April 26, 2007 -

OTTAWA -- Presented by the NAC Dance department as part of the Quebec Scene, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal pay homage to internationally celebrated European choreographers when they perform TooT and Noces in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Friday May 4 at 20:00. Commissioned especially for the company by Artistic Director Gradimir Pankov, these two rivetingly original new contemporary ballets are both visually stunning. TooT, by Dutch dancer-choreographer Didy Veldman, follows eight men and seven women cavorting in brilliantly imaginative vignettes. Noces, by Belgian choreographer and set-designer Stijn Celis, features 24 dancers who strut, pose, and challenge each other at a Balkan peasant wedding -- the dancing is raw, expressionistic, and deliriously intense.

“The way they use technique is nothing unknown, but it is contemporary and very energetic,” Mr. Pankov said of Mr. Celis and Ms Veldman. “The dynamic is very strong. You can feel [the dancers’] excitement and their engagement with what they're dancing,” said Ella Baff, Artistic Director of the internationally-acclaimed Jacob's Pillow dance festival. “Ballet … can be a completely alert, contemporary form. And I feel Gradimir is firmly grounded in the ballet tradition but has a totally contemporary eye. He’s willing to mix it up and try new things.”

“Gradimir Pankov's revolution at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal continues, with breathtaking results …[the dancers’] rangy bodies and vivid personalities suit to near perfection the two works on display. TooT was charming …continuously ingenious and beguiling. Noces was extraordinary.”

John Rockwell, The New York Times, August 2005

“Under the leadership of Gradimir Pankov, the company has become valued not just for the flair and technical virtuosity of its dancers, but for its embrace of cutting-edge, genre-defying dance.”

Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe, August 2005

TooT is a revelation, an entertaining and powerful statement on the conflict between conformity and individualism. Didy Veldman sets the work to Shostakovich’s raucous Jazz Suite No. 2, but she also intersperses darker, more soulful music by the Balanescu Quartet. TooT is brilliantly imaginative in both theatrical context and richness of movement. Six curved, mirrored ‘boxes’ suggest a circus ring, reinforced by the dancers’ white, clown-like faces and antics that include a water gun fight and a solo by a woman dressed in a cloud of red balloons. The dancers fling themselves into falls and fluid acrobatic phrases that flow with the work’s shifting tone as the hilarious water-gun fight eerily morphs from play into a macabre revolt.

Noces is a radically expressionistic celebration ritual set to Igor Stravinsky’s riveting, barbaric 1923 score. Stijn Celis follows the original scenario, familiar from Bronislava Nijinska’s original choreography, of a Russian peasant wedding. Two dozen dancers, divided into sharply opposing forces, male and female, brutally challenge each other. They move with disjointed angularity and stiff precision through arresting patterns, connecting and disconnecting without emotion. This is not so much mating as war. The men wear black suits, the women caps with pigtail-like ribbons, bodices and bunched white tulle skirts. The women dance with the men seated ominously on their benches at the side; then roles reverse. Noces looks like Balkan folk dancing, hinting at the delirious intensity of Serbian brass-band wedding music. The dancing is raw, sometimes almost obscene: in the way the women gather up their tulle and bear down on the men or how bodies are twisted and stretched violently in space. John Rockwell of the New York Times wrote, “If the other repertory Mr. Pankov has cultivated in Montreal is anywhere as good as this, we should see more of it -- and these compelling dancers -- as soon as possible.”

“TooT [is] a cross between an old-time Fellini film and the trendy deft Cirque du Soleil. Indeed, we're in for a wild and noisy ride. Veldman clearly knows how to make things happen and allows free rein to her imagination and ideas. [In] Noces the emphasis is on artificiality and pounding coercion … it is harsh, animalistic and fatalistic. Overall, it’s a visually stunning, strenuously adventurous evening. Let's call it bracing, a bracing change and something to brace for — a brave new world.”

Allison Tracy, The Berkshire Eagle, August 2005

TooT (2005)
CHOREOGRAPHY Didy Veldman
MUSIC Dmitri Shostakovich, Jazz Suite No. 2; Balanescu Quartet.
COSTUME DESIGN Miriam Buether

Noces (2002)
CHOREOGRAPHY Stijn Celis
MUSIC Igor Stravinsky, Les Noces SET DESIGNStijn Celis
COSTUME DESIGN Catherine Voeffray LIGHTING DESIGN Marc Parent

The National Arts Centre’s Quebec Scene
From April 20 to May 5, 2007, 700 artists from Québec will take over the arts and culture scene in the Ottawa/Gatineau region in a 16-day festival featuring over 100 different events. Musicians, actors, dancers, visual and media artists, writers, acrobats, storytellers and master chefs will invade theatres, concert halls and museums, clubs, galleries and even the streets, with a new creative energy. More than 90 national and international presenters will be on hand to discover the best of contemporary Québec talent. (www.quebecscene.ca)

The National Arts Centre Foundation gratefully acknowledges support by Major Sponsor SAQ, Program Sponsors Enbridge and Gaz Métro, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Casino du Lac-Leamy, Bombardier and Alcan. Supporting sponsors are Canril Corporation, Interinvest, Galaxie:The CBC’s Continuous Music Network, the National Capital Commission and the Lord Elgin Hotel. Media partners include Official Broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, Gesca Limitée, notably through La Presse, Le Soleil and Le Droit, the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen. Government partners are the Government of Canada, the Government of Québec through the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. The NAC Foundation also extends a warm thank you to the National Arts Centre Friends-Quebec, a committed group of individuals and corporations who understand the need to support arts and culture and especially Quebec artists, and particular thanks to Honorary Chairs Yves and Carol Fortier.

