Ballet BC's GARDEN grows again as part of REACHING U program
Inspired by his new home city, Medhi Walerski keeps hope alive, finally debuting his first production as artistic director
Ballet BC’s Jordan Lang, Justin Rapaport, Rae Srivastava, and Kirsten Wicklund sculpt out space in GARDEN. Photo by Four Eyes Portraits
Medhi Walerski. Photo by Rahi Rezvani
Ballet BC streams Reaching U from April 15 to 21
WHEN MEDHI WALERSKI was announced as the new artistic director of Ballet BC in January of last year, he couldn’t have predicted that he’d have to wait till April 2021 to stage a show.
This week, Vancouver dance fans will finally see Walerski create his first production for the company in his new role.
He’ll debut his poetically refined GARDEN, which won awards when he premiered it at Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in 2016. It’s part of a streamed double bill called REACHING U, pairing with Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s hypnotic, beat-driven Bedroom Folk.
This, after a season that brought more than its share of challenges—starting with simply trying to get here from the Netherlands for his summer start date last year.
That task, with its delays due to travel restrictions, turned out to be just a warmup for a year of shifting pandemic protocols for dancers in the studio.
“I think the most challenging thing has been adapting the dancers to the situation and finding solutions for training and rehearsing,” he tells Stir, “and just moving forward with the artistic vision, being present, and staying connected to our audience. To really remain as vibrant and vital as possible.
“Dancers are grounded in making physical contact and emotional connections with their bodies—to connect with their own human physical instrument, deeply.”
Late November brought another false start, when the troupe was forced to cancel a socially distanced live show at the Polygon Gallery due to worsening pandemic conditions.
And yet here Walerski is today, staying resolutely positive. What seems to have gotten the dance artist through, in part, has been his wonder at living on the West Coast. Born in Paris, where he went on to dance at the legendary Paris Opera Ballet, and then relocating to the Hague to become a standout dancer and choreographer at NDT, he’s been used to more urban European settings.
“Vancouver has been offering an incredible amount of beauty and I feel very inspired,” the upbeat artist says. “I feel very fortunate to be here; every morning I look at the mountains and the forest and the sea and it’s just incredible. It’s a little bit of heaven. And I’m so excited to walk on the weekend. I’m a nature lover.”
Walerski finds himself equally inspired and energized in the studio with his honed dancers. He feels fortunate that health authorities allowed the troupe to form its own “bubble”—just like other pro athletes—in late fall, an opportunity that allowed this streamed production to be made. Now, with third-wave dangers, Ballet BC has gone back to social distancing and masks in the studio—no touching allowed. Fortunately, the Reaching U program had already been filmed and was in its editing stage.
His work GARDEN was inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14, and the intricate and emotionally dynamic interplay between its strings and piano.
“It was challenging, when you love a piece of music so much, to find a way to relate to it—especially because it’s abstract,” Walerski reflects. “I think for the [Ballet BC] dancers it’s quite challenging, too, but it’s a nice introduction to something different and they’re incredibly versatile. It was such a pleasure to see them dive into this piece.”
The piece offers audiences an opportunity to see Walerski explore his classical-ballet side. As a guest and resident choreographer at the company under former artistic director Emily Molnar (who now helms NDT), Walerski won over fans with work like the eclectic dance-theatre triumph Petite Cérémonie and then the sleekly contemporary retelling of the hugely popular Romeo + Juliet.
Speaking to Walerski, it becomes clear that Garden is a special piece to him, created at an important turning point in his life.
Ballet BC dancers were able to film GARDEN before the latest round of social-distancing measures. Photo by Four Eyes Portraits
“The piece marked a transition in my career when I stopped being a full-time dancer and there was a lot happening in my life,” Walerski allows. “I wanted to connect to, I would say, the nectar of the movement. I wanted to come back to something more pure and more profound, and not be guided by a story. But it was quite challenging, because it was diving into the unknown and also embracing the past of my career.”
Walerski’s goal was to get at something essential and pure—as he puts it, “to extract or to filter all that is not necessary and really get back to the essence of movement.”
“It was to try to give shape and form to the space between us and what connects us,” he explains. “That’s what I enjoy very much about the music: the space between the notes, the pause, the silence. And that’s what resonates with me.”
That carving of space plays out in gorgeously sculpted forms—solos, duets, and group work that embody even the subtlest ebbs and flows of the music. Walerski says his approach to parrnering, finding what is essential in the way that one body responds to another, echoes some of the pas de deux we saw in Romeo + Juliet.
The purity Walerski talks about also expresses itself through the costumes, which look like nude second skins, and the sight of bodies turning, wrapping, and swooping under a hauntingly luminous sepia light.
The dancers, despite the ever-shifting milieu of safety protocols, have risen to the challenge. Counterintuitively, the viral crisis outside the studio has made them even more focused, feeling the importance of what they do, the artistic director reports.
“They are very much in touch with what’s happening in the world,” the Walerski explains. “The pandemic has elevated their relationship to their artistry. I think everyone is grateful for what we do, how precious our time in the studio is, and how special our art form is in relation to everything else that is surrounding us.
“I think it creates a bond and allows them to have different conversations around what we do and what is the message we want to bring into the world and why is it important. And, what is art? And so I think that has made the group very strong this season, like a unified voice.”
Walerski has vast experience in putting dance on film, after years at NDT and other projects, and so streaming is well within his wheelhouse. Still, he yearns for the day his company can take the stage again. “I really want to come back to the stage as soon as possible,” he asserts. “I think maybe we’re going to experience a kind of renaissance. And I’m very excited about that.”
So even though his dancers are having to rehearse under temporary social-distancing measures again, he’s staying optimistic.
“I don’t have much time to be worried," he says with a laugh. "I just have to be proactive with decision-making, with thinking about the future, and with keeping connected to hope.”
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