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Michael Trent’s The Memory Show

 January 31 to February 3, 2001
Wed. to Sat. at 8 pm; PWYC matinée on Sat. February 3 at 2 pm.
General admission: $15
Students, seniors, Equity, ACTRA, CADA: $12

Toronto-based choreographer Michael Trent, in co-production with The Empty Collective, announces the dates and program for his first full-evening dance event. The Memory Show brings together two world premieres (by Michael Trent and Laurence Lemieux) and a remount (by Sarah Chase).

Montreal’s Laurence Lemieux brings her gentle nostalgia to bear in a new solo for Michael Trent in which she explores the relationship between memory and loss. Created in the fall of 2000, Laurence has crafted a gentle and touching work about one man’s profound loss as he journeys through the dark chambers of his recent past. This work joins Laurence’s growing body of dances that reveals personal human experience with moving and unfettered clarity. The soundscape is by the late American composer John Cage.

Sarah Chase’s reputation as a story teller and choreographer is reaching international stature. Her Falcom and the Walmer, a whimsical yet highly personal duet first choreographed on herself and Kate Alton, is the second invited work on the program. Joining performer Michael Trent is the National Ballet of Canada’s Jeremy Ransom. Jeremy and Michael were roommates at the National Ballet School in 1975 and this humorous work asks them to share with the audience some of their memorable experiences as young men in the weird world of professional ballet training. Now, 25 years later, Jeremy and Michael share the stage for the first time since their last appearance together as children, clowns and courtiers in Celia Franca’s now retired production of the Nutcracker.

The final piece on the program is Michael Trent’s latest creation for dancers Sasha lvanochko, Alison Denham, Karen Bennedsen, Zoë Poluch and Louis Laberge-Coté. The work is set to a score by Michael Gordon with lighting by Bonnie Beecher and set design by Don McGoldrick. In this, his most ambitious creation to date, he is exploring the relationship between memory and the senses. These powerful interpreters will bring their own experiences to life in an emotionally charged, sensuous examination of the potency of the past. This work was developed during two choreographic labs over the past two years, the most recent in Ottawa at Le Groupe Dance Lab under monitor Peter Boneham.

The Memory Show will run for five performances only in one of Toronto’s newest performance spaces, the Artword Theatre, located in the heart of Toronto’s theatre district at Portland and King Streets. Evening performances run from January 31 to February 3, 2001, at 8 pm with a PWYC matinee on February 3 at 2 pm.

Tickets may be reserved by calling the Artword Box Office at 416.408.2783. General admission is $15 with $12 tickets for members of Equity, ACTRA, CADA as well as students and seniors. Artword Theatre is located at 75 Portland Street, one block east of Bathurst, south of King.

The Memory Show is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and the Laidlaw Foundation.

For more information, please contact Michael Trent at 416.366.6852 or MTrent7@aol.com