Path of Miracles unites Vancouver Chamber Choir with dancers from Belle Spirale Dance Projects
The a cappella work by Joby Talbot is meant to be seen and heard
Justin Rapaport (left), photo by Dayna Szyndrowski. Alexis Fletcher, photo by Cindi Wicklund
Vancouver Chamber Choir artistic director Kari Turunen.
Vancouver Chamber Choir presents Path of Miracles at Pacific Spirit United Church on November 8 at 4 pm and 7:30 pm
THE CAMINO DE Santiago—the Way of St. James—is a vast network of ancient pilgrim routes stretching across Europe that meet at the tomb of St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. It has become a popular tourist attraction, with hundreds of thousands of people walking for as many as 10, 20, or 30 days in a row in search of a spiritual awakening or enlightenment.
British composer Joby Talbot was inspired by the Camino for Path of Miracles, his hour-long a cappella work originally written for London’s Tenebrae Choir in 2005. Performed regularly by ensembles around the globe, the piece has excerpts from historical and sacred documents in several different languages, along with original material by poet Robert Dickinson. Now, Vancouver Chamber Choir is remounting the epic piece in collaboration with Belle Spirale Dance Projects. Dancers Alexis Fletcher and Justin Rapaport will perform alongside 17 vocalists.
“I love the audacious scale of it,” Vancouver Chamber Choir artistic director Kari Turunen says of Path of Miracles in an interview with Stir. “It is quite bold to write a one-hour choral work in four movements, each lasting approximately 15 minutes. It is like a symphony for choir in that sense. I just think the music is amazing, striking an elegant balance between repetition and novelty all throughout the work. It covers an astounding range of emotions from anguish to bliss and apathy to ecstasy. And I love the way this work tells a story, and in the end of it at least I feel that I have grown and changed. It is a rare bird indeed.
“I am really excited by the combination of the music and the two dancers from Belle Spirale Dance Projects,” he adds. “The dance adds an additional layer of visuality to the music and I really believe this evening will be one to treasure. As usual, I will be with my back to the audience and the dancers, so I will miss a lot of the visual expression, so I really am a little envious of the patrons who get to see, hear, and experience the whole thing!”
Fletcher—a cofounder of Belle Spirale along with her partner Sylvain Senez, who is providing scenic design for the show—explains that the collaboration came about when she and Senez were introduced to Turunen by a mutual friend. It was a natural fit, with both parties being interested in cross-disciplinary work.
“Our work is very interdisciplinary in general, and we were sharing that with Kari and he felt the same way: We both are wanting to find more ways to go back to dancing and music living together in the same space,” Fletcher explains in a Zoom interview alongside Rapaport. “Both these art forms grew in that way of being alive together, and in the contemporary world it’s not often happening anymore. We’re really hungry to create more of these relationships that are cross-disciplinary in the community.”
Rapaport, who danced with Fletcher at Ballet BC and who co-choreographs with her here, says that the two came up with certain movement that acts as a counterpoint to the grandiose music in its simplicity, while some of the gestures will be improvised.
“It’s highly contemporary, contemporary ballet, using our technique and our training from our time at Ballet BC,” Rapaport says. “It allows for some improvisation but then there are also moments of partnering and pas de deux, where we’re moving through space together. There’s one moment where I’m lifting Alexis on my back for five minutes straight and slowly walking across the space for that literal sense of the baggage that people might bear during that pilgrimage and that first wave of exhaustion and fatigue that they deal with there.”
Fletcher adds: “We have things that are really sculpted together, then we have this freedom to land slightly differently each time go through it. You can feel the places where the struggle comes or you can feel the places where your spirit starts to lift with this sense of hope and resiliency and the beauty of what people see along the trails. We’re trying to find physical representation of that and hopefully it allows viewers to sink into the sonic world and have that be texturized and elevated through our dancing bodies—that’s what we really hope for.”
Fletcher adds that the acoustics in the Pacific Spirit United Church are “incredible”, giving audiences a kind of surround-sound experience. And for anyone who may feel hesitant about going into a church, she notes that the space is inclusive and welcoming to all.
Turunen says that returning to Path of Miracles with the added element of dance is nothing short of delightful. The piece challenges the vocalists in many ways.
“It is scored for 17 voices, all with multiple solo sections,” Turunen says. “It simply demands excellent singers. The texture reaches from the depths of the bass voices to soaring sopranos but there are challenges for each voice to conquer. And just the sheer size of the work demands a lot of durability from the singers—and concentration.
“While it literally tells a story of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, often known as the Camino, on a deeper level it tells a story of any challenging spiritual voyage,” he adds. “There is no need to shy away from the music. If you like film scores, you’ll love this. Many sections are amongst the most beautiful written in the 21st century, and the music is always expressive and poignant.” 
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