Finnish introspective movement inferno

By Jill

Have you spent the winter locked in your apartment, watching depressing documentaries about The State of The World? Do you worry that your contemporary soul will be overtaken by the rush of technology? Can’t seem to connect with your loved ones anymore? Having trouble expressing your individuality within The Group? Has the Tero Saarinen Company ever got a North American Tour program for you? (Yes.)
Westward Ho!, Wavelengths & Hunt, closing tonight at the Premiere Dance Theatre, is a passionate, demanding, structurally balanced, exceptionally well-danced trio of provocative, innovative, and critically acclaimed pieces– perhaps more analysis-provoking than entertaining.
Interesting for Saarinen’s incorporation of rugged and primitive movement, the physicality of the dancers, and their emotional engagement to the choreography, these pieces cover well-trodden material. We keep each other down. He dances in the shadow of her memory. The hunter becomes the hunted.
Musically, there are intriguing parallels between the sample & noise-heavy soundtracks to the first two pieces and Stravinsky’s stabby, stabby Rite of Spring in Hunt. The lighting and costume design are crisp and evocative. Everything is clear, stylish and executed with precision, but at the end of the night, the individual is nothing more than a blank canvas for monstrous projections, and we’re all just performing for the footlights.
Now is a great time and Harbourfront Centre is a great place for Torontoists to get into dance and sample from the best of the international scene as Grupo Corpo (Brazil), Toronto Dance Theatre, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE (New York), Dancemakers (Toronto), Stan Won’t Dance (London), and Cas Public (Montreal) appear at Harbourfront Centre between now and the end of May.