May 09, 2002 -

OTTAWA -- The Contract, one of the most anticipated events in dance this season, comes to the National Arts Centre's Southam Hall on May 23, 24, and 25, 2002 at 20:00. An aesthetically dazzling and conceptually stimulating examination of Artistic Director James Kudelka's favourite themes -- love, sex, and death -- The Contract is Kudelka's first original full-length ballet. A creative landmark for The National Ballet of Canada, The Contract was created to celebrate the company's 50^th Anniversary Season. All performances feature the National Arts Centre Orchestra conducted by Ormsby Wilkins.

The Contract is part of the National Arts Centre's Canril Ballet Series, which is generously sponsored by Canril Corporation.

Featuring an ultra-naturalistic all-white set by internationally celebrated Canadian designer Michael Levine, sombre and sophisticated monochromatic costumes by Denis Lavoie, and vivid lighting by Kevin Lamotte, The Contract is visually stunning. A big, lush, and melodic original score by Michael Torke (featuring vocals by soprano Jennie Such) complements the riveting and evocative choreography. James Kudelka has created a distinctive and demanding dance language that allows the large multigenerational cast (36 adults and 18 children, all of whom are onstage at all times) to tell a provocative and powerful story. Overtly inspired by the legend of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Robert Sirman, the Administrative Director of the National Ballet School, has created a libretto that combines a rigidly moralistic and closed-minded community struggling with sudden affliction and a charismatic female outsider inspired by glamorous Canadian preacher-healer Aimee Semple McPherson.

James Kudelka has pondered the question of followers, leaders, authority, and morality since he was a child listening to an old recording of Robert Browning's poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin (in which an enigmatic piper rids the town of its rats, then leads the children away when the village elders refuse to honour their financial contract). "Why didn't they pay him?" wondered Kudelka. Years later, his question dovetailed with the squalid Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker scandal, in which the worldly temptations of sex and money brought down the telegenic and smooth-talking evangelists. Around the time Jim Bakker was being taken to prison, a new biography of Aimee Semple McPherson appeared, bringing the story of the Ontario-born evangelical media sensation to the fore. "Sister Aimee" combined preaching, inspiring sermons, and divine healing with the glitter and glamour of show business, earning her millions of dollars and immense notoriety. Caught in a sex scandal in 1926, McPherson's reputation was in tatters, and scandals and lawsuits plagued her until her death from an accidental drug overdose in 1944. The McPherson biography showed James Kudelka a way to expand his fascination with The Pied Piper beyond myth and fairy tale into the realm of contemporary society.

The Contract received a thunderous standing ovation and glowing reviews at its world premiere in Toronto on May 4.

James Kudelka has invented a daring choreographic language for the story ballet ... skilfully condensing movement to its bare necessities. The triumph of Kudelka's choreography is the clarity with which he defines the subtle differences of each group [in the onstage community] within the overall umbrella of formal ritual and archetype. One astonishing sextet... features [protagonists] dancing together yet apart, each of their physically sparse, lucid solos a picture-perfect mirror of their turbulent inner passions. Every detail of plot development is rendered in surgically precise choreography. It is almost as if Kudelka has shaved away all excess physicality to create the quintessence of storytelling-movement language ...complex character portrayal [s] rendered in minimalist movement. Kudelka... has once again presented creative provocation in dance...

Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail

With its brave, unfettered spirit, it is dance drama that confounds the imagination. I dare you to leave the theatre unmoved. I dare you to walk away uninvolved. Whether his audiences ultimately like it or not, James Kudelka is a visionary, the very sort of iconoclast who pricks social conscience and convention. That's what makes him a genius.

Gary Smith, The Hamilton Spectator

 
The National Ballet of Canada perform The Contract in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Thursday May 23, Friday May 24, and Saturday May 25 at 20:00. Tickets are $58, $48, and $34 for adults, and $29.75, $24.75, and $17.75 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC's web-site at www.nac-cna.ca. Last-minute tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students are $8.50 at the Live Rush Centre in the NAC Foyer after 16:00 on the day of performance only, upon presentation of a valid `Live Rush' card.

Photos for all dance events can be viewed and downloaded at: www.nac-cna.ca/media/

Information:
Gerald Morris
Marketing and Media Relations,
NAC Dance Department
(613) 947-7000, ext. 249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca

JAMES KUDELKA was appointed Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada in June 1996. Mr. Kudelka is one of North America's foremost dance artists, universally respected for the quality and depth of his work. As a choreographer, he has the rare ability to marry classical tradition with modern movement and is recognized for his remarkable talent in combining both idioms. This allows him to serve dance companies from Toronto Dance Theatre to San Francisco Ballet, from The National Ballet of Canada to Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, from Montreal Danse to American Ballet Theatre, from Les Grands Ballets Canadiens to solo artists such as Margie Gillis and Peggy Baker. A remarkably prolific choreographer, he has created over 70 ballets.

Born in Newmarket, Ontario, Mr. Kudelka trained as a classical dancer at the National Ballet School in Toronto and graduated in 1972 to join The National Ballet of Canada. While a soloist with the National Ballet, he became increasingly absorbed in the creation of dance, developing his ideas from workshop performance to presentation in the company's regular season. In 1981, he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal as a principal dancer and was the company's resident choreographer from 1984 to 1990. During this time, between Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and other commissions, he created numerous ballets, his work steadily maturing in the perceptions and intelligence which distinguishes its character today.

Mr. Kudelka terms himself "a conscientious observer" who creates dances that are meditations on the classic themes of love, sex and death. Major works include: In Paradisum (1983) and Désir (1991) for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, The Heart of the Matter (1986) and Fifteen Heterosexual Duets (1991) for Toronto Dance Theatre, The Miraculous Mandarin (1993), The Actress (1994), Spring Awakening (1994), The Nutcracker (1995), The Four Seasons (1997), Swan Lake (1999) and A Disembodied Voice (1999) for The National Ballet of Canada, Cruel World (1994) for American Ballet Theatre, Terra Firma (1995) and Some Women and Men (1998) for San Francisco Ballet, Le Baiser de la fée (1996) for Birmingham Royal Ballet and The Book of Alleged Dances for Australian Ballet (1999). These dances are evidence of his extraordinary development as a choreographer as well as the record of a profound artistic sensibility at work.

From September 1992 until May 1996, Mr. Kudelka was The National Ballet of Canada's Artist in Residence. This relationship with the National Ballet enabled him to create and develop repertoire for a single organization on a long-term basis, while allowing him to create new works for other companies.