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Molly Gray/ Vancouver Arts Review, December 6, 2017
“In the knowledge sharing, jargon pillaging world of the internet, different disciplines often reference one another. But even by today’s standards of cross-pollination, blending Quantum theory with dance is novel. Not to be deterred by a little impenetrably complex scientific theory, in “Spooky Action Phase One”, Lesley Telford and Inverso use quantum physics as their conceptual seed. The premise that so intrigued them was the discovery that on a quantum level, particles not physically connected could exert influence on one another. For the creative team this theory sparked further existential examination, how can one soul influence another? Are human lives inexplicably linked beyond physical connections? The resultant performance was just as intriguing as the premise. The piece was beautifully choreographed and gracefully executed. The ebb and flow of energy from one dancer to another was tantalising. The connectivity of the dancers was not exhibited through straight mimicry or synchronisation but something subtler. Motifs of movement passed from one dancer to another, syncopated, evolving with the quirks and individuality of each new recipient. An estranged shadow of the original movement echoed through the performance. Some of the most powerful moments were when the dancers moved as a conglomerate, with energy rippling from one dancer to the next, a congealed undulating throng.”
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Naomi Brand/ The Dance Current, May 16, 2017
“It’s no easy task to communicate specific ideas through contemporary dance. It can be tricky to make the abstract movement of Gumby-like bodies live up to the lofty themes in a choreographer’s imagination. Luckily, in Lesley Telford’s latest creation, she has chosen both her topic and her collaborators well. …The piece is an interdisciplinary collaboration with poet Barbara Adler, who sets up the work by comically explaining the phenomenon of quantum entanglement to the audience (with the help of Wikipedia, of course) and then clarifies that the piece is, in fact, not about physics at all but inspired by it. …Adler’s introduction, combined with her beautifully handcrafted, tiny books of poetry (distributed to the audience during intermission), preps the audience by situating us in a world that is equal parts poetry and science. The miniature books are printed on graph paper and, while they are not detailed to the level of the particle, they draw my focus to imagery held in the recesses of memories from high school science class. This metaphor of the experiment, with both known and unknown elements, did well to place the audience in our role as observers of the microscopic. …Ultimately, it’s a work about relationships – how things (human or other) interact, organize and coexist. The dancers portrayed these concepts not in a literal ways but through poetic imagery supported by a distinctive lighting design by Kyla Gardiner. At one point the dancers group together, orbiting a series of lights radiating outward from a single nucleus in a complex geometric pattern projected onto the white floor. Later, one dancer again orbits another, who is engaged in a sequence of expansive movement, one acting as the observed particle to another. Throughout the work, relationships of connection and influence are seen (and heard), and near the end the metaphorical thread that connects us all is made visible when an elastic is pulled across the stage. Dancers then moved over, under and around, entangling themselves in the line that divided the space left to right. There are elements of Telford’s dance vocabulary that offer familiar and hints of her influence, such as Crystal Pite and Nederlands Dans Theater. But in this work her musical phrasing is the most arresting element. The movements are strung together with rhythmic diversity, punctuated acutely with the consideration of a composer or a beat poet. The performers …are fiercely talented dancers and their elastic bodies exhibit a remarkable ability to shift swiftly between qualities and initiation points. The objective vantage point of the piece’s scientific inspiration paired well with the humanity and sensitivity of Adler’s poetry and her live delivery from offstage. Her voice was familiar and friendly in contrast to the highly technical and virtuosic, though unaffected dancing.” "Standouts include short pieces from some acclaimed names. Lesley Telford, back in Vancouver (after stints at Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Compañía Nacional de Danza, and Nederlands Dans Theater), is an exciting voice on the scene who's crafted work for Ballet BC and Arts Umbrella. I love the way her detailed My tongue, your ear seems to deliriously defy time and space, with bodies leaning and spinning off their centre of gravity or moving backward like some higher being is reversing the clock. Here, she creates a dreamlike duet for former Ballet BC bright light Darren Devaney and Maya Tenzer, set to Nico Muhly’s haunting, pulsing Etude 1A, featuring angular viola, and the disjointed excerpts of Polish poet Waslawa Szymborska’s ironic portrayal of parting, “The Tower of Babel”."
by Janet Smith on February 13th, 2016 at 2:54 PM Ballet B.C.’s season opener No. 29 impresses with challenging works and new dancers | Georgia Straight, Vancouver’s News & Entertainment Weekly.
“The magic that Telford achieves with her 11 dancers is something akin to suspended time, like we enter “an instant”, then rewind, then freeze, then enter it again from a different perspective. Dancers hurtle backwards like they’re being pushed by some unseen force, then fall on the floor and lie still. New corps member Emily Chessa, in one intense scene, rushes toward something unseen then runs backward, again and again, drawn and repelled by powers we can’t fully understand. Telford pushes the dancers off axis, bends them over backwards, and sends them leaping in reverse. Amid them all wanders the always magnetic Rachel Meyer, sometimes stepping through their frozen, fallen bodies, as if she is somehow looking at what could happen or what could have happened. Heady stuff, yes, but strange, haunting, and thought-provoking, the mood helped, as ever, by James Proudfoot’s atmospheric lighting and shadows.” by Janet Smith on November 7th, 2014 at 5:52 PM Ballet BC’s No. 29 opens the 14/15 season with superb dancing | Vancouver Observer.
