CCN/Aterballetto, Italy’s premier dance company, makes its Western Canadian debut on Feb. 6 + 7 at the Royal Theatre. The evening promises a dynamic program, moving from the riotous Glory Hall to the melancholic Solo Echo, and culminating in the joyful finale, Rhapsody in Blue.
Solo Echo is one of the most celebrated works by Victoria’s own Crystal Pite. Dance Victoria’s presentation is a rare opportunity to experience the renowned choreographer’s brilliance through the lens of Italy’s most prestigious contemporary dance artists.
A former member of Ballet BC and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, Pite is a cornerstone of the Canadian dance milieu and internationally respected. Her many honours include the 2022 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award. Pite’s Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot tours to global acclaim; Dance Victoria audiences may remember our 2020 presentation of Revisor.
Solo Echo is one of Pite’s most iconic works. Created in 2012 for Nederlands Dans Theater, where Pite served as Associate Choreographer, the piece marked an important moment in her international trajectory, quickly entering the repertoire of leading dance companies worldwide, including Ballet BC, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani.
Set to two sonatas for cello and piano by Johannes Brahms and inspired by Mark Strand’s poem “Lines for Winter” (see below). The melancholic Solo Echo continues to move audiences with its intimate duets and fleeting solos that merge and dissolve into the wider ensemble of dancers. The work is a moving meditation on the themes of love, loss, and acceptance. Set against falling snow, the work is dark and wintry, and yet remains uplifting. As one reviewer notes, “Loss was shouldered by the group with grace; Solo Echo left you with a final image… of aching peacefulness”(DanceTabs).
Lines For Winter
For Ros Krauss
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself –
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
– Mark Strand
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