Centre commission brings iconic Canadian choreographer back to Banff

Dancetheatre David Earle’s “Odyssey.” Photo: Donald Lee.

David Earle is sitting in Three Ravens Wine Bar musing about the future and remembering the past. Balancing a wine glass on his knee, and with an energy that belies his 70 years, he speaks quietly but passionately about the new works his dance company is perfecting in Banff, and how 25 years ago a Banff Centre commission changed the course of his life and of contemporary dance in Canada.

The year was 1984. Earle, then artistic director and co-founder of the Toronto Dance Theatre, received a last-minute call from Brian Macdonald, head of the Centre’s dance program. A choreographer was unable to come to Banff that summer. Could Earle substitute, and could he bring a new work with him? “I had six weeks. The time constraints were pretty brutal,” Earle remembers. “I had been listening to the Mozart Requiem all spring, and I felt inspired to choreograph for it. If there is any genius in the result, it is that I didn’t interfere with the music.”

There was indeed genius in the result. After premiering in Banff, Sacra Conversazione went on to become one of Toronto Dance Theatre’s signature works. It toured to Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. Audiences reacted ecstatically. “When Sacra was performed in Mexico and Venezuela, members of the audience came backstage in tears,” recalls Earle. “I think they instinctively understood the heart of it, which is how a community collectively deals with death.”

The work born in Banff that summer was a turning point for Earle, further cementing his stature as one of Canada’s iconic choreographers. In 2003, Dance Collection Danse Magazine declared Sacra Conversazione one of the top ten Canadian choreographic masterworks of the 20th century. Earle went on to receive numerous awards including the Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award, the Order of Canada, and the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, among many others.

In 1996 Earle left Toronto Dance Theatre to form his own company, Dancetheatre David Earle, based in Guelph, Ontario. Which brings us back to Banff, and a glass of wine overlooking the Rockies during a break in the company’s busy rehearsal schedule.

Earle speaks briefly about plans to produce a film about Sacra Conversazione on its 25th anniversary, and his excitement in finding images and recordings of the Banff premiere in the Centre’s Archives, but his focus is clearly on the new works the company will mount during their two-week residency leading to a November 28, 2009, performance in the Eric Harvie Theatre.

One of these works is Odyssey, featuring music commissioned by The Banff Centre and composed by London, Ontario’s Omar Daniel, performed by Daniel and the Penderecki String Quartet, who joined Dancetheatre David Earle for the last week of their creative residency.

“We’ve worked with the Penderecki for the past 12 years,” says Earle. “There is nothing to equal the experience of dancing to live music — to sounds that are born in that moment. Each performance has its own life, its own electricity.”

Violinist Jeremy Bell of the Penderecki String Quartet echoes Earle’s words. “It’s exciting to be onstage with the dancers, to see the music come alive physically and to hear the dancers breathing, to feel them moving past you.” As a dance company, Dancetheatre David Earle is “innately musical” he says. “Not all dance companies necessarily understand music, but they do. There is a complete physical and emotional integration with what we’re playing. Over the years, working together on various pieces, we’ve developed a kinship of artistic vision.”

For Daniel, who performs live electronic processing of the quartet during Odyssey, writing for dance means considering more than sound. “The music needs to allow room for the dance to flourish. Normally I aim to make the music compelling moment by moment, but that can be too much information, too fast for dance…. I’ve learned to allow tones to settle and time for the dancers to interpret that tone before moving on.”

Earle marvels at the Centre resources at his disposal as the company prepared to mount the first fully-staged performance of Odyssey. “I walked backstage for a meeting on the first day and there were 12 people, pencils poised, waiting to hear what we needed,” he says. “Translating a work from the studio to the stage is often heartbreaking. If the lighting isn’t working or the staging is awkward, it can be devastating. Here we have access to the theatre in advance, time to perfect the best possible lighting. It can make all the difference.”

Just as he did 25 years ago with Sacra Conversazione, Earle will leave Banff with a fully-formed work primed for future performance. The company already has touring dates booked for Odyssey.

“I think in these times people need dance,” Earle says. “I think the world is starved for affirmative imagery. Dance can provide that. Dance can speak when words are left behind.”

The Banff Centre’s commission of the music for Odyssey
was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.