The Phi production caps off artistic director Jean Grand-Maître’s popular 'ballet portrait' series.
The Alberta Ballet’s 2020-21 season will include a new ballet that features the music of David Bowie, called Phi. The production caps off artistic director Jean Grand-Maître’s popular “ballet portrait” series using the songs of Joni Mitchell (The Fiddle and the Drum), Elton John/Bernie Taupin (Love Lies Bleeding), k.d. lang (Balletlujah!), Sarah McLachlan (Fumbling Towards Ecstasy), Gordon Lightfoot (Our Canada) and the Tragically Hip (All of Us).
All of Us, a postapocalyptic ballet from 2018 about two warring clans fighting over what’s left of a decimated planet, will be remounted in a 54th-anniversary season that begins in September with a visit by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet for its adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. In February, 2021, the Beijing Dance Theatre brings its version of Hamlet.
For the Alberta Ballet’s director-choreographer, the season’s productions are cautionary tales in a time of doubt and confusion. “We’re all lost, we’re afraid, and we see humanity disappearing everyday,” Mr. Grand-Maître told The Globe and Mail. “Atwood and Shakespeare and the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie all warned us that if we don’t remember who we are, then we don’t have a chance.”
The Bowie-inspired Phi – named after the “golden ratio” found in mathematics, nature, art and architecture – will be Mr. Grand-Maître’s last pop ballet creation for Alberta Ballet before he steps down as the company’s director, a position he has held since 2002. After sharing the directorship with current director-designate Christopher Anderson during the 2021-22 season, he will become the company’s artist in residence.
For the Alberta Ballet’s director-choreographer, the season’s productions are cautionary tales in a time of doubt and confusion.
“Twenty years is a long time to be an artistic director,” Mr. Grand-Maître said about his decision to step down. “I lost my passion for the fundraising and administration and governance.”
The Bowie ballet, which tells the story of a boy addicted to virtual reality and the digital aesthetic, has been two years in the making. The Bowie estate stipulated that the creation not be autobiographical. Mr. Grand-Maître’s first script was turned down because its story was too aligned with Mr. Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character. A second script was nixed because of perceived similarities with the 1976 sci-fi film The Man Who Fell to Earth, which starred Mr. Bowie as the titular visitor. The third proposed script, about the displacement of humanity by technology, finally appealed to the late Mr. Bowie’s representatives.
Even getting through to the Bowie estate in the first place took some luck. Mr. Grand-Maître had Alberta native Beau Nelson, a successful Hollywood makeup artist, send a proposal to a client of his, Mr. Bowie’s widow, Iman. From there, according to Mr. Grand-Maître, the pitch went “straight to the top of the list.”
The song list for Phi will be light on Bowie hits (Ashes to Ashes and the near unavoidable Heroes), and long on album cuts such as Warszawa and Leon Takes Us Outside, as well as the artist’s exquisite sci-fi jazz single from 2015, Blackstar.
Asked how difficult it was to avoid calling his Bowie ballet Let’s Dance, after the hit song from 1982, Mr. Grand-Maître laughed off the suggestion.
“It wasn’t hard at all,” said the Order of Canada recipient who called his k.d. lang ballet Balletlujah!. “Listen, it’s easy enough to get the rights to music by Elton John and set a dance to Crocodile Rock. People are familiar with the lyrics; it’s the music they’ve listened to their whole lives. But it’s up to us to make something challenging out of it, and to create an environment on stage where we’re in a surreal world.”
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