Christopher House and why Toronto Dance Theatre never does the same thing twice
24 Jan 2019.

by Drew Rowsome -

For the twenty-fifth time, Christopher House is promoting the launch of a new season at Toronto Dance Theatre. He is surprised and pleased. "The first time I danced with the company was in 1978," he says, "That's like 40 years ago. It seems like a long, long time, but I kind of grew up there. My time as an artistic director has gone fairly quickly because we've never really done the same thing, it's always changing and evolving. It keeps it fresh. It doesn't feel like I've been working in the same place as when I took over the company in 1994."

In that time Toronto Dance Theatre and House have received raves and accolades while never losing their edge and sense of exploration. "I've really been blessed with this company because it was founded to be a creative organization. It was never beholden. It wasn't a dance company that was founded by a board of directors who had an idea for what it should be, and who want it to be relatively safe in the programming so that the audience is never alienated. We sort of do a fancier dance with that in trying to challenge our audience in the way we challenge ourselves. But we give them the tools to enjoy the challenges."

It doesn't always work. "I was asked to speak at a private club that brings in guest artists," says House with a laugh. "I probably spoke for 40 minutes about my own artistic vision and after, one of the people who had been a donor to the company and had stopped giving because she didn't really understand what was happening in the theatre because it didn't speak to her, approached me. After she'd had a chance to hear me speak about what we were trying to do, it made her curious again. It gave her a window. I think it's about trust. That people trust that we're not trying to talk down to them or put something over on them. A lot of suspicion comes with more experimental work. For me it's including the experimentation in a continuum that includes much more accessible work as well. What links them is that they have similar humanist values."

And there are always new audience members discovering Toronto Dance Theatre. "It's often people with zero experience who just come and it's all new and it's all kind of interesting," says House. "And they often have really clear insights into the intention of the work. As do people who experience contemporary art frequently, or are art practitioners or writers or something. Part of our experience of the world is discovering what we like and what we don't like and often making judgement calls based on that. I often find that when someone tricks me into letting go of my judgement that there is something that I didn't think I liked but in fact is my new passion. That's something artists are always having to deal with, how to unlock that in the audience."

Marienbad The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker

Programming a season has its challenges. "Last year we toured most of the year with a mixed program," says House. "The pieces were all related in that I made them all up. They considered performance and composition in very different ways. I think it was interesting for people to see how one artist's voice could change over 28 years. I didn't choose the pieces for variety. But I'm conscious that not every piece on the stage have black costumes or that every piece have violins in the score. You want to keep people guessing within the curation of the program in the same way that you want to keep them guessing within the individual pieces. That program was very successful even though there were challenging works hidden inside it."

Marienbad The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker

The 2019 program is a very exciting one. "Jeanine Durning's work This Shape, We Are In, that's about to open and Marie Lambin-Gagnon's work Slow Dance, they're both pretty radical interpretations of choreography," says House of the two works running Wednesday, January 23 to Saturday, February 2. "I think they're also really fun and interesting. People often think that contemporary dance is heavy but, even if it's dealing with concepts and ideas that are common across other contemporary art forms, it's often very playful in execution. And these two works are very playful."

Playful but a welcome challenge that fits into Toronto Dance Theatre's spirit. "I work with amazing people," says House. "Over 25 years, at a certain point I realized that it wasn't just about what I was making as an artist, the company itself became an overarching work of artisty. Every choreographer, every artist or guest that I invite in to work with us has an impact on what's going to happen. The experience of going on a journey with like-minded artists. Every artist is a distinctive human being with likes and dislikes and interests, but everyone enjoys the process of working together. With Jeanine on this piece The Shape, We Are In right now, I'm amazed because her process is so intense but the company just keeps stepping up. That makes me really proud that somehow we've created an environment where people have that kind of commitment. It's really gratifying and quite touching."

Marienbad The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker

House's own choreographic work is up next with Persefony Songs running Tuesday, March 5 to Saturday, March 9. "It's a piece of mine, more traditional, that's set choreography. We have live music by composer Thom Gill and a six piece band, Bernice, on stage. It's a beautiful new adaptation. The singers are gorgeous. We're absolutely thrilled." 

