"It would be sin"

"There's an advantage to coming alone to the ballet," said the young lady who sold me my ticket to the Saturday performance of Songs of a Wayfarer/Seven Deadly Sins. Indeed - my rush ticket put me on the main floor in the center section, quite close to the stage. I should fly solo more often!

Great seats to a great show! I had the good sense to attend the pre-show talk on the first balcony, where Brian Deedrick, Jean-Grand-Maitre, and Yukichi Hattori chatted about the creative process, the intricacies of instructing both dancers and singers, as well as the inspiration behind this year's collaboration. Deedrick was lively, entertaining, and pro-German (as always) while Grand-Maitre and Hattori smiled reservedly and replied quietly into the microphone. Ballet dancers speak with their bodies, primarily. Deedrick and Grand-Maitre stressed that Sins/Songs was their effort to bring dancing and singing ever closer to each other, blurring the lines between each profession and setting a new precedent for this unique collaboration. Yukichi Hattori apologized for over-spending on his elaborate costumes and set design.

Curious, I settled into my seat to read the program. Songs features the music of Gustav Mahler, sung by Allyson McHardy and danced by five couples. McHardy entered the stage in golden splendour, walking easily down a ramp lined with bare trees. The soft lighting contrasted sharply with the brightly-coloured dancers, who looked surprisingly casual, as though they were auditioning for the cast of Rent. A hawaiian blue Tara Williamson started the show with a contemporary solo, hitting her chest and covering her mouth between easy turns and smooth arabesques, establishing an internal conflict of sorts. But the music sweeps the other dancers into a dance of greeting, where partners are exchanged and both men and women leap happily in the air toward and away from one another. First blush love - a couple dancing in their own separate spaces and coming together on occasion to establish a connection. Partnership - a couple dancing as one entity, essentially, with lifts galore! Finally, loss - how strong and articulate each of their limbs are! Principal dancers Kelley McKinlay and Tara Williamson conveyed both the sensuality and tortured nature of love that was never meant to be. McKinlay exits, leaving Tara to repeat her opening contemporary solo. All the while, McHardy sang atop her tree-lined slope like a goddess watching over her people. Where is this interaction between dancers and singers Deedrick and Grand-Maitre promised? To me, it seems like the singers have their part and the dancers theirs.

I need only wait until the end of intermission, when the stunning audio-visual display for Yukichi Hattori's choreography for Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins zapped the stage. Anna, one woman played by two people - a dancer (Williamson) and a singer (Patricia O'Callaghan) - wants to be famous. Her journey to stardom is full of temptation by the seven deadly sins, which she seeks to avoid but, ultimately, cannot. Hattori's lavish expenditure was well worth the spectacle, from the integrated captions built into the stage set all the way to the junk food costumes, getting pummelled by starved, gluttonous dancers. O'Callaghan gets a gold star for her mild dancing while maintaining a steady, strong voice to narrate her sister Anna's spiral into fame and [mis]fortune. Williamson, for her part, does speak German on occasion, though she is mostly occupied with getting her bright red clothing ripped off by her sister or raving fans, leaving her tiny dancer's body bare and vulnerable. My favourite part of the set, though perhaps not the most exciting, was the great white door in the center upstage. After Anna gives in to pride, she screams at her fans who leave her in a dilapidated heap on the floor, half lit by a spotlight on the white door and half shrouded in darkness. Her eyes are dull but her feathered and sequined body continues to sparkle, even when lying still. All for what? That door gated her entry to the stage when she was flying high, giving her a sense of belonging and ownership. The same door prevented her exit with her family at the beginning of the play and stayed shut when she realized that fame was not exactly what she wanted, physically excluding her from her ideals. Despite some minor technical difficulties in the middle of Anna's struggle with lust, the performance seemed to go off without a hitch and I was almost sad to see it end.

I wanted to see dancing and singing intertwine and I got it! A lovely bill on both sides, with beautiful singing and beautiful dancing, complementing one another perfectly on stage. What in the world is next for this collaboration? Perhaps Alberta Ballet will start training their young dancers to sing and vice versa ... whatever the next collaboration may entail, I hope to hear and see more from both the ballet and the opera together very very soon!