Les Ballet Jazz de Montréal celebrates Edmonton

After a six-year absence, Les Ballet Jazz de MontrĂ©al returns to the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium with a triple bill from the company’s much-discussed repertoire first toured in the United States last year.

This coming Saturday, the 13-member contemporary ballet troupe performs a mixed repertoire with Benjamin Millepied’s Closer, Wen Wei Wang’s Night Box and Barak Marshall’s Harry.

The distinctive vocabulary from commissioned choreographers and high-calibre dancers just keeps raising the bar. Renowned for its athleticism and extreme physicality, BJM plumbs the depths of emotion through its transformative esthetics.

For former St. Albert hometown dancer Ashley Werhun, newly inducted into BJM, it is the first time in her eight-year professional career that she performs at her old stomping grounds.

“It’s an honour to come back to Edmonton. It’s such a special place for me,” says Werhun who received her basic ballet training through the now shuttered Art of Dance and the Edmonton Dance Centre.

Werhun’s professional career began in earnest with San Francisco’s Alonzo King Lines Ballet. And for six seasons, she was part of the Trey McIntyre Dance project, a Boise based summer pick-up touring company that cherry-picked a team of dancers from various companies.

When McIntyre moved on to a freelance career, Werhun auditioned for BJM.

“This company sees each artist as individuals and that’s rare. They take you in for a very special reason and because of what you can put back. I feel valued here. I was excited about the repertoire and this was a perfect challenge at this point in my career,” Werhun adds.

Often the individuality of each dancer is incorporated into the choreography unlike traditional ballet companies where members of the corps are treated as identical chess pieces.

“The beauty of BJM is that dancers have different ways of moving and characters are often inspired from that. We are not a company that is interchangeable. Each person has a different personality.”

Closer, a pas de deux danced by Alexander Hille and CĂ©line Cassone, is rooted in classical ballet. Millepied’s fluid duet alternates between quiet rippling and torrential variations.

“It’s quite sweeping and romantic. When I watched it, I got lost in the romanticism.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Wang’s Night Box is a throbbing, high-voltage expression of urban nightlife adapting music from six different composers.

“It echoes the energy and pace of night life. There are tight knit groups and sections. They range from the playful and grounded to romantic and insightful.”

In the closer, Israeli-American choreographer Barak Marshall centres Harry around a Cinderella story in which Harry has a pot that only an unnamed woman has the right-sized lid for. It’s a battle of the sexes, a commentary on war and the capriciousness of gods.

“It feels like a dance from the old country. The movements are very low to the ground and we dance barefooted. In one part we even scream at each other in a conflict between men and women.”

Each piece reveals its own statement.

“I hope the dances ring true in some way in some part of people’s lives or experience. As with most important things, honesty of expression allows the audience to have that experience. The beautiful thing about this company is that there’s such a high level of honest expression.”