What’s the definition of a successful mixture? What about Robert Lepage, Canada’s preeminent visionary man of theatre, acclaimed choreographer/dancer Guillaume Côté, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

Lepage and Côté have united once more to create the dance theatre piece, The Tragedy of HAMLET Prince of Denmark, that makes its world premiere on the Elgin Theatre on April 3 (closing on April 7). The primary time these two shiny lights collaborated, their fertile minds produced the much-acclaimed Body by Body for the Nationwide Ballet of Canada in 2018, their sensible homage to Canadian movie innovator, Norman McLaren.

What follows is an in-depth interview with Côté concerning the Hamlet venture, which reveals that this new dance theatre is a completely completely different beast than the technology-rich Body by Body.

Our dialog discovered Côté in his automotive, which, apparently, is his favorite place to Zoom. By the way, Côté solid himself as Hamlet.

I’d like to return to the very starting. How did you first meet Lepage?

After I noticed his sensible manufacturing of The Nightingale and Different Quick Fables that he did for the Canadian Opera Firm in 2009, I began to stalk him.

In 2012, I used to be awarded the Médaille de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, which introduced me to Québec Metropolis. His firm Ex Machina relies there, so I wrote to him at his studio, and despatched him a video of my piece In Contact. Oddly, the primary time we really met in particular person was at a café in Toronto.

Through the years, we remained involved, and he began to come back to see my choreographies. We then started to speak about the potential for maybe collaborating collectively.

After I approached him about doing a manufacturing for the Nationwide, he was nervous about working with ballet. Then got here the four-hundredth anniversary of Québec Metropolis, and Norman McLaren was one of many featured artists. Robert noticed simply how a lot of McLaren’s work was dance-driven, which received him all in favour of doing a chunk with me about McLaren and the Nationwide Movie Board.

I approached the Nationwide’s then creative director, Karen Kain, and he or she was superb, giving us the funds for eight Nationwide dancers to do a one-week workshop on the Ex Machina studio, and many good concepts emerged. Over the subsequent three years, we slowly constructed the piece Body by Body by way of a collection of workshops.

Over time, Robert and I began to hang around collectively. He’s so well-known, but, so humble. What a beneficiant, candy man he’s, and naturally, we began to speak about what our subsequent collaboration could possibly be.

And that led to Hamlet.

Robert has staged quite a few productions of Hamlet worldwide, and has carried out the function himself. In 2016, he even collaborated with some Russian artists to create a one-man present of the play that he directed.

I approached him a few collaboration once we had been engaged on Body by Body as a result of he is aware of Hamlet so properly. He was excited concerning the play’s potential as dance theatre, as nonverbal expression.

The place was your start line?

A creator must ask loads of questions. We did analysis into Danish historical past and Elsinore, after which it was a deep dive into Shakespeare’s textual content. We learn the play collectively, then we learn traces to one another like actors would. Robert has a profound data of the play, and we dissected each side of it.

For instance, Claudius’ traces comprise many S’s which inform his character, whereas Polonius’ imagery is concerning the eye, so he’s all the time watching. Robert identified that the punctuation was not from Shakespeare’s time, so, for instance, transfer one comma in “To be, or to not be”, and you’ve got a unique that means.

Robert sees the play as being based mostly on a cranium — that the play is constructed on a human cranium and a human face, and a person holding a cranium. That’s on the coronary heart of the play’s construction.

However creation turned out to be a bumpy street.

Robert had a tough few years. He was accused of cultural appropriation, first for his present SLĀV, about Afro-American slavery, after which Kanata, about Indigenous individuals and settlers. SLĀV in Montreal was cancelled mid-run, whereas Kanata by no means made it to the stage in Paris. Though Robert stood his floor in opposition to these woke accusations, he turned gun shy about telling different individuals’s tales. He actually puzzled if we had been in secure territory with Hamlet as a result of he was a Danish prince. As an alternative he labored on two different productions, one about wrestling and the opposite a circus present, earlier than coming again to Hamlet.

I perceive that this manufacturing is low tech, whereas Lepage is understood for his sensible use of expertise. This can be a actual departure.