Marienbad The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker

The piece, based on The Odyssey, was first staged in 2001. "Looking at it again it just felt so gendered because of course The Odyssey is very heteronormative in its structure. But there's this beautiful thing, this rethinking of The Odyssey that occurred in medieval times, that is when they got back to Ithaca, to their wives and were reintegrated into the capitalist processes of farming and trading, they got really bored with that. And they got back on their ships and went back to Circe's island to turn into animals and take drugs and have sex and just generally live a hedonistic life. So I've really kind of ungendered the piece. Any of the roles could be performed by anybody. It's very queer in its unfolding, in the pairings of people, but the whole sense of the piece and the way music is used, reveals a lot of the beauty within the continuity between ancient Greece and today. So I can have very clear social and political goals in the making, but its about how much does beauty need to be framed in order to affect people. It was originally called Persephone's Lunch, pomegranates figured in it, but it's now called Persefony Songs."

Marienbad The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker

Not only a new adaptation, but also a continuation of House's explorations. "When I first started I made very short pieces because I was learning how to choreograph. Through making these short pieces it became very much about attention to craft and compositional ideas. I really like composition, keeping the audience in a sense of anticipation through the decisions I make. It's a super interesting thing to do and something that I really take pleasure in doing. That's been a thread through everything I've worked on. Not so often do I start with a piece of music and I rarely interpret the music or dance to the music. Interestingly in Persefony Songs there are a couple of sections that there are steps and counts, it's almost in a folk dance structure which I think is really pretty and really lovely to see. And they have fun doing it. I think experiencing performers not performing pleasure but experiencing real pleasure is something quite special to show in a theatre."

Marienbad photos by Alejandro Santiago

Thursday, May 23 to Saturday, June 1 sees the return of Marienbad, House's collaboration with writer (Liminal) and theatre artist (Botticelli in the Fire and Sunday in Sodom, Declarations, Concord Floral, Late Company, The Magic, Post Eden)  Jordan Tannahill. "One of the things that is really interesting about coming back to Marienbad is that Jordan's experience, he's done so much in the ensuing years - it hasn't been that long but he's packed in so much - his physicality is much richer," says House. "And I'm in much better shape than the original so I think we're going to be able to pump up the physicality, and also hang on to the same instinctive quality that we had in the original, but refine some of the things that will make the piece more interesting to us. And then because we're more excited, the audience experience will be better."  

Marienbad photos by Alejandro Santiago

Again House is exploring with other artists. "It's great to collaborate with Jordan. The thing I like about performing in Marienbad is being in conversation with the audience in a way that is not attempting to show how accomplished you are but rather attempting to show how attentive you are to the time and place you are in. You're inviting their attention by being as honest as you can be in attempting to move them. It's a very intimate piece but it's also unusual this inter-generational queer friendship. We share so many ideas. He made a solo for me five years ago and he described it as him 30 years in the future. We are performing shared concerns but there's something beautiful about that age spread. It's fun to be doing this. Jordan is one of my closest friends, we're sort of brothers from another mother aesthetically."

Marienbad photos by Alejandro Santiago

While proud to be celebrating a 25 year anniversary and season, House is also excited about the future. "I won't be the director of Toronto Dance Theatre in another 25 years," he says. "I have lots of other interests and I do things outside of the company as well. There's a lot of pleasure in doing that. Sometimes it's so nice not to be in charge. I'm at an age now where, not that I don't have a healthy ego, but I have no more fucks to give in terms of being the best at things if I throw myself into something new. Sometimes it's fun to be terrible at something. Just sort of embrace that, little by little, one can learn new skills. I'm lucky not to have that fear."

Marienbad photos by Alejandro Santiago

Much more from Christopher House at drewrowsome.blogspot.com

The Shape, We Are In and Slow Dance photos by Omer Yukseker
Marienbad photos by Alejandro Santiago