Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Hot on the heels of its debut at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, the latest exhibition from Dance Collection Danse (DCD) is on its way to Toronto. Opening January 17, 2015 at the DCD Gallery at 149 Church St., the exhibit is curated by DCD’s Director of Collections and Research, Amy Bowring, and features numerous photographs from the private collection of Blanche Lund as well as other artifacts such as 1950s stage make-up, costume designs by Frances Dafoe and drawings by Grant Macdonald.
Canada’s Pre-eminent Showman: The Artistry of Alan Lund is a retrospective exhibit about the contribution late choreographer, dancer and director Alan Lund made to Canadian dance and musical theatre. From their days on the hotel circuit in the late 1930s, to the military revue “Meet the Navy”, to being featured performers on the early days of CBC variety television, Alan Lund and his wife Blanche were Canada’s Fred and Ginger. Noel Coward tried to recruit them for his own production after their London debut during World War II but their commanding officer wouldn’t hear of it.
A highlight of the exhibit is a compilation of archival footage of the Lunds performing on CBC television in the 1950s – material loaned to DCD by the CBC Television Archives. Known for their grace and effortless flow, daring lifts and clever choreography, the Lunds were household names in the 1950s. This footage is even more remarkable once viewers realize that Blanche Lund had contracted polio while touring war-torn Germany in 1945 and was told she would never walk again, let alone dance. While Alan Lund was shooting the film version of “Meet the Navy” in London, Blanche was back in Toronto learning how to walk. She was able to take a few steps to meet her husband when he returned in March 1946 and by July, they were performing at the London Palladium.
Alan Lund became artistic director of the Charlottetown Festival at Confederation Centre of the Arts in 1966 and still holds the record as the Festival’s longest-serving director. His tenure led to a golden age in original Canadian musical theatre that curator Bowring argues has never been matched. “He took Canadian stories and fearlessly put them on stage when that wasn’t a popular thing to do,” says Bowring. Lund was also the first director and choreographer of Don Harron and Norman Campbell’s acclaimed Anne of Green Gables – The MusicalTM, which has run continuously at the Charlottetown Festival since its premiere in 1965.
The exhibit opens Saturday, January 17 with a reception at 1 p.m. The reception will be hosted by actress Sheila McCarthy, who started dancing at the Lunds’s school when she was 6 years old. Special guests include Blanche Lund and Howard Cable, who was the primary arranger and conductor for the Lunds’s performances on CBC in the 1950s and 1960s.
The exhibit will run until September 2015.
Photo: Alan Lund and Blanche Harris, c.1940. ©Blanche Lund Electronic Archives
2015-01-09
Toronto: Canadian theatre and dance pioneer, Alan Lund, honoured with an exhibition at Dance Collection Danse