Glenn Sumi
NOW Magazine
(Jan 4, 2009)

Glenn Sumi's Top 10 Dance Shows

The deaths of dance greats Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch (and Canada’s own Lola MacLaughlin) notwithstanding, this was one of the best dance years in memory, full of large-scale works and other pieces that redefined the word “intimacy.” Here’s what moved me.

1. To Be Straight With You

(DV8/World Stage, December 2 to 5)

Based on transcripts of dozens of interviews about religion, race and homosexuality, Lloyd Newson’s multidisciplinary show was equal parts documentary, debate and high-energy kick to the gut. Dance/theatre that matters.

2. Nederlands Dans Theater 

(Luminato, June 11 to 13)

One of the world’s finest contemporary troupes made up for their 15-year local absence with this generous program showcasing the versatility and athleticism of its company. Canada’s Crystal Pite made us proud with her moody psychological piece The Second Person, but Lightfoot/Léon’s Shoot The Moon is the piece that stills whirls in our mind like a vivid dream.

3. Displacement 

(HCA Dance Theatre/NextSteps, November 18 to 21)

Dancer/choreographer Robert Glumbek injured himself on opening night, so he reconfigured the entire ensemble show two days later. His beautifully suggestive collaboration with visual artist Vessna Perunovich, composer Christos Hatzis and the live Penderecki String Quartet went off flawlessly – even without his charismatic presence.

4. Provincial Essays 

(Lola Dance/DanceWorks, March 6 to 7)

Just before the March 7 performance, DanceWorks’ Mimi Beck announced that choreographer Lola McLaughlin had died from cancer that morning in Vancouver. Her dancers bravely went on, and the loss added poignancy to this poetic, philosophical piece about nature, language and what it means to be alive. How appropriate.

5. Innovation 

(National Ballet of Canada, March 4 to 8)

Three young Canadian choreographers (Peter Quanz, Crystal Pite and Sabrina Matthews) showed why they’re a big deal on the international dance circuit in this eclectic program that more than lived up to its bold title. Add Aszure Barton’s work Watch Her, which premiered this fall, and it’s clear Karen Kain has reinvented the company.

6. Living Dances

(Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie/NextSteps, November 4 to 7)

James Kudelka may be out in the country making bread, but his dance still lives on, as proven in this revival of old classics like the moving male duet Soudain, l’hiver dernier, and the vivid In Paradisum, as well as a recent solo for the expressive Laurence Lemieux and new work Beautiful Movie, a playful piece involving dancer Bill Coleman, a wooden puppet and countertenor Daniel Taylor.

7. As It Is 

(Adelheid/Factory Theatre, May 13 to 24)

You can’t get more intimate than the tiny Factory Theatre upstairs rehearsal hall, and dancer/choreographer Heidi Strauss along with Kristy Kennedy and Robert Abubo used every inch – radiators, windows, doors – to perform this intriguing look at a couple whose relationship is going through some major upheavals.

8. Berlin/Toronto Project 

(Toronto Dance Theatre, May 21 to 30)

This collaboration with TDT and Berlin choreographers Felix Marchand and Christoph Winkler brought a young European aesthetic to town but also introduced us to the skillz and stories of TDT’s new crop of dancers. A win-win.

9. Krima! What A Shame 

(Across Oceans, March 1)

How can we sit by while tragedies are happening all the time? Maxine Heppner’s massively scaled project challenged our complacency and swept us up in a sea of 100 dancers, who crowded the Young Centre lobby in a series of powerful vignettes, some suggesting a Noah’s ark of survival and dignity.

10. Dances In A Small Room 

(MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, Young Centre, November 25 to December 5)

Proof that dance works best when it’s suggestive and not literal. The ageless Claudia Moore and Dan Wild brought unspoken years of life and dance experience to this unusual pairing of works by Tedd Robinson and James Kudelka.

DANCE DUDS

CARMEN/SKIN DIVERS (June 6 to 14) The National Ballet’s Luminato double bill fizzled with a Carmen that lacked passion and work inspired by Anne Michaels’s poetry that featured too little skin and sensuality and too much monotonous Michaels voice-over.

MOVING HOLMES Bad news? Jeanne Holmes, responsible for bringing world-class dance programming to Harbourfront, is leaving the institution. Good news? She’s heading to Dancemakers, a company that’s emerged as one of the most exciting in the city.

Kathleen M. Smith
The Dance Current
(Dec 10, 2009)

The Immigrant Experience

“Displacement”, as the title suggests, is an exploration of the immigrant experience. A multimedia concert with choreography by Robert Glumbek, visual elements by Vessna Perunovich and a ravishing score by Christos Hatzis – immigrants to Canada, all – this recent presentation by the Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts Dance Theatre Company gilded the lily by featuring the acclaimed Penderecki String Quartet playing live. Where to begin dissecting such an embarrassment of artistic riches? Well, maybe don’t – because the whole here is definitely greater than the sum of the parts.

