Prancing Pigeons

>> L'Autre isn't theatre, it's dance

by AMY BARRATT

My sister and I, in our day, have both done time as ushers at the Centaur. One day, after sitting in on a performance at the theatre, Sue, who likes to talk, began describing the show she had seen. After listening for about 10 minutes to observations like, "and then this guy in lederhosen came rushing in and he seemed upset," I could contain myself no longer, and burst out, "Sue! The play was in German. You don't speak German!"

In sitting down to describe the Pigeons International show I saw last week, I feel as ill-equipped as my sister was to recount the plot of that long-ago German theatre production. It's not that L'Autre is in a language I don't understand--though bits of it are--it's that, well, it's a dance show, and I'm uh, a theatre critic.

How do I know it's dance? Because in theatre, you usually put your costume on before coming on stage. In dance, you make a 10-minute routine out of it.

But seriously folks, if a company says that they are doing "theatre-with-movement" as opposed to dance, and insists on inviting theatre critics to cover it, then I have no choice but to judge it as theatre. For reasons including, but not limited to, pacing, coherency and connection with the audience, L'Autre is a failure as theatre. If it's any consolation, I suspect that my sister, who is a better dancer than raconteuse, would say it also fails as a dance piece.

Paula de Vasconcelos, the founder of Pigeons, is theatre trained. But for several years now she has been carrying on a love affair with dance, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's a healthy relationship. Like one of those women who lets all other friendships drop when she falls in love, de Vasconcelos seems to think that embracing dance means she can eschew merely "theatrical" things like plot and character development.

The opening night performance was marred by a last-minute ankle injury suffered by de Vasconcelos' husband Paul-Antoine Taillefer. He went on anyway in his "acting" role, but a ringer, David Rose, was called in to do his dancing. Rose did an astonishing job, but the addition of this body without a character further blurred the relationship and plot connections.

L'Autre is quite wonderful to look at, even if the width of the performance space makes you feel like you're watching a tennis match. The playing area extends the length of the Usine C space with audience seated on either side. Designer Raymond Marius Boucher has covered the stage with animal skins (not real I trust), with all other décor elements being dragged or carried on by performers in the most ingenious ways. Performers disappear off one end of the stage and reappear at the other.

L'Autre has individual images and moments that are lovely. You only wish they had been strung together with other moments to make something like a story. There are narrative elements in the show, notably a bit of text by Portuguese author José Saramago, but you keep waiting for them to gel and they don't. Two sets of characters independently pursue two nebulous storylines, then everyone dances a joyous dance. The painful Toni Childs is heard performing a song called "Womb," then it's time for curtain call. Nobody, however, is wearing lederhosen.

L'Autre through April 21 at Usine C, 8pm, $15-23, 278-9641