O R E G O N S GAY/LESBIAN/BI/TRANS NEWSMAGAZINE
NOVEMBER 20 2009
31
J
i
DENIS FARLEY
DANCE
Daniel Leveille Danse Takes Off With
Second White Bird Uncaged Series
B y REBECCA RAGAIN
W hen local dance presenter W hite Bird
announced that the usual venue for its Port­
land State University Dance Series, Lincoln
Hall, was closing for seismic upgrades, sub­
scribers got a little nervous.
W here would they go for the intimate ex­
perience offered by the small theater, with one
sixth the seating of Arlene Schnitzer Concert
Hall? Subscriptions to the series, which had
reached an all-time high for the 2007-’08
season, dropped 10 percent last season, the
first year that Lincoln Hall was closed.
But the dip was expected, says W hite Bird
co-founder W alter Jaffe, and the organization
recovered with aplomb. Last year, instead of
the PSU Dance Series, W hite Bird presented
productions in four different venues as part of
a new series called W hite Bird Uncaged.
Audiences found their intimate dance­
watching experience at Oaks Park Dance
Pavilion, Reed College’s Kaul Auditorium,
the small studio at the Ham pton Opera
Center, and in the YW CA’s gymnasium. They
watched the work of companies comfortable
performing in non-traditional spaces, com­
panies such as Australia’s Chunky Move and
Portland’s skinner | kirk + bielemeier.
Hawthorne
Psychic
It turned out that dancegoers liked the
change of pace. “I t ’s been an exciting adven­
ture for us as well as audiences,” says Jaffe.
Subscriptions for this season’s W hite Bird
Uncaged topped the last season o f the PSU
series; W hite Bird expects to sell more sub­
scriptions before the series opens December
2 and likely some partial subscriptions after
that.
O pening this year’s Uncaged series is the
W est Coast debut of Daniel Leveille Danse.
The Montreal-based company spends much of
its time touring, primarily in Europe; its only
U.S. performances have been in New York,
where they were well-received by critics.
Choreographer Daniel Leveille is pleased
the company has been invited to perform in
Portland, as is dancer Justin Gionet. He wrote
on W hite Bird’s blog that he is “absolutely
pumped about our visit to P-Town,” due to
the facts that Portland is home to Chuck
Palahniuk, has a reputation for sustainability
and boasts a slew of breweries.
How fortunate for Gionet, then, that
the space in which Daniel Leveille Danse is
performing is part of the Leftbank Project,
a community o f creative and craft businesses
that includes Upright Brewing Company.
Daniel Leveille Danse will be the first
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create; it’s the end o f a cycle o f creation.”
He intends to start a new project after
Christmas.
In January, when Leveille is back at home
creating his new dance, W hite Bird’s Uncaged
season continues with local choreographers
Tere M athern and M inh Tran. Bruno Beltrao,
a street group from Rio de Janeiro, performs
in February, and Wayne M cGregor | Random
Dance returns to Portland in March to finish
the Uncaged series.
Next season, W hite Bird returns to Lin­
coln Hall, although the organization has left
the door open to dusting off the Uncaged
concept in the future, since it proved so suc­
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D aniel Leveille Danse is stagin g "Twilight
of the O ceans," the fin a l p ie c e in a triptych
th a t Leveille w orked on for nearly 10 years.
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group to perform in Leftbank’s new space, lo­
cated in the Rose Quarter. The company will
stage “Crépuscule des océans,” or “Twilight o f
the Oceans,” the final piece in a triptych that
Léveillé worked on for nearly 10 years.
All three dance works share a similar set—
or lack thereof, actually. Léveillé says, “The set
is the lighting. The set is the space. The space is
created by... where the dancers go.”
“Twilight of the Oceans” is part o f the
choreographer’s exploration o f the effect o f
having dancers perform nude. Their nudity
is not provocative in the sensationalist sense.
In fact, Léveillé views the dancers’ naked­
ness as another costume, an element that
was necessary to the dance’s integrity. About
the dancers being nude, he says, “The pieces
themselves took that decision, not me.”
The many kinds o f starkness in “Twilight
o f the Oceans,” from movement to set to cos­
tuming, amplify its power. In 2008, Deborah
Jowitt wrote about “Twilight of the Oceans”
in The Village Voice: “In their [the dancers’] ef­
ficiency, the channeled thrust o f their energy,
and their impassiveness, they’re like animals.
Their nakedness enhances that simplicity.”
Now that his trilogy is complete, Léveillé
is ready to move into new territory. He says,
“This one has been really long and tough to
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