The opening image and sound is of a train, that most conventional symbol of journeys both hopeful and sinister. Projected onto the whole of the back wall, the filmed images punctuate and frame the movements of the six dancers onstage, happily without diminishing or competing with them. A wirework frame/sculpture of a house, again, the most readable of icons, is placed just in front of the projections and off to one side. A figure enters carrying a load of balloons on his back – and the dance begins.

Beginning with melancholy undertones of longing, the music and thus the dance become increasingly hectic and ominous. A dancer calls out the real names of cast mates – Brendan! (Wyatt), Rena! (Narumi), Anisa! (Tejpar), Tyler! (Gledhill), Ryan! (Lee) – and falls to the ground repeatedly. The strings of the ensemble swell. And on the projection screen, pretty blue skies with puffs of white morph into boiling storm clouds. Intensity builds and it never quite lets go for the duration of the piece. Fueled by furious strings, the company begins a section of tremendous agitation and energy, some carrying suitcases, some bound to each other by thick red bands of slightly stretchy fabric or rubber.

As a device, these bands became an irritant for me. What started out as a striking image and metaphor became diluted with three couples straining against these bouncy harnesses. Still, your mind can’t help but speculate. Are these blood ties or bonds of another kind keeping the tension between these couples lively? At times they can’t come together, at others they are torn apart or pulled back from the brink of escape. It’s a rich device, just one that’s used to excess. So it’s a bit unnerving when after some beautiful, more contained solo dancing by Tejpar and Bergfeldt, a couple returns to the stage with … white bands! By this point, most of the cast is trapped, standing as watching witnesses in the wire frame house, where they stay for a good long while.

The bands, the house, the suitcases – they suggest a narrative that is never fully realized but is perpetually hinted at and danced around in a way that is awkwardly rather than confidently impressionistic. At times the music seems to be driving the event – the dance is dancing as fast as it can just to keep up and, it feels on occasion, for no other reason. For me, that was unsettling, despite the brilliance of the score and its interpretation by the quartet. I find myself wondering if this lack of a narrative core, this neither/nor quality might be related to the fact that Glumbek’s opening night injury required significant re-casting and re-ordering of the sections of the work. Perhaps it slipped slightly out of balance during that (understandably challenging) process?

The final section is the most moving and fully realized. Perunovich has created a bell-like transparent sculpture that hangs suspended centre stage. It is described in the program notes as a “mother’s skirt”. Two people can just fit beneath it, Bergfeldt and another, embracing. One partner fades and someone takes his or her place. That partner in turn falls to the ground slipping out of Bergfeldt’s arms. She is now alone within this prison containment and she collapses exhausted on a suitcase that has been slipped over to her. At one point she awakens, takes a letter from the suitcase and begins reading it silently, then falls back to sleep. The piece ends with her cast mates pulling the sculpture down tightly over her resting form. There is a coherence in these closing moments that unites the different talents and disciplines on display to achieve an emotional legibility that anyone can relate to.

Whatever structural failings haunt this incarnation of “Displacement”, you certainly can’t fault the dancing. Glumbek’s choreographic style must be exciting to perform – sensuous, sinuous and with a ferocity that commands attention. The dancers spin, they fall and recover, they run – often flat out. With different, but equal, physical and technical gifts, the dancers rise to the occasion of Glumbek’s vision (and to the circumstances of this particular run as well), bringing tenderness, energy and commitment to a story of an all too common human experience.

Neither can you fault the playing – the Pendericki String Quartet’s interpretation of Hatzis’ rich score was quite simply exquisite. Would that all dance could be accompanied by such loving musical brilliance.

Roselyn Kelada-Sedra
Plank Magazine
(Dec 3, 2009)

Displacement: Immigrant Experience as National Portrait

Displacement, produced by HCA Dance, faces its audience with stark, painful, unfixable realities. Through dance, visual arts and music, it confronts us with the most feared elements of the human experience: lostness, separation, loneliness and death. It offers no solutions, not even a clear narrative, simply a powerful portrayal of leaving home and starting again alone. For that, we owe its creators our gratitude.

Canadian artists Robert Glumbek (choreographer), Vessna Perunovich (visual artist) and Christos Hatzis (composer) collaborated to make this mixed media piece, performed by seven dancers with the Penderecki String Quartet. It explores the immigrant experience, a powerful link between the show’s creators. With such a selective focus – the story of a few immigrants – lesser artists might fall into narcissism, at best self-expression shared by a marginal group with similar histories.

No such curse limits Displacement. It’s something of a national portrait, giving expression to the hardships most Canadians, new or old, endure as strangers to a place or group they don’t know.  The themes expressed are human experiences, inevitable as we live and discover new opportunities, face responsibilities and find our hopes not what we planned. In a solid ensemble, Johanna Bergfeldt stands out as a passionate dancer. The ensemble executes Glumbek’s choreography with understanding and precision. However, Bergfeldt expresses the themes with powerful sensitivity and elegance.

