Dance’s enfant terrible returns to Calgary with limited amounts of clothing

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Orpheus and Eurydice presented by Theatre Junction Grand
Theatre Junction Grand
Tuesday, September 22 - Saturday, September 26

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One of the most compelling stories in Greek mythology is that of Orpheus and Eurydice. When Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies, Orpheus journeys to the underworld and charms Hades with his melancholic music. Hades agrees to allow Orpheuses’s dead wife, Eurydice, to be returned to life — but only if he walks in front of her and does not look back until both have reached the Earth. The story ends badly, as all Greek tragedies must. Orpheus is filled with apprehension and disregards Hades’s instructions. He looks at Eurydice and she disappears forever.

Compagnie Marie Chouinard takes a more avant-garde approach to the tale. No one single Orpheus or Eurydice is featured. Instead, several are identifiable at different moments during Chouinard’s work, which has been described as provocative, profane and experimental. This is no surprise for those who have seen Chouinard’s performances before. Her cutting-edge works earned the choreographer the title of dance’s enfant terrible early in her career. The company’s performances are best described as a no-holds-barred, fantastical play on both humour and the darker aspects of the human psyche, as well as a mixture of the near-erotic with the ethereal. Her athletic dancers often appear onstage with little more than the bare minimum for costumes.

What happens, then, when Chouinard visits classical Greek mythology?

According to dancer and company member Mark Eden-Towle, there are elements of the ancient story in Chouinard’s Orpheus & Eurydice, but it is also based on the act of creation itself. Orpheus was the first poet and Chouinard was keenly interested in exploring the notion of the formation of words.

“That is the playground of this piece — the way that words are formed,” says Eden-Towle, noting the words are formed as much through physicality as sound.

The idea of “pulling the words out,” as Eden-Towle describes it, was just part of the process for the company dancers.

“As the piece goes on, the sound of the word becomes clearer,” he says. The soundscape of the piece includes music by Louis Dufort, as well as sections featuring the dancers’ voices over the music.

According to dancer Lucie Mongrain, the company worked with the idea of how primitive man uttered his first word. “The idea of the need to name things, the need to get things out and how guttural and pure and how full of effort that can be… for me, I really love the celebratory aspect of it,” she says. “There are some darker moments (in the work), but it is an explosion of energy in an oddly organized way that’s really satisfying.”

“It is a guttural joy, like a joy that comes through inside you in an atypical way.”

The work started as an exploration of voice and movement, directed and facilitated by Chouinard with her dancers. “We definitely follow Marie. She gives the impetus, the idea and then we play with the idea and then she makes the decision,” says Mongrain.

“We play with the material and the music, that is our influence, playing within the frame of what she has given us.” Chouinard’s choreography is a result of her direction rather than the dancers merely copying her movements.

The result is performances that are more “in the moment.”

“It is more present, more alive: There is something more fragile and on the edge about it,” says Mongrain.