Frontiers: Choreographers of Canada

Crystal Pite presents Angels’ Atlas. The ballet unfolds against a morphing wall of light that carries the illusion of depth and a sense of the natural world. The dancing body becomes a sign of humanity’s limitations within a vast, unknowable world. The ballet is set to original music by Owen Belton and choral pieces by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Morten Lauridsen.

Emma Portner’s islands is a sculptural duet for two women in which the dancers are joined, fusing their bodies together as one. The work is set to an eclectic compilation of music by contemporary artists as well as original music by Forest Swords, bringing together hip hop, dub, guitar loops and electronic sampling for a rhythmic, avant-garde sound.

James Kudelka’s Passion is a love story set to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano in D, Op. 61a. Two couples each stylistically unique—one classical, the other contemporary—weave within the corps-de-ballet, evoking complex relationships of passion.