Choreographer collaborates with singer Joni Mitchell to create stunning dance



Take one legendary pop musician, pair her with a noted choreographer, and stir.

The result is The Fiddle and the Drum, premiering Monday, Oct. 22, at 9 p.m. on Bravo.

The special was shot at the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary and features 26 members of the Alberta Ballet Company in a 50-minute work danced to recorded selections by Alberta-born singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. For obvious reasons, the piece was a sensation when it debuted last February. Though Mitchells presence on the sales charts has been muted for some time, her reputation has not diminished for a couple of generations of music enthusiasts.

Along with Neil Young, she enjoys a lot of goodwill in these parts as a Canadian who couldnt help but collect legions of followers around the world.

According to material provided by the specialty channel, choreographer Jean Grand-Maître approached Mitchell with the idea of collaborating on a ballet. Hed seen an exhibition of some of Mitchells visual art and was particularly struck by some of the war imagery.

Mitchell didnt think that very much of that genre of her pictures went with the songs Grand-Maître was proposing, so they put their heads together to find more compatible material.

The result is far from some folks jumping around to Joni Mitchells Greatest Hits. If anything, much of the soundtrack will be unfamiliar to the casual fan. (The obvious exception is the inclusion of a new version of Big Yellow Taxi as an encore.)

By itself, The Fiddle and the Drum doesnt make for a full evening at the theatre. Clearly not afraid of an audience making comparisons, its initial performances paired the piece with Tchaikovskys Serenade, as choreographed by George Balanchine.

At the risk of making it sound heavier than it is, The Fiddle and the Drum has themes. It wont surprise fans of Mitchells music that politics, the environment and war are dominant threads.

A recurring motif is provided by a little girl in a white dress who might represent our future, despite civilizations unchecked efforts to derail her innocence.

The title song is a lament for a character who swaps the fiddle, an instrument of joy, for the drum, an instrument of war. Visually, a single figure penetrates the curtain and is gradually joined by a cluster of dancers, some of whom don military helmets and collapse.

Much of Mitchells music uses unorthodox phrasings and chord structures, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. The acoustic guitar-based songs hold up the best while ones from her synthesizer-heavy period tend to sound dated.

Different combinations of dancers  who are simply dressed for much of the time in shorts for the men and leotards for the women  are used throughout the show and the minimalist design is dominated by a circular screen that displays projections of Mitchells pictures.

The palette favoured by Grand-Maître often seems like pretty standard contemporary fare, but The Fiddle and the Drum truly resonates when he opts for a more casual feel.

The official conclusion to the piece is performed to a pleasantly gentle song called If, from Mitchells new CD Shine. Its a loose group number and the dancers encourage the audience to clap along in a communal invitation that wouldnt seem out of place in a show like Rent.

Director Mario Rouleau wisely doesnt spend unwarranted time on close-ups. Its not like The Fiddle and the Drum relies on star power from the troupe anyway. Its a true ensemble piece and the wide shots that encompass the stage-wide action will make the viewer long for a big-screen television.

Rouleau also doesnt belabour the point that this is a live event. The crowd is barely noticed until the conclusion.

The Fiddle and the Drum was presented for a few nights in Calgary and Edmonton in February and for a run of about a week in Toronto in June. There are a handful of performances scheduled for next year in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre.

Only a couple of thousand or so people get to see The Fiddle and the Drum at any one time so this video document will be important to fans of both contemporary dance and Mitchell.

As it turns out, they may not be mutually exclusive groups.