Dance Review: DanceWorks/Hanna Kiel’s Chasing the Path

The cheers, whistles and standing ovation that greeted choreographer Hanna Kiel’s new work Chasing the Path was heartfelt and profound. Clearly her exploration of the intersection between memory, experience and life had touched people’s very soul. Choosing to choreograph abstract themes can be difficult to convey, but Kiel has been able, in this work, to command the bodies of her excellent dancers to express the inexpressible, as it were.

Four characters (Luke Garwood, Ryan Lee, David Norsworthy and Kelly Shaw) clearly represent a family unit of some sort. Set designer Joe Pagnan has created a living room whose dated furniture conjures up the past. A doorframe dominates one corner of the set, and it is Lee’s coming through that door that unleashes the memory train. What is fascinating is that the movement dialogue can be interpreted in many ways. For example, my guest and I had very different views of the relationships between the four protagonists. Another intriguing aspect of Chasing the Path is that sometimes the dancers appear to move from being human incarnations to being their own memories, shadowing each other through carefully crafted synchronized movement patterns. The memories seem to bounce back and forth between the past and present as the dancers execute solos, duets, trios and quartets in waves of motion. What is clear is that regardless of their actual relationship or the specific incident that triggered this flood of thought, these are people who are suffering or who have suffered. Lives have been blighted.

Kiel has a very singular movement signature. Every part of the body is in motion. Her choreographic language is filled with small, intricate, staccato twitches, impulses and out-thrusts that seem to circle around each other. A dancer’s head, arms, legs and torso are forever being tangled together in a St. Vitus dance of electric currents. When two or more dancers perform together the effect is even more charged. Kiel’s dance is alive with nervous energy. The most repeated movement is manoeuvring the head, whether it is a dancer using his or her own arm to twist the head position, or twisting the head of someone else. These headlocks occur in a split second amid a jumble of other movements. but they stand out as a metaphor for the mind and body being held in the grip of a torrent of feelings.

Kudos to composer Greg Harrison who has crafted an electronic score that is tailored to the many moods of the piece, from sombre reflection to a driving rhythm that is an outpouring of pain. Oz Weaver’s lighting is similarly melded to the ebb and flow of the journey as experience is forged from memory.

Kiel is a dance artist who is not afraid to tackle big subjects. Her movement is meticulous in defining meaning, and taken as a whole, her choreography explores and presents the human condition in compelling ways. Her dance company’s name, Human Body Expression, says it all.

Hanna Kiel’s Chasing the Path, part of DanceWorks’ mainstage series, continues at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Mar. 15 to 17, 2018.