Now is not the time for the fiddle.

Opening to an anti-war song of the same name, the Alberta Ballet's performance of Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and the Drum this past Sunday at the Vic Juba Community Theatre constructed a beautiful emotive landscape that managed to scold the entire audience for the far too many wretched human-based events taking place.

The biting tone of the 11 song set was clear from the very rising of the curtain.

It is here we are greeted by a nearly bare-skinned, chiseled-out man (whose robust physique is accentuated by blue lines marking the definition in his chest and leg muscle). The strength in his creation is all too evident to the onlooking audience. He is soon joined by the full ballet company - also toned and donned in beige/green leotard.

Only as members of the company slowly put on soldiers helmets, and one by one fall to the ground does the frailty of each human life - even in its most immaculate form - also become recognizable, as does each person's capacity to destroy life.

Suddenly that leotard looks a little more green, a little more militant - and yet remains a burden every member of the company wears regardless of whether they actually put on that soldier helmet. Human complicity? Maybe. The recognition in the previous failure(s) of protest to prevent further social and ecological devastation the world over? Perhaps. The innate human potential to kill and be killed?

Whatever the interpretation, this ballet was not going to concentrate on celebrating the fiddle; Mitchell and company were here to scorn the overuse, and constant reuse of the drum - and whatever violence it represents.

While devoid of any overt story-line, the Alberta ballet's performance could hardly be considered abstract. Instead the ballet resonated as a critical social commentary that paired common historical symbols of war/peace, us/them, economy/environment and worked successfully to allow the audience's emotional responses to reign over reasoned and calculated thoughts.

After all, throughout modern times hasn't the irrational, the destructive and the violent been somehow reasoned and rationalized?

The level of emotion and social commentary The Fiddle and the Drum achieves - despite lacking a coherent linear narrative - is due in part to Alberta Ballet choreographer Jean Grand-Maitre's decision to not simply tell a story or take the literal images available in Canadian singer/song writer Joni Mitchell's often colourful, blunt political lyrics and re-enact them via dance.