The justly acclaimed Penderecki String Quartet provides the backdrop, neither dull nor overwhelming, for Displacement. Their notes are alternately haunting, pulse-quickening and poignant, moulding the hearts of the audience to receive the story on stage. The quartet delivers Hatzis’ score with precision and sensitivity, enhancing the performance without overpowering it.

Visual art, shown on a screen that looms over the entire stage, adds an element of understanding to the dancers’ story. Vessna Perunovich shows insight, clarity and a strong sense of what’s enough in her use of videographer Boja Vasic’s work. Each of her images – of explosions, storms, the simple sway of wind in a dandelion and seemingly endless train tracks reeling out behind us – evokes a mood, perhaps a memory, in the audience while the story continues. Perunovich even uses video images of the dance, itself, to contrast the vivacity and determination we saw early in Displacement with the weighted loss we see take over as isolation draws into death.

Minimal sets and props in act one serve their purpose adequately; they represent home, empty loads, somewhere to belong. Unfortunately, the central piece in act two fails to accomplish much of anything. It’s an odd, hosiery meets Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree concoction. Perhaps it’s meant to mimic abstract art, but it detracts from an otherwise breath-taking last segment.

In that segment, the fierce struggle and longing expressed throughout Displacement seem to die. Slowly, loss after loss pile up and get swept away. Companions collapse and others soldier on determinedly. It’s a cruel, inescapable conclusion. Survivors trudge on, barely able to mourn. They sleep. They rage. They weep. They begin to love someone else. Then, the new love is torn away, too. What then? You keep going, step after step. What else?

In its bleak honesty, Displacement confronts universal human experiences with compassion and bravery. Its inventiveness, elegance and clarity should not be missed. 

Displacement an HCA Dance Theatre production ran from November 19 to 21 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre.

Paula Citron
Classical 96.3
(Nov 19, 2009)

Review: Displacement

The multidisciplinary show Displacement was first conceived by Vitek Wincza, artistic director of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts. It was the success in Hamilton that inspired HCA to bring the show to Toronto where it attracted strong houses.

Displacement is about the immigrant experience. Wincza is from Poland as is choreographer Robert Glumbek. Composer Christos Hatzis is from Greece and visual artist Vessna Perunovich from Serbia. Together they created a moving performance with some of Toronto’s elite dancers and live music by the esteemed Penderecki String Quartet.

Perunovich’s arresting art installations dotted the stage – for example, her house of prison bars and harnesses of red elastic bands – all of which Glumbek incorporated into the movement. The harnesses, in particular, made for effective push and pull. Hatzis’ score, a judicious mix of folk and modernisms, was outstanding.

I found the movement a bit repetitive, but the images themselves of loss and longing made an impact.

This piece certainly deserved the Toronto outing.

John Terauds
The Toronto Star
(Nov 19, 2009)

Intense Multimedia Whirlwind Creates Moments of Beauty

The title of multimedia dance work Displacement is a bit misleading. It is really about the tensions between community and loneliness, belonging and isolation.

These dichotomies are expressed through almost constant movement of human bodies, video images and live music, as we saw at Wednesday night's Toronto premiere at the Fleck Dance Theatre.

This is one intense, long hour of physical and emotional exertion. Fortunately, there are many moments of beauty – in veteran dancer/choreographer Robert Glumbek's staging, in the work of the seven capable dancers, in Christos Hatzis' score and in the live performance by Kitchener-Waterloo-based Penderecki String Quartet.

Videographer Boja Vasic's large projections, Aisling Sampson's effective lighting and Vessna Perunovich's art installations – including a rubber-band house that is as much a prison as it is a sanctuary and a hanging dress-cum-tent – are seamlessly integrated.

Glumbek himself introduces Displacement carrying a suitcase. We quickly see that his exertions on stage are those of a tortured soul. A sextet of young dancers – three men, three women – carries on the theme, alternating between group work, solos and duets.

Although the work was created by Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts Dance Theatre, the dancing didn't have the technically tight look and feel of a permanent company.

At least it effectively communicated the necessary emotions.

Hatzis' score, written for Displacement, was also a study in perpetual metamorphosis. There are musical figures in search of melodies and counterpoints, modulations in search of a key that could give it a tonal centre. But, in the end, it was the music that provided a centre for the larger work unfolding on the stage.

Gabrielle Charron-Merritt
MONDO Magazine
(Nov 19, 2009)

Review: Displacement

The idea of displacement is easy to grasp, but it is hard to imagine such experiences, because it forces us to (re)live moments filled with uncertainty, helplessness, and prolonged pain. Watching Displacement was a sensitive experience; the small ensemble of seven skilled dancers morph into different emotional representations of displacement, while the video installation and music move, ever-changing, for much of the 62-minute piece.