Robert’s method this time was to create a chunk from the naked necessities. His premise is that dance is highly effective when it doesn’t must compete with anything. It’s a theatrical narrative method emphasizing motion.

How would you describe the dance?

The choreography itself is solely and precisely geared to inform the story. Each motion, each gesture, is charged with that means, and brought from Shakespeare’s textual content. We’re telling a really sophisticated story by way of each modern and classical dance.

We may have been summary, which is a really updated, fashionable instances factor to do, which, fairly frankly, is the course that I needed to take, however Robert satisfied me to go conventional, again to Elizabethan instances, again to the textual content, besides we don’t have any phrases. The story is infused within the choreography, and John Gzowski’s fantastic unique rating underlines that physicality.

You say that the textual content generated motion. What do you imply?

The phrases themselves — Shakespeare’s pictures —created the dance. If you learn the textual content, you see the dance in your head. The delicate shifts and modifications of Hamlet’s thoughts — is his insanity manipulative, or is it actual — all translate into motion.

The story goes past the dialogue to lend itself to bodily storytelling.

Let’s discuss the way you and Lepage have introduced the character of Hamlet.

Merely put, Hamlet is in his head, interpreted by way of the virtuosity of ballet. He’s a person consumed by doubt, who is probably descending into insanity after his father dies below suspicious circumstances. The dance is an expression of his interior contradictions and paradoxes. We’re all confronted with selections in life, whether or not to do proper or flawed, and should all the time settle for the results of our actions.

How do you see the manufacturing as a complete?

We pull the viewers right into a world of deception, the place phantoms and people mingle on a minimalist set. It’s a metaphorical reinterpretation that connects the motion of the physique with what might or might not be lurking throughout the corners of the thoughts. Hamlet stays a deep mirror to human expertise, and by gaining a deeper understanding of his character, we will recognize the significance of taking motion to handle the issues of humanity.

What are a number of the low tech options?

There’s as a lot choreography behind the stage as on the stage, with seven techies creating the magic. The visionary lighting is an enormous issue, and that’s the place Robert’s visible signature has actually made its mark.

The dancers change the units, turning tables right into a coffin, for instance, or mirrors right into a hallway, so the identical components are used for various issues by creating completely different variations. The ghost of Hamlet’s father is a mattress sheet, however how it’s used is a surprise. There’s a easy skeleton, however the impact is thrilling. We even have some drops, and a props curtain like an old school Italian present.

It was refreshing utilizing solely the naked requirements. Additionally, this implies we’ve a one-day arrange, so we will tour anyplace.

Inform me concerning the dancers.

There are 9 in all, together with myself. It was necessary that the characters be age applicable — so no sticking on of a beard — with the choreography adjusted to the dancers’ skills. For instance, Bernard Meney who’s Polonius is 70. Robert Glumbek as Claudius is 50, and so is retired Nationwide principal dancer, Greta Hodgkinson, who’s Gertrude. Laertes, then again, is carried out by younger Lukas Malkowski who’s a break dancer.

After I choreographed Body by Body, the dancers had been unified, all from the identical ballet firm. With Hamlet, we’ve all ages and completely different dance types.

What has the creation course of been like?

We each work in one another’s turf, staging, directing, choreographing. I’m so grateful that the work course of has been so fantastic.

What’s it wish to choreograph for your self?

I suppose I gave myself the main function as a result of it’s my final hurrah. I’m 41, and retiring from the Nationwide subsequent season. However Hamlet can be very tough to bounce, and I’m reminded about one thing that Nureyev stated — that since he was making the function for himself, why did he make it so arduous?

You probably did a efficiency of Hamlet final summer time at Le Pageant des Arts de Saint-Sauveur, the place you might be creative director. How a lot of that manufacturing survives?

This Hamlet is a completely completely different present. One of many new options is that John has recorded the rating as an alternative of getting reside devices. He used actual musicians within the recording which encompasses a cello, violin, guitar, a hurdy-gurdy and a few electronica. It’s sensible.

What would you like the viewers to remove from this dance theatre?

That it’s lovely to see one thing by way of a unique lens. That Hamlet has multiple story to inform.

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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for numerous cultural teams and universities, significantly on the function of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.

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