House Mix

In its 50th Anniversary season, Toronto Dance Theatre showcases choreographer Christopher House’s unique contribution to Canadian dance with a mixed program of masterworks from his career. This 90-minute program (with intermission) ranges from the kinetic classic Vena Cava (1999), to the contemporary creations Echo Dark 1 (2015) and Martingales (2016). House Mix celebrates the past, present and future of one of Canada’s “…most enduringly inventive choreographers" (National Post). Christopher House is a choreographer, dancer, director, teacher, and writer. Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he joined Toronto Dance Theatre as a dancer in 1979, was named Resident Choreographer in 1981, and became Artistic Director of the company in 1994. As a choreographer, he has made over sixty works for the TDT repertoire and has also created choreography for Ballet British Columbia, Lisbon’s Ballet Gulbenkian, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the National Ballet of Canada, among others, and solo works for such artists as Peggy Baker, Guillaume Côté, Patricia Fraser, and Claudia Moore. He has directed two collaborations with Joel Gibb and The Hidden Cameras and created several short films and videos. His most recent choreography includes Rivers (2012), Eleven Accords (2013), and Martingales (2014), all for TDT. As a performer, he has appeared in new works by Sarah Chase, Peter Chin, David Earle, James Kudelka, Mark Morris, and Peter Randazzo, among others. While a guest with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, he performed the title role in Michel Fokine’s Petrouchka, also dancing in Kudelka’s In Paradisum, Nijinska’s Les Noces, as well as in his solo Schubert Dances, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He continues to perform in new choreography by Deborah Hay, Ame Henderson, and Jordan Tannahill.

Repertoire will be a combination of the following works: An audience favourite, Vena Cava (1999) is a classic kinetic work by Christopher House set to the dynamic music of composer Robert Moran. A tour de force of lightning-fast, rhythmically thrilling dancing, the choreography is a “dramatic and exhilarating showcase” (The New York Times) of “high-energy, high-flying contemporary movement”(Toronto Star). Martingales (2014), with music by composer Thom Gill, is inspired by the unpredictable movement of elementary particles and the pleasures of games. This kinetic work unleashes TDT’s ensemble in a landscape of speed, rhythm and split-second direction changes. “One of the things that was so compelling about this piece was the dancers’ beautiful alertness...We are sucked into a captivating, moving picture created by an almost cinematic synthesis of light, sound and motion.” (The Globe and Mail) The Duet and Trio from Fjeld, choreographed in 1990, are set to the sublime music of Arvo Pärt. The duet for two women was inspired by the films of Ingmar Bergman, while the male trio evokes the pathos and expressive contrapposto of late Renaissance painting. “Splendidly creative...House provides resonant images rather than ready answers.” With Glass Marimba, House creates a punchy new take on his celebrated 1983 work Glass Houses, set to a gorgeous new transcription for two marimbas of Ann Southam’s Glass Houses #13. “Downright startling - spewing forth a kinetic brilliance in the form of energy and continuum.” (New York Times)