Louise Lecavalier in “Stations”, Photo by Andre Cornellier
Over the past couple of years, contemporary dance has become an important part of my cultural experience. The art form has never failed to take me somewhere—sometimes an easily identifiable place, but more often than not, and most impressively, to intensely human areas that are difficult, if not impossible, to articulate in words.
Seeing titan of the industry, Louise Lacavalier, my appreciation of the form increased exponentially as she performed Stations. Presented by Fou glorieux and Harbourfront Centre, three days seems like such a brief engagement, but everybody else deserves a chance to see her too, I guess.
Her presence is manic, fiercely so, and she seems to be always pulled by some relentless force we can’t see. Perhaps the controlling entity comes from within, a compulsion that propels her body into spasms both violent and gentle. Her movement is deliberate and reactive, but the ambiguity of source cause makes it particularly eerie and compelling.
Ah, but that isn’t entirely true. The pulsating music is certainly pulling those strings, but somehow… it feels deeper than that, stranger. There is a sense of the primordial here and, gloriously paradoxical, it also feels futuristic and anticipatory. The design elements contribute greatly to this expansive aesthetic.
After a lengthy stretch within a hazy and dim general wash, lighting designer Alain Lortie breaks the monotony with entangled tendrils and blocks of light the provide environmental variety. Four tangible pillars lit from within also define the space by suggesting quadrants. The light rises, falls and shifts colour within these dynamic columns.
A featured highlight of Lacavalier’s technique is an elegant, smooth traversing of the stage that gives the impression of floating. Watching her feet, you see the rapid, incremental footwork that achieves this illusion. She is also a master of understated punctuation—the quick zip of a jacket grounds us when things almost get too phantasmagorical.
Her bent-over backwards, arms outstretched lip-sync is another disquieting, grotesque highlight. This unnerving image is the most pointed instance, but the performance overall is somewhat anxiety inducing. I was grateful for the moments of stillness and silence that occur between stations, as the fraught gestalt is a lot to contend with. A transcendent experience.