Displacement is a multimedia piece presented by Vitek Wincza, artistic director of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts Dance Theatre. Composer Christos Hatzis provided two compositions, The String Quartet No. 1 (The Awakening) and The String Quartet No. 2 (The Gathering), as the score. Visual artist Vessna Perunovich’s artwork came  from past installations and performance art pieces. Although both music and art had been created some years back and are being reused for this current production, the original choreography by Robert Glumbek synthesizes the three art forms, resulting in a performance that connects the artists’ ideas in a renewed and relevant way.

The dancer’s simple, layered white and off-white costumes provide anonymity, while still reflecting individuality, as each costume is made with geometrical differences. The stage seems bare with a transparent rubber band-walled house on one side and a tall, one-wall intricate rubber band and staple fence on the other, standing lonesome and barring access only to those who step behind it. The middle of the stage is left bare for the cluster of choreographies that succeed in an unexpected matter.

In the beginning, dancers carry a “heavy” load of balloons, blended with sped-up scenes of railroad tracks and the chugging of a manipulated train and Inuit throat-singing tracks, which the Penderecki String Quartet respond to with buzzing harmonies. Robert Glumbek takes the stage in a solo dance which fuels the rest of the evening. He is a traveller, an immigrant, as he engages a close relationship with a suitcase and the train tracks continue their dizzying paths through a multitude of global landscapes. Sometimes we are left with Glumbek on his own. Although a mature dancer, he maintains the ability to control his body as he defiantly fall backwards onto the floor. The other dancers begin to emerge and join in various dances, which showcase different combinations, from solo to full chorus. Each choreography interacts with different artworks by Vessna Perunovich.

A reccurring work are the red elastic bands previously used in Perunovich’s performance art piece Transitory Places. They are used by the dancers  in a clever series of choreographies; at times, they act as harnesses which effectively keeps the dancers from falling, at other times, they are violently tugged at, causing the dancers to fall in frustration. The idea of travelling as a component of displacement is also apparent in Christos Hatzis’s music, which is inspired by many cultures, in what Hatzis describes as a “trans-national, trans-dogmatic view of the world and its inhabitants.”

Displacement does not portray any one culture; rather, it is a poignant reminiscence of the struggles humans once faced and a reminder of the struggles to come.

Glenn Sumi
NOW Magazine
(Nov 19, 2009)

Ties That Bind: Displacement Inspires Diverse Artists

Call it Hogtown snobbery. Usu?ally successful shows will begin in Toronto and travel to places like Hamilton, not the other way around.

But when the run for multimedia show Displacement sold out a week in advance at a Hamilton art gallery and subsequently got rave reviews, the artistic team knew they wanted to mount it for a larger crowd.

“If Vitek believes in something he’ll put his own money behind it,” says choreographer Robert Glumbek about the driving force behind the show, Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts Dance Theatre Company founder Vitek Wincza.

The dance artists, both born in Poland, have known each other since their frequent collaborations with the Robert Desrosiers Dance Theatre, where Glumbek was a star member in the 1990s. A few years ago, Wincza approached Glumbek with the idea of presenting a work about displacement.

“Obviously as an immigrant, it’s a subject that’s close to my heart,” says Glumbek in between rehearsals.

But what really sparked his imagination was the chance to collaborate with others, like composer Christos Hatzis and visual artist Vessna Perunovich.

While each of them’s from somewhere else – Hatzis from Greece and Perunovich from Serbia – Glumbek insists the piece isn’t your typical immigration tale.

“It’s complex,” he says. “There’s the arc of a journey, of people leaving a place, but we’re also looking at those left behind.”

Some of this will be suggested by Perunovich’s designs, which include a see-through installation suggesting a house and a series of projections. Hatzis’s score, performed live by the Penderecki String Quartet, begins by evoking a train.

One of the production’s more striking elements, says Glumbek, concerns elastics (see photo, above). 

“You try to run, to separate yourself from the past, but you can’t, because you’re connected by blood,” he says.

After the Hamilton run, one respected local critic (no fool, incidentally) compared the show to William Forsythe and Pina Bausch.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” laughs Glumbek, who’s received accolades throughout his long career as a dancer and choreographer.

“He was probably taken by the theatricality of the piece,” he says modestly. The original was performed as a walk-about production in an art gallery, but it’s been adapted for the Toronto run to the proscenium Fleck stage.

“Vessna’s installation was so fantastic. It brought a little bit of Pina Bausch’s aesthetic to it.” 

Sabrina Almeida
canadianimmigrant.ca
(Nov 15, 2009)

Displacement That Binds

Displacement — a multimedia presentation created by renowned immigrant artists — explores the geographical and psychological impact of moving to a new country

“Stories of displacement are all around us,” says Vitek Wincza, founder of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts (HCA) Dance Theatre Company. “Even if your story simply means moving away to a new town or city, you sense the shock as well as the pleasure of the new experience competing with the old.”

