Julia Sasso dances in association with Harbourfront Centre presents
SLoE – Simple Lines of Enquiry
‘A new work by… Sasso is a reason to get up and dance…’ (Glenn Sumi, NOW)
September 27 – 29, 2012 @ 8pm
September 30, 2012 @ 4pm
Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto ON
Created and directed by one of Canadian dance’s foremost female voices, Julia Sasso’s
SLoE pays tribute to the late iconic Canadian composer Ann Southam with a production
that celebrates femaleness, women’s work and the feminine perspective in dance, music
and design. Commissioned by Southam to embody her ‘immense, mysterious piano piece
Simple Lines of Enquiry’ (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Sasso’s SLoE delivers a robust and
virtuosic physical response to the composer’s quietly emotional solo piano masterpiece.
Presented in association with Harbourfont Centre as part of the NextSteps 2012-13
performance series, Sasso’s highly anticipated full-length world premiere features six
outstanding dance artists accompanied by the music’s ‘sparkling interpreter’ (John Terauds, The Toronto Star), pianist Eve Egoyan for who it was composed. The Enwave Theatre’s in-the-round seating and marvelous acoustics locates the audience inside the world of SLoE. Enhanced by Rebecca Picherack’s atmospheric lighting and Cheryl Lalonde’s elegant costumes and ‘floating’ set piece, Sasso’s SLoE literally envelops the audience in an eloquent, intimate and deeply compelling experience of sound, visual and movement imagery.
With SLoE, Sasso bucks the trend of aesthetic excess instead aiming to move the viewer
by the quality and transformation of the body in motion. ‘I trust audiences to be receptive
to this approach, to be curious about movement and music and to embrace the world and
content of this work.’ Relying on the composition’s slow unraveling to evoke a magically
suspended, weightless sound world Sasso’s intricately crafted choreography takes great
physical and emotional risks in counterpoint to the music’s resonance and stillnesses. In
collaboration with her richly diverse cast Sasso has employed the ‘crisp, muscular physical
language for which she is noted’ (Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail), to create SLoE’s
cascading ensemble sequences, intimate duets and powerfully striking solos.
Champions of one anothers’ work for many years, Southam and Sasso were artistic
collaborators and personal friends. SLoE introduces new audiences to Southam’s music
and to those already familiar with it, Sasso offers a fresh perspective on and unique
experience of the composer’s remarkable musical universe. ‘… immense, glacial,
hypnotic…’ (Alex Ross).
SLoE
Choreography/Direction: Julia Sasso
Music: Simple Lines of Enquiry by Ann Southam
Lighting Design: Rebecca Picherack
Costumes/Set: Cheryl Lalonde
Production Stage Manager: Gillian Lewis
Featuring pianist Eve Egoyan and dancers Angela Blumberg, Irvin Chow, Jesse Dell,
Vanessa Goodman, Susan Lee and Deanna Peters
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets $25/$35
416-973-4000
harbourfrontcentre.com
For more information or more photo selection:
A.P. Stewart
sloepr@2012@gmail.com
416-841-2697
