Photos by Vanessa Fortin.
New work, entitled Encounter
Choreographer: Eva Kolarova
Dancers/performers: Kim Henry & Jason Martin
Music composed and performed by: Adrian Copeland – Alder&Ash
Text by: Nasuna Stuart-Ulin
__________________________________________________
Choreographer Eva Kolarova has travelled the world with dance, has danced for the Ballet de l’opéra national du Rhin in France, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and Ballets Jazz de Montréal in Canada. In 2015 she has founded her own project based company Eva Kolarova Danse in Montreal. Eva received numerous awards for her choreography and dance interpretation. Among other projects she self-produced and choreographed three full-evening show’s in Montreal at Cinquième Salle, Place des Arts, with great success.
Her post-romantic universe mixing dream and reality gives rise to unique contemporary-ballet creations with great musicality and raw emotions.
Encounter is based on the experience of traveling to Seoul, where Eva was invited as a guest professor and choreographer for half of the year and experienced culture shock.
In this man/woman duo, two different and often opposite cultures give rise to a deep and inexplicable connection.
The attraction expressed between the two performers is stronger than anything else, and their rising emotions submerge and overwhelm. But all those emotions can not be expressed in their present reality. And so all just happens in their heads, in their pure imagination, while they are sitting next to each other on the bus, unable to speak to each other.
Encounter
“I grabbed her and spun her around, put my mouth on hers even though she had not asked - how could she when we didn't speak the same language? She was mine, all mine, and I gave myself entirely… but this all happened as I blinked and saw her for the first time - a seashell in the rain, waiting at my bus stop. “
“It was a Monday.”
“I could feel him curled in the hammock of my diaphragm as he slid next to me on the bench. I was so nervous I began to tremble. Was that the back of his hand on my thigh? I had never seen him before, but I could see what we were capable of.”
“The bus arrives and opens with a sigh. She draws me in; flattens me out. She is a thousand foot tall Goddess and I beg her to devour me. I want to become tiny - crawl inside her and stay there forever. I want to part her lips and make her eat me. I want us to contort until we fit exactly, like a double helix; like DNA. And I want to break her as we bend - double her over and take what's mine. I want to take her apart, piece by piece with my teeth. “
“I swallow him whole. I spit him out and begin to play. I give him a thread from my dress and, backing away it begins to unravel. I am fighting against it but as I thrash I am more and more naked. I reach towards him with open hands - I want him so much - he ties the thread tightly around my wrists and it hurts but I like it. He fastens me to the seat, I lash out and strain. I am spread open, vulnerable - at his mercy. I fix my eyes on him, pleading in silence. Take me or leave me.”
“Which do I want?……..”
………
“I missed my stop….”
“We went to the end of the line…”
“We stayed sitting there, locked…”
“Unable to leave each other…”
“I could barely look at him - a stranger on the bus….”
………
“Where was I going? I am lost. I am out of breath. But I have just been sitting here, paralyzed and pulsing, next to you.”
__________________________________________________________________
This 20min long duet is just a first part of the whole 45min piece, which is now in the process of creation and in residency at the studios of L’École supérieure de ballet du Québec, will be finished by spring 2019.
This creation is composed into specific independent parts that may be presented separately.