Wincza, a Polish immigrant, speaks from the heart. He's been through it, too, and now, along with other immigrant artists, will be translating the experience into a unique theatre experience.

The HCA will be making its debut in Toronto with Displacement, a multimedia presentation created by well-known immigrant artists Robert Glumbek (Polish choreographer and dancer), Vessna Perunovich (Serbian visual artist) and Christos Hatzis (Greek composer), under Wincza's direction (Polish ballet dancer).

Displacement explores the immigrant experience through contemporary dance, music, visual art and film. It's about pulling up stakes and putting down roots, moving from one place to another, both geographically and psychologically.

“Although we each have our own unique experience, the immigrant experience is universal,” believes Perunovich, who has contributed video installations and sculptures to the presentation.

“We are shaped by the displacement we have been through. It is a complex and enriching experience. Canada is inclusive. We are all immigrants living here. All the different cultures and experiences form the underlying layers that merge collaboratively to become one,” she explains.

This inspirational presentation is a fine example of artistic collaboration. It showcases the rich experiences of its diverse creators and gives us a glimpse of ourselves as Canadians. Perunovich’s installations are brought to life with Glumbek’s choreography and dancers, as well as Hatzis’ music, which is performed by the world-renowned Penderecki String Quartet.

The live performance by the acclaimed quartet is a new addition for the Toronto show, and is yet another shining example of creative collaboration as the musicians come from Poland, the United States and Canada, respectively.
 
“As powerful as dance, visual art and music are by themselves, their effect is magnified when they come together. Just like Canadian society,” says Perunovich.

Her film and art installations portray images of struggle and the quest for a peaceful home — it's a sentiment that many immigrants can relate to.

“Your home can be a safe haven or a prison. My elastic house looks like a cage. Like the elastic fence, it is a metaphor for the boundaries, partitions and divisions that need to be opened up. Videos of destruction and nature alternate in the background of the house and fence symbolizing the reasons for displacement and moving to the beautiful country of Canada,” she explains.

The oversized dress of ripped stocking material is the setting for a powerful solo dance by Glumbek, who remembers an old suitcase with his mother’s photograph. This soul stirring finale that has caused many to leave the presentation “With tears in their eyes,” Perunovich tells us.

Displacement will be playing, Nov.18- 21, 2009, at 8 p.m. and Nov. 21 at 2 p.m. at Fleck Dance Theatre as part of Harbourfront Centre’s prestigious NextSteps Dance Series.

Tickets are $35 for adults ($30 for seniors), which you can purchase by calling the box office at 416-973-4000 or going online at HCArts.ca.

Gary Smith
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 4, 2009)

Setting the Dance Tone in Steeltown

NEED TO KNOW
Who: Robert Glumbek
Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts
Dance Theatre
What: Displacement
Where: Fleck Dance Theatre
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
When: Nov. 18-21
Tickets: 1-416-973-4000

Dance doesn't migrate from Hamilton to Toronto. That's just a fact.

Maybe folks from T.O. don't know the Q.E. goes in two directions? More reason to celebrate Displacement then.

A seminal creation of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts Dance Company, this show is hot.

Expressing the immigrant experience, the piece was a sold-out success here in September 2007.

A ballet with visceral charge, it had the polished sheen you normally associate with groundbreakers in London, Paris or New York.

Thing is it wasn't in one of those sophisticated cities. It was right here in Hamilton.

"We always knew it needed to travel," says Robert Glumbek. "It needed a life outside this city. It had to move on."

Glumbek, Displacement's choreographer, understands what it means to do just that. To pack your life in a tiny suitcase and move someplace new.

"I arrived in Canada from Poland with a battered bag. That suitcase contained my life. Moving here was like coming blindfolded into the unknown. It was about starting over."

Glumbek defected from a Polish dance company at Hamilton Place in 1987. Since then, he has danced, made dances and taught ballet in Canada and Germany.

Glumbek's Displacement was the brainchild of Vitek Wincza, artistic director of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts. Visual projections are by Vanessa Perunovich and music is by composer Christos Hatzis.

It will be played live in Toronto by the Penderecki Quartet.

Glumbek, who creates works for Ballet Mannheim in Germany and Proartedanza in Toronto, is an advocate for mature dancers appearing on stage after the first flush of youth. He continues to dance, though he's well past the age when many male dancers have given up.

"We have too narrow a view of what dance ought to look like," he shrugs. "I'm trying to change that."

Watch Glumbek dance in Displacement and you'll certainly see that. With this work, Glumbek has created a piece that is passionate and visceral. It takes us beyond the comfort zone, depositing us squarely in the arena of art.

It has the sort of edge iconoclasts Pina Bausch and William Forsythe brought to contemporary ballet with their mind-blowing choreography.

But make no mistake. It's not derivative. Displacement is blatantly original, turning ballet steps on their heels.

