By Samuel Roberts
As the only dance company of its kind in the world, and the only full-time professional dance company in Ottawa, Le Groupe Dance Lab represents something truly unique.
Its mandate, making it different to other dance companies who aim solely to produce performances, is to concentrate full-time on offering visiting choreographers the resources to work on their craft.
These are known as “dance laboratories”, where both Canadian and international choreographers come in and work with Le Groupe’s dancers and production team for periods of three weeks.
The focus is on artistic development and public interaction, as each laboratory period ends with a series of public performances and question and answer sessions with audiences.
After its early beginnings in 1966, Peter Boneham assumed artistic directorship of the company in 1971 before it later assumed its current moniker of “Le Groupe Dance Lab.”
Le Groupe is priming itself for the future with the addition of new co-artistic director Tony Chong, who will eventually assume artistic directorship of the company.
Chong, who worked for various dance companies in Montreal for the past 14 years, says that Boneham asked him to join the group in January 2005.
“I did a choreographic lab here, and Peter and I seemed to have similar sensibilities,” he says. “Peter saw the potential for me to perhaps, one day, take over the company. That’s the succession plan. I came on board and it seems to be working well.”
Chong says he believes the future of the company relies on the fact that it can adapt and evolve in a way to remain relevant.
“I don’t see a direction that Le Groupe has to continue in,” he explains. “I bring a different perspective. I see a different way things can be done and ways in which we can continue to grow and flourish and at the same time respect the traditions of the company.”
His sentiments are echoed by Boneham. “Tony is from a different generation than me so it’s very exciting,” he says. “It’s a whole other fusion of energy and questioning what we do.”
Boneham says that even though Le Groupe is evolving, its traditions will be maintained by the fact that the company has always developed over time.
“We started out as an experimental touring company and now it’s a laboratory,” he says, “but there was always a thirst for creation and experimentation.”
Boneham, who last year received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement, acts as a mentor along with Chong for the visiting choreographers during their laboratory research period.
“Mentoring is about using your expertise,” says Boneham. “For me it’s a bumper. It’s not about changing someone’s work — it’s about making them look at their work, and maybe advancing certain things.”
Alanna Kraajeveld, who is in her first year of full-time dancing with the company after working as an apprentice, says Le Groupe offers audiences an accessible and more intimate look at modern dance.
“At performances there is the opportunity for discussion and for the audience to offer feedback,” she says.
“It’s a great insight for an audience member on how choreography is being made.
“We don’t often get that opportunity to have an intimate peek at the creative process,” she adds.
Kraajaveld explains that in regular dance companies, there is a tendency to take a lot more time making choreographic choices. “Here there isn’t that time and choreographers fall back on their instinct and intuition,” she says. “At Dance Lab it’s a very quick and creative process — fast and furious choreographing.”
Both Boneham and Chong say that Le Groupe Dance Lab has all the attributes and a strong base from which to continue well into the future.
However, they also say that the City of Ottawa still lacks in the support it gives to Ottawa arts groups.
“I have to say its pretty sad situation,” says Chong. “Huge institutions like the NAC receive all the funding and anything that’s under that seems to be undershadowed or ignored.”
Although Chong is focused on developing Le Groupe in the future by raising its profile both within the community and also internationally, he is also grounded firmly in the present and with the task of continuing the success of the company.
“The choreographic lab is such an amazing service which is needed so much in Canada right now,” he says. “The public probably doesn’t realise that Le Groupe is the only professional dance company in the city.”
Montreal’s Louise Bédard is choreographing Le Groupe’s next performances in early December.