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal performs TooT and Noces in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Friday May 4, 2007 at 20:00. Tickets are $54, $51, $40 and $31 for adults and $28.25, $26.75, $21.25, and $16.75 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 website at www.nac-cna.ca. Same-day Live Rush tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students (aged 13-29) are $10 at the NAC Box Office between 14:00 and 18:00 on the day of performance only, upon presentation of a valid ‘Live Rush’ card. Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices to all NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances; to reserve your seats, call 947-7000 ext. 384 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.

New! Dinner packages at Kinki, Social, and Meditheo are available with the purchase of tickets to any NAC Dance performance. Book your package by visiting Ticketmaster at one of the following links: http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/24375, http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/24364, or
http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/b5kfde

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

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

LES GRANDS BALLETS CANADIENS DE MONTRÉAL is dedicated to introducing all forms of contemporary ballet. Since the arrival of Artistic Director Gradimir Pankov in 2000, the company has stimulated the imagination and amazed and moved audiences, conveying a deep passion for dance. This devoted dance-man has made the staging of original works the focus of all his actions, with eloquent examples such as The Queen of Spades, Noces, The Lost Shoe (Cinderella), and TooT. Over the years, the company founded by Ludmilla Chiriaeff in 1957 has presented classics and 20th-century greats by Balanchine, Jooss, and Nijinsky, and seen the emergence of now well-known artists including Nault, Kudelka, Lock, and Laurin. It also sets itself apart by creating works by upcoming artists, such as Kim Brandstrup, Stijn Celis, and Didy Veldman. As well, much can be said of the works by today's leading choreographers, including Jirí Kylián, Mats Ek, and Ohad Naharin, who love working with Les Grands thanks to the talent and calibre of its dancers. Dance knows no boundaries – so Les Grands Ballets also tour the world. During the last few years, public and critical acclaim in Germany, Spain, Berlin and at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (USA) bolstered the company's international profile and garnered more invitations to perform.

Dutch choreographer DIDY VELDMAN was trained at the Scapino Academy in Amsterdam and she went on to dance with Scapino Ballet, Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve, and Britain's Rambert Dance Company. She has worked with several choreographers, including Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, Christopher Bruce, and many others. She began choreographing in 1987. In 1992, Didy started Alias, her own dance company, with Guilherme Botelho. The first work En Manqué was performed to great acclaim in London, Glasgow, Zurich and Lausanne. The production also won two major choreographic awards: the Dance Exchange International 1993 and the Prix Romand Des Spectacle Independent 1994. While dancing with Rambert Dance Company, Didy created three works for their repertoire, winning the Lindbury prize for Stage Design for 7DS. Her first full-length story-telling work, Carmen, created for Northern Ballet Theatre, was premiered in Leeds in 1999 and has subsequently toured throughout Britain. It had its London premiere in 2000 to great critical acclaim and has been re-staged for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and The Royal New Zealand Ballet. Didy left Rambert Dance Company in 2000 to concentrate on her choreographic career. She has created and re-staged works for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet Gulbenkian, Rambert Dance Company, Cullberg Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre, New Zealand Ballet, the Komische Oper Berlin, Scottish Dance Theatre, Iceland Dance Company, and Phoenix Dance Theatre. ARTE, a French/ German television channel, aired a documentary on Didy while she was creating I remember red for Cullberg Ballet in 2002. See Blue Through, created for Ballet Gulbenkian in 2001, has been filmed live for Spanish television, and Kol Simcha, Didy’s first creation for Rambert Dance Company, was televised in Denmark.

Belgian choreographer and set-designer STIJN CELIS was born in 1964. Until 1997, he danced in companies such as the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the Zürich Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva and the the Cullberg Ballet. He has worked as a set-designer for Didy Veldman and has assisted Jan Verzweyveld in many opera and theatre productions. He has created ballets for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Bern Ballet, Ballet Mainz, Ballet Wiesbaden, and Ballet Nürnberg. He created L'odeur de l'ombre for L'Association de Danse Contemporaine in 1996 and UBILOZ Vanilla for the Cullberg Ballet in 1997. In a critics’ survey, Ballet International named him "most promising young choreographer for 2001". In 2002-2003, he created various works for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, and Bern Ballet and he created Noces for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. In addition to creating the full-length ballet The lost shoe (Cinderella) for Les Grands, Stijn Celis also staged works for Cullberg Ballet, Icelandic Ballet and I.T. Dansa Barcelona. He is currently Artistic Director of the Bern Ballet.