"Doing the show in a theatre instead of a gallery will no doubt alter the piece somewhat, in some ways," Glumbek continues. "The proscenium will make it more intimate. There are a million technical problems to solve. And we only have a couple of days in the theatre to get it right. In other words, this is a big act of faith."

Taking a production to Harbourfront's Fleck is also a costly matter. And, while there's a grant of $15,000, that's a drop in a very big bucket.

"Of course, there's risk involved," Glumbek shrugs. "Life is all about risk. That's what this piece is about, too. You don't give up an old life for a new one without taking a huge chance."

It's hard to think of Hamilton as a chrysalis for contemporary dance. It's hard to think of this city as birthplace for heady dance drama. Well, it's happened. From a studio on James Street South, a dance work has emerged to challenge notions of what dance ought to be. Now it's truckin' to Toronto to breathe its rarefied dance air. How cool is that?

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.

Jeff Mahoney
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 25, 2009)

Production's Move is in the Cards

The critically acclaimed work Displacement is all about pulling up stakes and putting down roots, moving from one place to another, both geographically and psychologically.

So what more fitting fate for the dance/music/art/theatre production than for it to be transplanted, from Hamilton to Toronto?

Last Saturday, Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts Dance Theatre, which created Displacement, celebrated its upcoming Harbourfront staging (Nov. 18 to 21) with Continental Drift, a gala to bring together performers, patrons, sponsors and others to raise money for the production.

And what better place to hold the party than the beautiful home of Hugh Dick and Ilona Onodi, featuring a sprawling open-concept ground level, with its warmth of hardwood flooring and southern colours, and its three sets of sliding double doors giving out onto a deck overlooking the harbour.

The view is breathtaking and guests got to take advantage of it as the weather cleared just in time to allow the party to flow between outdoors and in.

"A beautiful evening," in the words of Onodi, who teaches ballet at Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts and is also a Grade 5 teacher at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Public School in Hamilton.

Many Toronto dancers attended, and it was nice for them to see this side of Hamilton, said Onodi. "I know the stereotypes because I had them myself, coming originally from Toronto."

Among the many in attendance were Robert Glumbeck, who did the choreography for Displacement and, as a special treat, Jerry Levitan, who wrote and produced I Met The Walrus, an animated short film about his interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Montreal bed-in in 1969. Levitan was only 14 at the time. The animated short that resulted from that project was nominated for an Oscar in 2008.

At the party Levitan signed the book that also resulted from the project, and he put on a special screening of the DVD of the short for the guests.

Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts artistic director, Vitek Wincza, and his wife, Victoria Long, were also at the party.

Though Displacement was choreographed by Glumbeck, with music composed by Christos Hatzis and art by Vessna Perunovich, Wincza came up with the original idea -- and its theme of immigration.

It was originally put on at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in September 2007. "I wanted to explore issues of how can people be accepted in new places. What do you have to give up?" said Wincza. "I've always loved the idea of different arts collaborating."

Displacement will be at the Fleck Dance Theatre at Harbourfront, from Nov. 18 to Nov. 21, at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinee on Nov. 21, as part of the Next Steps series.

The Continental Drift party featured music by sitar player Neeraj Prem, flowers by Muscari Floral Atelier on Locke, food by Karyn Bailey and Tiffany Morris and sponsorship by Kevin's No Frills.

Gary Smith
The Hamilton Spectator
(Sep 8, 2007)

(photo courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator)

The Drama of Displacement

What's it like to be a self-imposed exile cut adrift from your own social and cultural roots?

What's it like to plant new roots far from home?

Those are deep emotional questions explored with passion and pain in Displacement, a new multimedia production having its world premiere at the Art Gallery of Hamilton next week.

The brainchild of Vitek Wincza, artistic director of HCA Dance Theatre and himself a defector from Poland in 1982, this multidisciplinary production is sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.

Involving music from Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis, an art installation and video projections fromYugoslavian-born artist Vessna Perunovich and choreography by Polish-born dance star Robert Glumbek, Wincza is the ringmaster bringing such diverse talents together in a visceral, thought-provoking experience.

Glumbek, a muscular, handsome man, has an intriguing ability to unleash passion on stage. In his dance performances, as well as his sometimes disturbing choreography, he sends bolts of explosive energy and corrosive drama across the footlights.

"I grew up in Poland where I had very little future. There are so many different reasons for leaving your homeland. Mine was cultural. Mine was a quest for artistic freedom. That's why I came to Canada."

In 1987, with just a couple of battered suitcases, Glumbek arrived in Toronto. They contained the past.

"I never even wanted to open them. They take me back too far. Provoke too many painful memories. Yet, they are my past. Their contents are my former life."

Wincza defected at Hamilton Place in 1982 while dancing with a prestigious Polish dance troupe. With little to sustain him, he went on to become a major force in the arts in Hamilton and region.

