A a | a B : B E N D, photo by Fabian Hammerl.
Internationally renowned Canadian-American choreographer Aszure Barton and composer Ambrose Akinmusire - both of whom have participated in programming at Banff Centre in the past - created the multidisciplinary, multidimensional A a | a B : B E N D. For this evening-length work, dance and music engage in an in-depth dialogue, crafting an intimate yet wildly provocative world where dancers and musicians coexist on stage to embrace human friction, tension, and explosive beauty.
This work-in-progress open rehearsal, followed by a talk-back session, will focus on the dancers' extraordinary work alongside a recorded musical layer by Ambrose Akinmusire, who will not be present in Banff. Please note that full production elements - including stage design and lighting - will not be part of this open rehearsal.
Akinmusire is a composer and trumpeter who circles both the centre and periphery of jazz. For Barton as a choreographer, Akinmusire's work offers the musical equivalent of her dance-making process, amplifying the exploration of a choreographic language that simultaneously respects and dismantles classical and contemporary forms. Her dances are a matrix of authentic movement, classical, contemporary, and postmodern aesthetics, shaped by rhythm and an exploratory process that leans away from centralized form.
Reviews
“It’s magical. You can’t take your eyes off it. And you can’t get enough of this declaration of love for being together, which continually invents new patterns to explain itself… [In B E N D] the soul finds enough air to listen carefully.” —tanznetz.
“[Aszure Barton] offers an entire world, full of surprise and humor, emotion and pain, expressed through a dance vocabulary that takes ballet technique and dismantles it to near-invisibility.” —The New York Times
“[Ambrose Akinmusire is] a trumpeter of deep expressive resources and a composer of kaleidoscopic vision.” —NPR Music
“[A a | a B : B E N D] is a game. A building up of constraints and an escape from these constraints, a celebration of choreographic precision and an undermining of this precision, in fact a collaborative work that also draws its appeal from the fact that two artists who are completely secure in their field playfully unsettle each other.” —Tanz Magazine
“Barton is clearly brilliant... [Her work is] arranged with deft structure and stagecraft, and is packed with off-kilter touches. The layers of tension are disturbing and delicious.” —The San Francisco Chronicle
“Arguably the most technically gifted trumpeter of his generation … Akinmusire has been making some of the most intimate, spellbinding music of his career… Even in its simplicity, Akinmusire’s trumpet can feel almost dangerously tender.” —The New York Times
“Clearly something very special and personal is at work here, a vision of jazz that’s bigger than camps, broader and more intellectually restless than blowing sessions.” —The Los Angeles Times
“This is subtly profound music, full of meditative, focused beauty.” —Uncut
Image gallery
Artist Bios
Ambrose Akinmusire
Aszure Barton
