Ullmark Premiere: Mar. 20, 2018 in Toronto I would like to thank Christopher House for this incredible opportunity, a big thanks to Rosemary James for helping me out with the rehearsal process. Thank you Greg Harrison for your music and thank you to these incredibly talented dancers for their artistic input. 6 PEOPLE DOING 6 POSES FROM 6 PHOTOS TO MUSIC Choreography – Tedd Robinson Music – Charles Quevillon Performers – Valerie Calam, Alana Elmer, Yuichiro Inoue, Peter Kelly, Pulga Muchochoma and Margarita Soria TORONTO DANCE THEATRE -GLASS FIELDS 2018 -GLASS FIELDS THEATRE DANCE TORONTO Premiere: Mar. 20, 2018 in Toronto I started with the Longo photos (one of the inspirations for the original). The performers learned 6 poses from 6 photos and then we moved these images in space. Charles’ music ends with a durational cluster chord of all the notes of Ann Southam’s score.

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