Amjad

Part of the 2008 Next Wave Festival

Nov 12* at 7pm
Nov 13—15 at 7:30pm

*Next Wave Festival Gala

La La La Human Steps
Choreography by Édouard Lock

"These are the memories we can't escape. They are beautiful, they are deranged, and Lock overheats them until they possess the ability to haunt."—The Times (UK)

Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty—ballets at once iconic and mutable—undergo what must be their most extreme deconstructions to date with Amjad. Created by the ever-inventive Édouard Lock and performed by La La La Human Steps, a troupe of commanding, supremely disciplined dancers, Amjad flirts with the ballets' intense Romanticism even as it plays gorgeous havoc with notions of love, gender, and narrative.

Set to music by Gavin Bryars, David Lang, and Blake Hargreaves that weaves Tchaikovsky's themes into another world, Amjad casts aside 19th-century decorum in favor of primal, often startling transformations. Five arm-waving ballerinas costumed in black suggest a feathery swarm; a shape-shifting prince becomes a glorious swan, dancing full-out on pointe. The stark set—projections of blood-red petals, luminous pearls, a tangled forest—emphasizes the fairy tales' exotic underpinnings.

A uniquely cinematic choreographer, Lock (last at BAM with Amelia, Spring Season 2005) infuses his dances with unflagging modernity and quicksilver movement to get at the essence of why these enduring ballets, and the glorious music that propels them, have become part of our collective unconscious.

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Running time: 100min, no intermission
Tickets: $20, 40, 55


Composed by Gavin Bryars, David Lang, and Blake Hargreaves
Set design by Armand Vaillancourt
Lighting design by John Munro
Costume design by Vandal

La La La Human Steps Site
The official homepage of the famous Québécoise dance troupe. More

Interview with Edouard Lock (Toronto Star)
The choreographer discusses Amjad. More

Interview with Edouard Lock
On turning the body invisible, performance as a tribal experience, and much more. More

Article in The Dance Current
The Dance Current situates Amjad in the context of Lock's previous work. More

David Lang Biography
The Bang On A Can member co-wrote much of the music for Amjad. More

Gavin Bryers Site
The Amjad co-composer, bassist, and Bang On A Can member maintains a homepage here. More