Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and The Drum
Company: Alberta Ballet presents Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and the Drum
When: Friday, February 20
Where: Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton

The legendary Joni Mitchell and Alberta Ballet's Jean Grand-Maitre are an artistic coalition bringing a green message of peace and love with their gutsy and stimulating ballet The Fiddle and the Drum.

The unlikely duo have remarkably fused the politically charged and poetic themes inherent in Mitchell's songs, with projections of her visual artwork, and orchestrated the movement of the Alberta Ballet dancers symbiotically so it all washes over your senses, seeping into your mind and spirit.

Friday night, the newly expanded full-length version of the ballet hit the stage in Edmonton, after making its way through a tour of several prairie cities. Much to the delight of local audiences, the ballet arrived in full bloom, brilliantly polished but still fresh and exuberant.

It was pure pleasure to see the company dancing so very well right now as a tightly knit group, a strong and mature ensemble made-up of self-confident and sexy individual artists full of passion and heart.

The genius of Grand-Maitre and Mitchell's collaboration was no better made apparent than in act two's breathtaking Ethiopia.

The song is deliberately not one of Mitchell's most easy to listen to tunes on its own and resolving it choreographically is a complex and challenging task, not unlike the very issues and problems the vast continent of Africa faces. But what we witnessed here was nothing less than the work of both artists pulled up to a whole other plain when seen together. Mitchell's music demanded that the choreographer work completely out of his comfort zone, and Grand-Maitre rolled up his sleeves and dived right in, colliding his distinctive contemporary ballet movement vocabulary inventively with traditional Afro-dance and jazz.

The effect was astonishingly haunting and stunningly beautiful at the same time.