"People are displaced all the time. You go blindfolded into the unknown. It's all about starting over someplace else. It takes courage, but you survive."

Glumbek and Wincza are friends, as well as cultural allies. "In some ways our stories are the same," Glumbek says. "We try to remember the emotions, the feelings, the real things left behind. Those thoughts have burrowed their way deeply into this project."

"That's the thing," Wincza continues. "Each person coming to this performance will bring his own experience. The stories of displacement are all around us. Even if your story simply means moving away to a new town or city, you sense the shock as well as the pleasure of the new experience competing with the old."

Out of 250 applications, Displacement was chosen for major support by the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council. Notoriously strict in their allocation of funds, these cultural watchdogs saw fit to help finance this provocative new project.
"Contemporary dance, art and music unite in this project," Wincza says. "And we have the participation of three major talents working together to create something special.

"We hope this project will tour to art galleries across the country. Already we have interest from Winnipeg and Victoria."

When you get three huge talents unleashed on the same project you can expect fireworks. Not so, Glumbek says.

"We are working together, feeding off each other, sharing ideas and concerns. Ego doesn't really come into it. The story here is too big for that."

The performance in Hamilton features seven dancers, including Nicholas Khan, Kate Holden and Glumbek himself. Seating is limited.

"This is a piece in which we share our experiences," Wincza says. "It's about connecting on a deep level. It's about the cultural diversity of Canada. It's about so many personal stories fusing together to become one big important tale of bravery and hope."

"This isn't just a dance going into the Hamilton art gallery," Glumbek says. "This isn't about faking something.

"It's about truth and drama coming from a point of reality."

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.

Showtime

What: Displacement Who: HCA Dance Theatre and Art Gallery of Hamilton Where: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King St. W. When: Sept. 13 through 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets: 905-528-4020 or at the gallery

Laura Hollick
View Magazine
(September 13, 2007)

Displacement

Canada is a country full of immigrants. At some point all of us came here from somewhere unless we are part of the minority Native community. The majority of us have roots from other places, whether it be European, Asian, South American or African. I’ve often looked around Hamilton and thought to myself, is everyone here uprooted?

Even though I was born in Canada, my great grandparents came from Europe, which makes me a product of immigration. Everyone I know has a similar story. If you say you are Canadian, what you really mean is, you have gathered roots from other places and planted them here. With such a rich assortment of roots from all over the world, how can we understand what it means to live in Canada, and how can we get to know the Canadian cultural experience?

In order to understand what it means to be Canadian, we need to understand with greater sensitivity what it means to be an immigrant. It is the immigrant’s life and experience that has built
and shaped Canada as we know it today. Currently the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) partnered with the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts (HCA) to explore the immigrant experience in a
performance art piece entitled ‘Displacement’.

Bringing together immigrant artists now residing in Canada with international reputations and recognition, the AGH and HCA are exposing our roots. Combining music, dance and visual art
into one performance is in itself a metaphor for the immigrant’s life.

Christos Hatzis composed the entire score for ‘Displacement’. He was born in Greece, and decided to immigrate to North America in order to study music composition. “I left with the intention of permanently moving to North America,” Hatzis describes, “It was not easy and I experienced the usual culture shock as any other immigrant.”

“Canadian culture today is for the most part a reflection of migrant experiences,” he continues to say, “Older migrations, new migrations, they all take place because an individual or a group of people are chasing after a dream, a better and more fulfilling life for themselves and their children, an opportunity to use their individual abilities to contribute the most to others.”

Hatzis worked closely with dancer and choreographer Robert Glumbek. “Robert is very dedicated to bringing the semantics of the music into his choreography so we see eye–to–eye on this,”
Hatzis notes.

Robert Glumbek graduated from the Byton State Ballet School in Poland and then came to Canada. He was accepted in Desrosiers Dance Theatre where he performed for ten years. He is currently a teacher for the National Ballet of Canada and Ryerson University. He describes his immigrant experience as “being displaced from his family”, with his biggest issues being “not having, couldn’t acclimatize to the place, always something missing.”

Vessna Perunovich brings in the visual component to ‘Displacement’, which she poignantly expresses through symbolic and metaphoric representations that acutely express the emotional experience of being an immigrant. She uses elastic bands that tie around the body anchored somewhere else.

Vitek Wincza the Artistic Director for this project and of the HCA is himself an immigrant from Poland. He defected in 1981, and then in 1987 opened his own Ballet School which has grown
and evolved into what is now known as the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts.

‘Displacement’ is a collaborative performance art piece that brings together the rich experiences of these leading creative people to show us a reflection of ourselves as Canadians. The opening night of this performance is already sold out, there are two remaining performances that have seating available. To get a sense of what it means to be Canadian, take a look at our exposed roots and the potential of what we can grow.

