Stage Door News

Toronto: Toronto Dance Theatre presents “Marienbad” by Christopher House and Jordan Tannahill May 23-June 1

Monday, April 15, 2019

Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) is thrilled to close their 2018/19 season with the critically acclaimed duet Marienbad, created and performed by TDT Artistic Director Christopher House and writer/theatre-maker/multimedia artist Jordan Tannahill.  Three years after its world premiere, Marienbad returns to the Winchester Street Theatre May 23 to June 1.

A playful, wayward dance, Marienbad places two queer men in a landscape of shifting meanings and intentions. The alignment of the theatre is reversed, with the audience seated onstage and the performance unfolding on the suspended risers; these 'floating terraces' allow for a radical use of space including punishing full-bodied encounters with gravity and gentle rituals of control.

Marienbad is a funny, menacing, intimate and deeply human mapping of an indefinable relationship.

"I'm very much looking forward to re-entering the uncanny world of Marienbad with Jordan,” says House. “A lot has happened to us both in the last few years and it's exciting to imagine what new perspectives will bring to our artistic complicity.

Described as ‘one of the country’s most profound dance thinkers,’ by the Globe and Mail, House has served TDT for four decades, first as a dancer and choreographer, then as Artistic Director, beginning in 1994. House’s choreography is recognized for its artistic excellence, inventiveness and intellectual wit. His work has been presented across Canada and in such major centres like New York, Mexico City, Bogotá, London, Berlin, New Delhi, Beijing and Tokyo. As both choreographer and curator, he has initiated several cross-disciplinary collaborations that interrogate the definition of choreography. He is increasingly active as both facilitator and mentor and continues his performance practice in his solo adaptations of the work of Deborah Hay, and with choreographer Ame Henderson. His many honours include three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance, an Honorary Doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Silver Ticket Award and, most recently, the Order of Canada.              

Marienbad is House and Tannahill’s second collaboration, the first being Rough House, a solo Tannahill choreographed for House in 2014.

It’s a great privilege to revisit Marienbad with Christopher,” says Tannahill.  “It’s a piece of continual becoming, rediscovered each night in performance. Three years after its premiere, I look forward to delving ever deeper into it. My collaboration with Christopher is really like no other I have experienced. I feel we share an almost psychic link, and I think the piece is, in some ways, a portrait of that.”
 
Author, playwright, and director Jordan Tannahill was recently described by CBC Arts as "one of Canada's most extraordinary artists", and by the Montreal Gazette as "the hottest name in Canadian theatre." In 2018, he became the youngest two-time winner of a Governor General's Literary Award, winning for his collection of two plays Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom, having previously won in 2014 for his book Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays. His plays have been translated into ten languages and performed the world over, and his books include the novel Liminal, and Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama. From 2012 - 2016 he ran the alternative art space Videofag with William Christopher Ellis out of their home in Kensington Market. Most recently, his virtual reality performance Draw Me Close, a co-production between the National Film Board of Canada and the National Theatre (UK), enjoyed a run at London's Young Vic Theatre in January, following showings at the Venice Biennale and Tribeca Film Festival in 2017.
 
Marienbad runs May 23 – June 1 at the Winchester Street Theatre, with performances Wednesday to Saturday at 8:00 pm and a 2:00 pm matinée on Sunday, May 26.  Tickets ($20 - $30) are now available at tdt.org.

Prior to the production, Toronto Dance Theatre will host a free In Conversation event at Glad Day Bookshop on Sunday, May 19 at 5:00 p.m. where House and Tannahill will share their artistic experiences and discuss the collaboration behind Marienbad.
 
Hashtag: #MarienbadTDT
Facebook: @TorontoDanceTheatre
Twitter: @TDTWinch
Instagram: @torontodancetheatre
 
ABOUT MARIENBAD
Created and performed by Christopher House and Jordan Tannahill
Sound Design: Matt Smith
Lighting Design: Simon Rossiter
Costume Design: Cheryl Lalonde
Rehearsal Direction: Rosemary JamesProduction/Stage Management: A.J. Morra

www.tdt.org.