ARISE: 2022 Signature Programme at Fall For Dance North

International dance festival Fall For Dance North has returned to in-person performance. Over the last three weeks, they’ve presented a diverse slate of programming at venues across Toronto.

This weekend they presented their 2022 “Signature Programme”, ARISE, at the cavernous Meridian Hall. The program included four dance pieces by four North American choreographers.

The first was the world premiere of Softly Losing, Softly Gaining, a FFDN-commissioned tap piece by Dianne Montgomery. The piece features six dancers in ultra-colourful costumes; all six tap, but mostly not in unison: often, two stand still while the others move. They perform in front of fantastical ceiling height projections by Todd Kowalski that are as colourful as the costumes — but it’s difficult to look at them at the same time as the dancers, so I mostly saw them as blurs of colour in my peripheries. The piece’s most exciting sections are its duets, which read like rhythmic duels; their playful combativeness productively contrasts the piece’s otherwise serene tone.

The second was the Canadian premiere of Kau Hea A Hiiaka, am Indigenous Hawaiian dance piece performed by the Kumu Hula of Kamehameha High School and Ka Leo O Laka | Ka Hikina O Ka La. The piece features five distinct sections — some choreographed by Kaleo Trinidad, some by Snowbird Bento, and one with traditional choreography. I truly know nothing about this genre of dance, but I feel spoiled that this was my introduction — the work of this large ensemble seems enormously polished. This piece is multimedia, too: projections of “stock video”-type footage play between sections while voiceovers address climate change.

The third was the world premiere of Zipangu, a dance film by Indigenous theatre maker Michael Greyeyes. It was accompanied by a 13-member string orchestra conducted by David Fallis. It follows one dancer, Ceinwen Gobert, shrouded in darkness. Unfortunately, though, the way the orchestra was lit made it hard to make out much of what happens. So I instead offer Greyeyes’s synopsis: “a story of transformation, a goddess remembering her purpose, and a portrait of the earth itself, of stone and sand and gold coming inexorably to life.” That sounds beautiful, and the parts I could make out definitely were — so hopefully I can see the film properly soon.

But Jera Wolfe’s Arise, the programme’s fourth and final piece, was clearly the star. The piece is performed by 146 professional students from Canada’s National Ballet School, and it uses those bodies to create stage images unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The whole thing is glorious, but the opening is particularly breathtaking: all 146 bodies are tightly compacted into a box of flesh that takes up a third of the stage, and it’s difficult to tell how many people are up there — until they splay out, and the whole cast is cathartically revealed. While the first three pieces were received well, this one was received raptorously — there was a standing ovation as soon as the lights went down that could’ve gone on forever.

Overall: three lovely pieces, and one that, due to its scale, felt like a monumental theatrical event.