“Vancouver-born choreographer and dancer Lesley Telford’s An Instant is based on Wislawa Szymborska’s poem Could Have heard during the piece recited by Amos Ben Tal . The most modern aesthetic of the night, with close to the ground choreography, weight sharing duets, relaxed arms and hands and fall and recovery motion, the movement had a Pina Bausch-like aesthetic. Beautifully costumed by Kate Burrows with gorgeous lighting by James Proudfoot, the dancers tell their stories of isolation with artistry. Rachel Meyer and Emily Chessa, in particular, use their bodies with abandon to share their inner voices. A fabulous end to the dance leaves the audience with a lovely parting memory." by Andrea Rabinovitch Chutzpah! 2013: Lesley Telford’s Brittle Failure.
“…As for the dancing, I was most taken by the two duets–between Ansa and Archer, and then between Ansa and Oliviera–that conclude the piece. The first is by far the more physical, the strength of one partner’s fragile hold tested by the counter-weight of the other’s oppositely straining body, Ansa and Archer enacting their own “brittle failure,” which as the program notes remind us “is a technical term used to define the conditions under which solid materials fracture under pressure.” Then, in the final duet between Ansa and Oliviera, Telford seems to be asking under what conditions might those broken pieces be put back together, a final origami abode placed gingerly between one foot of each of the dancers as they slowly pivot around it and also raise it delicately aloft, careful now not to crush what real or imagined space binds them together: 'safe as houses'.” Peter Dickenson, Performance, Place, and Politics, Vancouver, 10/02/2013 Lesley Telford and Itzik Galili bring their unique choreographic voices to the Chutzpah Festival
“It says something that despite the strong presence of the striking scenography, it’s the pure dance sections that draw your attention most throughout Brittle Failure. Through various fraught couplings, Telford seems to be getting at the fragility of relationships and the way they can break under pressure.” “There is no doubt Telford has a clear, fluid, and utterly unique voice when it comes to choreography.” Georgia Straight / Janet Smith, Vancouver, 8/02/2013 "The festival Madrid en Danza closed last Sunday with what was undoubtedly its best creative work in dance: Paredes de Papel (also known as Brittle Failure). Working with a very thoughtful and sustained balance between the intellectual and the choreographic material, Paredes … demonstrates how aesthetic awareness, maturity in scenic knowledge and the right selection of interpreters, are the basic ingredients for a successful work of ballet or contemporary dance and not mere platitudes. The choreographer adapted with ease to a space as unique as it was compromised: the heritage of Corral de las Comedias, and in fact used the lights, hollows and perspective of the space to incorporate the installation by the Japanese artist Yoko Seyama into a harmonious whole."
* translated from EL PAIS/ Roger Salas, Madrid, 26.11.2012, Herencia bajo el techo a dos aguas 60 minutos de caos y 10 de intensa emoción :: Ocio y cultura :: Guía Cultural
“The proximity and concentration of the three dancers, spoken interventions, and set design, collaborate and complement each other to move the abstraction to something more tangible. Here there is communication between the characters, yes there is serenity, introspection, moments of calm and even enjoyment. “Paredes de Papel” does come to a conclusion and the final act is a visual and emotional discovery that manages to connect with the audience and move them. Something that, one supposes, any performance aims for, as avant-garde as it may be.” *translated from Eva Catalán, Guia Cultural, Madrid, 26/11/2012 "The Canadian Lesley Telford starts this triple-bill with Everything Might Spill, giving extra meaning to the title with a tense and erratic choreography, startling and robotic. The piece is about the fragile balance and illusion of real stability (which is life, is it not?). …the shadows and the overall tone of the physical score were alive and moving. The body, captivated within the interior of a cylindrical form, connects to outside possibilities through imagined movement, projected by four slide projectors in a beautiful cinematic exercise which complements this turbulent kinetic flight."
*translated from Notodo.com/ David Cano, Teatro de Madrid, 21.03.2011 "…It is striking that many of the creators made smart and inventive use of elements such as light and decor. Working with Kylian and Lightfoot/Leon (masters in the play with stagecraft) clear traces have been left behind. The ideas of the dancers come to the foreground using the wings and different elements of the stage or, for example, when the light represents a cross on the floor. The line game on the floor certainly brings another element to the piece of Lesley Telford, ‘Intersection‘. Dancer Kenta Kojiri stands as a solitary individual on an empty stage and moves searchingly, sometimes in long lines or small and isolated. A large group of people comes in, following the diagonal lines on the ground while they simply walk past. It makes Koriji’s movements only more powerful…"
*translated from Den Haag Centraal/by Ilse Van Haastrecht, 25.01.2008, Switch’08 shows work from brave NDT’ers "…the ballet ‘Intersection‘ by Lesley Telford shows with beautiful movement how Kenta Kojiri remains in a world where humans live alongside each other without making contact. In his longing for meaning and a need for connection he is led into a crossroad of movement."
*translated from Volkskrant, Switch’08, 20.01.2008 "…A more emotive and at times beautifully poignant work came from the hands of Lesley Telford. Here but gone refers perhaps to the fleeting in our lives. It takes its five dancers on a journey where resoluteness is intermingled with longing and desperation. Central to the piece is an abstract landscape painting (by sister Heather Telford) on a scroll of canvas some 20 metres long which is gradually rolled open, giving one the impression of being on the road and seeing scenery passing by. Right from the start there is a sense of urgency as the dancers are driven on by the somewhat ominous music. The hectic life journey of these individuals and their chance meetings is determined by the long string that cuts diagonally across the stage, sybolising a road but at the same time forming a barrier, holding them back from their advance and from each other. Most affecting is Rei Watanabe’s helpless expression as she has her face constantly turned away and her eyes covered by a man behind her who tries to sheild her from seeing the end of the road- where perhaps an uncertain future awaits her."
*Dance Europe/ by Ali Mahbouba, January 2007, Systems of Development and Developing Choreographers |
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