Ballet Creole's New Step

Patrick Parson sets a new pace for his dance company

It's moving into its second decade, and artistic director Patrick Parson is making sure his Ballet Creole dance company is keeping a smart pace. As the company readies its annual mainstage production, Rave!, it's seeing changes behind the scenes as well, where Parson has scooped Michelle Jones to administer the company. Jones is best remembered as the experienced Washington cultural administrator who returned to Toronto two years back to replace Hassan Jaffer as CEO for Caribana. The festival's loss is Ballet Creole's gain as Jones brings her big-league savvy to an institution that is not plagued with chronic inherited difficulties.

Parson is hoping that Jones will help the company expand and capitalize on its growing international reputation and activities. He is already teaching at the dynamic annual Blacks in Dance conferences, and Ballet Creole was recently named as a founding influence on the Toronto dance scene by dance specialist Paula Citron in the influential Dance Magazine.

A fitting year for Parson to choreograph a solo for himself as the centrepiece for this year's Harbourfront presentation. "The last time that I performed a solo was 1995," he muses. Then it was in a piece called Great Men, choreographed by Zelma Badu. And the last time he created a solo for himself was back in 1992, with Da, which he describes as an homage to the fertility loa Damabala. "I'm creating work for other people all the time, even in Kids Creole [the Ballet Creole school]," says Parson. Time to do a piece for himself, since, after all, "I started Ballet Creole because I wanted to dance."

The piece, like the full evening programme, is titled Rave! "Everybody asks the question Why Rave?," says Parson. "I've been to one rave in Toronto. What I noticed was the freedom of the individual, the love, the freedom of expression." You see people embracing each other at raves, says Parson. "What makes them do that is the whole atmosphere; the music, the companionship; there's a lot of love in the air. You wear what you want, you dance what you want. That's the kind of thing that drives me to do this."

His solo relates to Parson's own experience as a member of a community; and in particular to his early life and training in Trinidad. African, European and Indian cultural iconography blend into a single expression driven by a synthetic beat, the kind of relentless pulse that fuels the rave crowds.

Accompanying Rave! on the bill will be a remount of the popular Carnival, Gabby Kamino's Paul Simon Suite, and a second premiere, a

reworked version of an earlier piece called Ad Infinitum. First performed in 1985, Ad Infinitum is partly inspired by Parson's experience as a member of the multicultural percussion ensemble Humdrum.

The music was originally conceived around the idea of the four elements, with Trinidad's steelpan taking mainly the role of water; Gary Nagata's resounding Japanese taiko drum as earth; Ritesh Das's tabla as fire and Zoe Wei's Chinese flute as wind. However, these roles are not strictly observed throughout. "It crosses over; so it brings different qualities, and it brings interracial and interrhythmic qualities," says Parson.

Originally, the piece "was drawn from the aesthetics of the music." But now Parson feels there's an additional thematic element, about "the journey of mankind. These elements are important for survival, but they're also involved in destruction," he says. "It's not a literal story; it's very abstract - like life. What brings it all together is the landscaping of the music."

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