Images provided by the company
One of two new programs in this year’s Fall for Dance North, Intimate Pairings is co-presented by Citadel + Compagnie and brings two performers up close and personal to an entire audience of front row spectators seated in the round. I was able to catch both presentations in this program which featured varied styles, each one showcasing distinctive aesthetic drama.
Braids & Heritage, by Jossua Satinée and Stacey Désilier, opens with line dance. The country trappings have been deconstructed here by Satinée and Désillier’s costume design. Torn denim jeans reveal lots of torso and leg with cheekily fringed undies. Though they warmly greet arriving patrons, their vibe as the performance starts is a little alienating. The melody is only mumbled under their breath as they tip an imaginary Stetson at us, grab their belts and start to stomp and thrust.
As the actual music kicks in, the performance becomes increasingly exhilarating as they go through the motions, making frequent and prolonged eye contact with attendees. Their long, braided hair and durags hint at where this piece is headed as the country vibes give way to an urban, street dance feel. Satinée and Désillier swap out the jeans for tracksuits and engage with us more directly as black creators, through movements and aesthetics crafted by black folks. Cake walk and twerking feature heavily and it’s pretty wild where we all end up, gathered on the stage floor around them as the intimacy ramps up significantly. And, oh boy, the lollipops really hit.
gutted is a solo piece choreographed by Katie Adams-Gossage and performed by Frédérique Perron. A female figure ever so slowly rotates centre stage, illuminated as if in a void. She’s draped in white as if she’s a Greek statue, the fabric wet and clinging to her her. You slowly realize, as she revolves and contorts gradually, that a rope fastened to her hair is incrementally unravelling until it finally touches the stage floor.
The piece is hypnotic in its slow, relentless movement. The technique by which she spools, unspools, then twirls the rope about her is deeply contemplative. We are invited to witness this unbroken process and to meditate on her plight. Is there a purpose? It seems both deeply satisfying and utterly frustrating in equal measure. Her presence and movement are gentle, yet a certain grotesqueness creeps into certain contortions and her overall persistence.
Theo Belc’s muted and steady lighting here reinforces the eerie quality, separating her distinctly from the surrounding void, but occasionally flickering and making her existence feel precarious.
Another solo work, Priyanka Tope’s Pendulum is also intensely meditative, but the overall mood is brighter, the movement more expansive, filling the space. There are elements of classical Indian kathak in her percussive footwork and spinning. The deep burgundy dress is quite ravishing. Her expressive face is full of drama—taking us from curiosity to fear, from defiance to empathy.
Her fluctuating gestures indicate a negotiation between defence, surrender and invitation. Throughout, Tope doesn’t make direct eye contact; she fixates on a space just above our heads, on some specific entity separate from us, which gives her presence a mythic vibe; though her focused intentionality and close proximity afford her gaze a consistent intimacy regardless.
