Toronto Dance Theatre. - Joyce Theater, New York, NY - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, Feb, 1996 by Marilyn Hunt

I've been very impressed in the past with the choreography I've seen by Christopher House, who became artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre in 1994. I'm trying to figure out why his New York premieres on this program were, with one exception, disappointing in comparison. I think it has to do with a less gutsy, more limited vocabulary and with his handling of ambiguity.

The piece I liked most, Four Towers, exemplifies House's forthright, all-out classical modern dance approach, using Graham contractions in moderation and Merce Cunningham tilts and 6ends of the spine, plus a spicing of ballet steps. The men and women in plain unisex skirts grandly sweep the air to Robert Moran's lyrical string music and gesture with abstract finesse. The dance evokes human emotions in an open-ended way and doesn't make the audience feel they are missing something if they don't read it "right," because the movement has its own logic.

For example, in a slow, contemplative solo a woman, Laurence Lemieux, alternates between deep lunges and a centered aplomb, both reflecting the music's yearning quality. Perhaps she is in mourning, as at the end she folds her arm over her head, then lies down and reaches up to caress thin air; certainly the dance expresses some contemplative process.

Encarnado, a duet for two men (House and Graham McKelvie the night I saw it), takes inspiration specifically from The Iliad, according to the program, presumably from the story of Achilles and Patroclus. But while an occasional embrace is clear enough, often the two make idiosyncratic poses or moves - man stands on one leg and carefully hooks the other around it-that don't seem to function well either as expressions of their relationship or as dance. You wonder what is happening at any moment. Only in retrospect do you see that House must have been Patroclus, who was killed in bottle, because after a solo with writhing arms-inner struggle?-he leaves the stage to McKelvie, who remains alone at the end, on his back, dragging a hand along the floor.

Island, set to Steve Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood with the volume so loud the wood blocks seem to be knocking in your head, uses a good deal of post-modern everyday movement, such as walking and two-footed hops, but with its Caribbean-look pants it seems to be aiming for some tropical heat it doesn't generate. The opening muscular solo by Pascal Desrosiers seems to be trying for more than a hint of sinuousness, but it mainly keeps stylized poses. A duet for Mckelvie and a woman is a start-stop-start matter, a pattern House seems to fall into, not always with apparent purpose. The men carefully make themselves into a heap at the end, while on the other side of the stage the women in a tight group gesture abstractly among themselves.

In Amor's Gavottes, to Mozart's Les petits riens, I kept expecting some point of view to emerge from the pallid dancing, politesse, and perfunctory duest (extend the hand, move the woman's leg). Real minuets show more flirtation and pizzazz. Only House, who has had a distinguished career as a solo concert dancer, has attack, varied and focused phrasing, and a conviction that makes you feel something is happening, In his solo he makes you see invisible courtiers around him - and see them with his subtle cutting edge.