Seven months ago, I had the craziest day. In less than 24 hours, I had my final performance of the 2008/09 season, I got a surprise promotion to Second Soloist and I had an email waiting in my inbox informing me that I had received my first official commission as a choreographer. The next day, I went on layoff for seven weeks. Crazy 24 hours!
Well, seven months later, my choreographic commission has run its full course. I applied for this award a couple months before those legendary 24 hours but really, it all started back in January 2009 when I performed in a work by up-and-coming Toronto-based Choreographer Pamela Rasbach titled inCORPORATION. Her work had been commissioned by a not-for-profit organization called Dance Ontario, which, through a program called Creative Partnerships, is able to commission two brand new works every year. These pieces are then performed at Dance Ontario’s annual DanceWeekend, a three-day festival that showcases a large assortment of local dance artists. After having a fantastic experience performing at the event in Pamela’s piece last year (Ms. Rasbach is now the Artistic Director of her own company, Typecast Dance Company), I decided that this year, I would apply for the Creative Partnerships Commission myself!
I have been experimenting with choreography since I was a student at Canada’s National Ballet School. More recently, my choreography has become a much more serious interest. I have made several pieces over the past few years and these have been shown at the National Ballet’s Choreographic Lab and in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre’s free concert series. You can imagine my excitement at having been now chosen to create a new piece – with a budget – and a real stage!
I wanted to make the most of this opportunity, so I assembled a great team to help me with the project. My cast was made up of National Ballet dancers Klara Houdet, Jenna Savella, Aarik Wells, Christopher Stalzer and James Leja and Ballet Jörgen Canada dancer Cristina Tucciarone. Multi-talented National Ballet dancer Krista Dowson made the costumes, former National Ballet dancer Jacob Niedzwiecki and his colleague Ryan Fontaine made the poster and dancer/artist Angel Wong (formerly of Ballet Jörgen Canada) designed the sets. (This is the beauty of having talented friends.)
My piece was called In the Cantina and made use of an electronic score and various production elements to evoke the atmosphere of a Depression-era watering-hole… with a contemporary edge. It wasn’t easy to put all of the elements together while continuing to work full-time at the company but my whole team truly rose to the occasion and we all worked multiple weekends and evenings to make sure the piece was ready in time.
All in all, I was very happy with the end result. Special thanks to Rosslyn Jacob Edwards, Executive Director of Dance Ontario, and Janelle Rainville, Stage Manager of DanceWeekend, for all of their amazing work. To find out more about Dance Ontario, visit http://www.danceontario.ca/
Robert Stephen is sponsored through Dancers First by Mr. Thor Eaton & The Honourable Nicole Eaton, Senator.
[Photos by Karen Roberts. Top: Jenna Savella with Cristina Tucciarone, James Leja and Christopher Stalzer. Centre: Klara Houdet and Christopher Stalzer. Above: Cristina Tucciarone, James Leja and Jenna Savella]
