Ballet and film have a history of poetic partnership on screen, whether it is in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes or in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Now, cinema is taking centre stage in Toronto, courtesy of a new performance by the National Ballet of Canada.
Cinema and ballet will come together in beautiful and profound ways this month with the National Ballet of Canada’s performance of Silent Screen. Choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, the Canadian premiere of this theatrical experience immerses dancers in the world of silent film in a way that will delight movie lovers.
That Shelf’s Senior Critic Rachel West spoke with one-half of the famed choreography duo to discuss the merging of art forms and cinematic influences seen in Silent Screen. Plus, Lightfoot teases working with Daniel Craig for a dance sequence in Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming film, Queer.
That Shelf: What was the inspiration behind Silent Screen?
Paul Lightfoot: We wanted to create an emotional narrative about a man and a woman, taking themes from our own lives without it being autobiographical, and creating a journey. That journey was very much inspired by the genre of silent movies because we’re big film fans – both of us – of all kinds [of genres] from commercial to art house.
Silent film, for years, has been fascinating us. You know, Hitchcock called it the purest form of acting and if you look at those really old films, the steps that they made in cinematography are huge, and the actors, of course, were without word so their bodies are expressing so much more. It’s more exaggerated form and and to us, that felt like choreography. So we felt like, could we bridge this between the two? Obviously, we’re not making a film because the stage is our sacred place, but could we somehow give a cinematographic feel of this era by creating a ballet with the inspiration of cinema of that period.
That Shelf: With film, you are seeing what the director wants you to see through the lens of the camera, where, when you’re experiencing a stage performance, you aren’t constrained to that camera view, your eyes can move about the production. How did you marry those two ideas where you have this cinematic focus but also this larger production element in it?
Paul Lightfoot: I think that’s the big challenge that we embraced. You know, it was the fun part was thinking how to do that. I’ve never been trained in stage or lighting, but it’s something in the company that I always grew up with and learned from fantastic examples, because we were a creative house at Netherlands Dans Theater. I learned a lot just on the floor, really.
Light is incredibly deceptive because it it makes you look at things without you realizing. And I think that’s that’s not dissimilar to what a director does with a camera. So light and space where you where you put something on a stage and can change dramatically what the audience see, depending on how you do that. Even things feel very simple, sometimes on a stage, it’s not and simple is difficult. So that was part of the big challenge.
We also segmented the stage in many ways, without giving too much away. When the curtain comes up, it’s very, very tight and claustrophobic for the for the performance space and as the performance expands and prolongs, then so does the stage. There is this feeling of of depth, which I love in that idea in silent movies of creating distance and horizon. You hit the nail on the head. The challenge is how to be like a film director in a theatrical space, and that for Sol and I was a massive inspiration.
That Shelf: This is your first time working with the National Ballet of Canada. What has this experience been like in Toronto?
Paul Lightfoot: I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I’m not just saying it to be nice, but it has been an overwhelmingly fantastic experience. This really worked. We’re very much a new language; We’re a bridge between a classical technique and a contemporary way of moving. And this takes time and with not one and we give a lot of information. For us, the performance is, of course, extremely important but it’s only it is only the end of the journey. The journey is to watch people transform into these roles because there are 11 people in the piece, and it’s not a group work by any means. It’s all fragmented and brought together, and each person is equally as important to the other. You’re only as strong as your weakest link. So everyone’s grown so much, and I think there’s nothing more inspiring to watch.
That Shelf: Typically, you have one choreographer with a single vision, and you and Sol are two people, coming together to choreograph. How do dancers react to that?
Paul Lightfoot: To take the metaphor of the mother and father, the child needed both influences. For a dancer, it can be a little alarming. We’re very different people. Look geographically, Sol is [from] Spain, I’m north of England. For me, atmosphere is everything, and they are so talented and that’s what’s been omnipresent in the room. There’s a great energy. So, yeah, it’s been amazing.
That Shelf: How has your partnership as choreographers evolved over the years?
Paul Lightfoot: We were just working off our instinct and that developed. The thing with relationships are that it’s not a fixed narrative. So we’ve grown up in certain sense, certainly, but I think it’s all to do with life. We just want other people to connect to [the performance], if that makes sense.
That Shelf: Viewers will also be able to see your work in the upcoming film Queer by Luca Guadagnino. What can you share about that experience?
Paul Lightfoot: We were skeptical, in a way, how you can use dance well in a film. But I trust Luca immensely. He’s a genius director, and he had many and that was to work with the two main actors, which are Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, and how he wanted to portray love. It’s a very strange, dark story about obsession and addiction, and Daniel’s character is an aging homosexual who is obsessed with this young man. It’s carnal, it’s not beautiful at all but he wanted, at one point in the film to try and portray love.
We made this choreography for them. And it sounds all very corny, but it wasn’t because, of course, we were aware they’re not dancers, so we don’t make them pirouette or jump or no, this is very intimate, and we looked a lot at works of art. [Craig’s] so straightforward. They worked like dogs. They were full filming all week, and we’d be every weekend, have another go. We took, really, several months. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Silent Screen will be performed by the National Ballet of Canada from November 9 to the 16 as part of a triple bill, with tickets on sale now. Catch Queer in theatres beginning December 13.
*Interview has been edited for lengthy and clarity.
