Propeller Dance, ‘Waiting in the Wings No More’, Photo by Andrew Balfour
Propeller Dance has been on my radar since mid-March of 2020. One of the last pieces of in-person theatre I saw before the world shut down, I caught Flesh & Spokes / Spasticus at Harbourfront Centre for DanceWorks (my review). A celebration and showcase of diverse bodies in motion, I was struck by the fusion of whimsical artistry and pointed commentary. Presented by The Disability Collective for Fall for Dance North, ‘Waiting in the Wings No More’ is a double bill that features disabled performers in works that expand audience perception of dance as an art form and institution.
Contemporary dance offers such an expansive landscape for varied modes of expression. The form bends itself around the unique specifics of a performer’s strengths and weaknesses, can incorporate a wide range of set and prop elements, so there’s little friction introducing something like a wheelchair into the mix.
The first piece, Stage Door, choreographed by Lucy Bennett and featuring dancers Elizabeth Emond-Stevenson, Moni Hoffman and Dylan Phillips, immerses us in a backstage-onstage dynamic. Two women—one in a wheelchair, the other not—prepare themselves at a dressing room mirror. They giggle and admire themselves and each other and revel in the excitement of an upcoming performance.
Only one of them goes out on stage though. As the friend in the wheelchair waits in the wings, her companion gets into costume and has dance journey with a man that is both elegant and fantastical.
Though each moment here is compelling, the piece as a whole feels incomplete, as if there’s a beat missing. My gut told me to expect the woman in the wheelchair would have another moment at the end, but she never does. Perhaps this unresolved, dissatisfied feeling is the intention.
The second piece, Living the unDesireable Life is longer, larger, more varied and feels like a thematic progression. There are meta elements that draw reference to the company itself. A figure clearly identified as an outsider watches from a distance, behind a circle of long sticks that form a protective barricade. This is the journalistic podcaster (Paulina Drohomyrecky), recording the enthusiastic, playful spectacle on her phone.
In some spoken dialogue, her patronizing comments and intrusive questions establish her as a representative of societal ignorance. As the other dancers (Emond-Stevenson, Hoffman, Phillips, Jayson “JC Fresh” Collantes, Shay Erlich and Elizabeth Winkelaar) engage in joyful, stylized romping to celebrate themselves as individuals and as a collective, her micro-aggressive remarks and queries are cringe-inducing. “What happened to you?” “How do you have sex?” and my personal favourite, “You don’t look disabled. Have you tried essential oils?” Though the absolute funniest bit is her “Thank you for participating. Thank You For Participating. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!!!” which builds in absurdist intensity as she bombards them with the condescending phrase.
Raging against labels and binaries, the performers rally together in solidarity. There are some beautiful moments of intimate connection as dancers affectionately embrace and guide each other. Choreographer Renata Soutter has also devised some very stirring images. One of the most moving is a sequence where one performer, having crawled out of her wheelchair and across the stage, is gently twisted her over and over by a pair of her fellow dancers. They help her to traverse the space, while caught in the glare of her wheelchair’s headlamps.
Soutter has also included a rather clever allusion. In one segment, the dancers spread their arms out over their heads in a sweeping, offset gesture—an echo of da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man—as if in defiance of that model of idealized human proportion.
A relaxed performance with both ASL and audio transcription, this is a thoroughly accessible experience. This is not just a lovely practical inclusion, but is especially necessary in the context of production’s thematic purpose. ‘Waiting in the Wings No More’ is a dynamic, often disarmingly silly and persuasive double-bill.