Gary Smith
The Hamilton Spectator
(Sep 14, 2007)

Displacement is blazingly unique art

If you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket to Displacement, the visceral multi-disciplinary experience from HCA Dance Company and the Art Gallery of Hamilton, for goodness sake do.

This multi-disciplinary production is art in the purest sense of the word.
It tears a strip off the senses, it assaults comfortable notions of what dance, art and music ought to be.

Robert Glumbek's brilliant choreography takes us beyond any comfort zone depositing us squarely in the arena of art. What emerges is brilliant theatre, the sort that forces you kicking and screaming inside the broken soul of humanity, clutching you by the throat. The greatest moments in art are always those screaming defiance. Well, that's Displacement all the way.

In terms of dance, you get the sort of visceral edge we're accustomed to find in the best imaginings of German neo-expressionist Pina Bausch.

In terms of edge, you get the kinetic rage of a William Forsythe. But before you go off thinking it's derivative, let me say here and now Displacement is blazingly unique.
From Vitek Wincza's initial vision, from the white heat of visual artist Vessna Perunovich's mood-drenched installation and film, we are catapulted into a world of refugees and hopeful immigrants. In the battered suitcases they clutch, we sense a horde of memories too painful to release.

Against Christos Hatzis' The Awakening, a haunting musical score juxtaposing lyric fancy against a darker, fomenting undertow, seven dancers whirl like dervishes.
Splayed out movement takes them rising into space, sweeping a starry sky. Then suddenly they fall, limp and beaten rolling on the floor.

Sometimes running for freedom, sometimes restrained by bands of blood red pain, Glumbek's scarred creatures reach for freedom.

Bathed in red light that adheres to muscle and sinew, they strain for release.

Powerful dance images are matched by desperate sounds hurled from Hatzis' muscular score. Shadowy frames are held by light unleashed from Perunovich's film.

When a coiled Glumbek rocks on the floor, fingering the contents of his battered suitcase, it is so painful you have to look away.

It's hard to think of Hamilton as a chrysalis for contemporary dance. It's hard to imagine a work of incredible dance genius coming from a small and burgeoning company, domiciled on James Street South. Well folks, it's happening. With Displacement, we have a piece of dance theatre that could easily challenge sophisticated audiences in Paris and New York.

Now how cool is that?

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.

SHOWTIME
WHAT: Displacement
WHO: HCA Dance and Art Gallery of Hamilton
WHERE: Art Gallery of Hamilton,123 King St. W.
WHEN: Tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. Added matinee tomorrow at 1 p.m.
TICKETS: 905-528-4020 or at the gallery.

Suzanne Bourret
The Hamilton Spectator
(Sep 21, 2007)

(photo courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator, John Rennison)

The Hamilton Connection

Three artists fleeing their homeland landed here. Now they're back

Three artists in crisis. Displaced. One defected from Poland in 1981, another in 1987; the third arrived in 1988 to escape political unrest. All began their odyssey by coming to Hamilton.

Little did they know that, little more than 25 years later, they would launch the premiere of a multimedia production that drew raves from a Hamilton audience not exactly known for its interest in contemporary dance. And the excitement has spread to Toronto.

Displacement, the creation of Vitek Wincza, artistic director of the Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts and its Dance Theatre, is a celebration of survival of refugees who have left their homelands. The blended talents of choreographer Robert Glumbek, visual artist Vessna Perunovich and composer Christos Hatzis, in this powerful and disturbing performance, are the talk of the dance world since Displacement opened last Thursday evening at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

Vitek defected at the former Royal Connaught Hotel in 1981; Robert defected in 1987, when he was performing at Hamilton Place; and Vessna landed in 1988 at Hamilton airport to escape unrest in her native Yugoslavia.

All went on to carve out successful achievements -- Vitek in Hamilton, Robert and Vessna in Toronto.

The four performances were sellouts last week with standing ovations. "People who didn't have a chance to see it are asking about it. We could do eight to 10 shows in Toronto because of the response," says a pleased Vitek, who cannot further speculate because he has to apply for a touring grant. The production was sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.

He says its success was a beautiful and uplifting surprise for them. "You like to be surprised this way. Not every show connects with people on an emotional and spiritual level, but this did."

He says for many it was their first contemporary dance experience. He was a bit worried about the concept because, "Nobody knew what would happen, it can go one way or another."

For Vessna, a close friend of many in Hamilton's Serbian community, Displacement brought her whole family into the performance. Her husband, Boja Vasic, a videographer, did the photo and video documentation and their daughter, Vanja Vasic, founder and director of Toronto's Alternative Fashion Week, designed the costumes.

Tragedy pushed the family here in 1988. They were thinking of moving elsewhere in Europe because of the political strife. When the mother and daughter of their close friends drowned, the husband joined his mother in Toronto. He called them to follow, comparing Canada to Switzerland for its cleanliness and nice people.

"Little did I know would exhibit at the AGH with two others who landed in the same place," says Vessna.