Alberta Ballet captures magic of Joni Mitchell's music

by Grania Litwin
Victoria Times Colonist
January 28, 2010

The costumes and stage setting were minimalist but the effect was maximalist when dancers from Alberta Ballet took the stage last night to perform The Fiddle and the Drum at the Royal Theatre.

As the words and lyrical music of Joni Mitchell poured over the theatre, the contemporary vernacular of choreographer Jean Grand-Maître's neoclassical style lifted the audience to a fever pitch which included two enthusiastic standing ovations.

The work is genre defying. While much of it is en pointe, other sections are urban club, hip hop, or African in tone, with low, to the ground slithers, deep knee bends and tribal circles. The overall effect is theatrical and sleek with breathtaking speed, and many solos and duets performed upstage while layers of other dancers float across the back.

The flashy moves and ripping entertainment never flagged last night, with dancers in flesh-toned figure-revealing shorts and sleeveless leotards, or occasional diaphanous skirts or shirts. The costumes were spare and clean, revealing every sinew and the men wore "war" paint too, that highlighted their muscles.

The piece opened with Mitchell's famous a capella song, The Fiddle and the Drum and finished with an encore to the strains of Big Yellow Taxi, from which came the famously-quoted line about paving paradise to put up a parking lot.

Some of the songs, like For the Roses, recorded with the London Philharmonic, were exquisitely romantic and lush, an abstract melancholy piece featuring three almost-nude couples and young child Clara Stripe dance in front of a starry sky and gradually shrinking moon.

Curiously, some of the most powerful moments come when there was no dancing at all. Grand-Maître, who is also choreographing the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Vancouver, is the prince of pause. When everything stops suddenly on stage, the audience looks at a sublime orb of the Earth, in a shot that is taken at night from outer space. At other moments, the dancing freezes and one of Mitchell's video scenes of jungle animals, moonlit ocean or clouds confirm her connection to the natural world.

The company of 28 dancers showed off their exquisite long lines as they performed many stunning arabesques, and shone in the highly kinetic spins.

While the performance deals with sombre themes and portrays Mitchell's concern for destruction of the environment and for humanity's survival in the face of endless wars, the dancers' elegant athleticism and vigour are awe-inspiring and uplifting.

It's a contrast between the worst things people do - and the most beautiful. And there is hope in this work because while man's feet are rooted on Earth, the dancing soars.