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Women flying solo >> Tangente's Jeune Émergence series glides into spring by MARITES CARINO Every dance season, Tangente hosts a dance series called Jeune Émergence, which showcases the works of young choreographers on the rise. This time around, they happen to be three 20-something women, all flying solo. First up is Nancy Leduc. She presents La Grande Fille du vent du ciel, a work which will serve as a springboard for a septet Les Grandes Filles du vent du ciel that will hit the stage in December. After each performance, Leduc will invite the audience to comment and give suggestions about her choreography-in-progress, so she can polish and improve the concepts of the final show. Leduc portrays a character named Joséphine; her plan is to incorporate this solo into a group piece which will include seven strange and fascinating women who dance on a house's rooftop surrounded by 60 miniature dwellings. Solitude is one of the themes Joséphine conquers. Says Leduc: "I live alone in an apartment, and sometimes it's really tough--there's no one there when I get home, but other times it's super. We see these two facets in the piece." A graduate of Les Ateliers de Danse Moderne, Leduc's creations often combine dance and theatre. Last fall, her choreography Ces enfants terribles featured Leduc and Dave St. Pierre performing dance and text while zipping about on tricycles. The second choreography of the evening, by Karen Guttman, is entitled the which is better problem. It was originally created last year as a duet for Guttman and her father Irwin, who is a statistics professor and had no previous dance training. The duet was performed in Toronto last year, but this weekend Guttman braves the stage alone, without Pa. "I was always intrigued by my father's profession," Guttman says, "and was overwhelmed by not understanding." She takes the theme of bewilderment and trying to understand another reality and explores it in her choreography. In her second piece, badOOm, Guttman uses voice and dance to lament the world's end. She describes the work as "very physical. My arms are bound, and it's about constraint, confinement of the soul, panic and pessimism." The work is composed of four different installations called "tes, bayu, up and kit." The four tableaux allow Hiscott to explore bodily energies contained within. She says she conducts research for her work by "road trips, rock climbing and singing love songs in men's urinals." : >>> Spring has sprung, and marks the homestretch of the academic term. This means various dance programs are winding down and winding up to showcase the year's fruits. It's a chance to appreciate choreographers and dancers in an assorted spring bouquet of student performances.
Tangente's Émergence Series April 15-17, at 8:30pm, and April 18 at 7:30pm, $10. Concordia Department of Contemporary Dance, at Moyse Hall, 853 Sherbrooke W., April 16 at 8pm, and 17 at 2:30 and 8pm, $5. Les Ateliers de Danse Moderne de Montreal, April 15 to 17, at 372 Ste-Catherine,
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