Repertoire
Repertoire
SOLO
Anthem for the Living
The Eight Propositions
Til 120, Again
Slaughterhouse/Requiem
Fable
Waltz
Speaking English
Blue Solo, Joni
SOLO PROGRAMS
DUET
The Paris Duet (live production and interactive film)
The Other Half
1:1 (work-in-progress)
FILM
INSTALLATION
This live-dance performance installation is a complementary event to Order in the Eye of the Beholder (the film). Locations, durations, collaborators, invitations and necessitations of audience agency and other parameters are unique to each new installation. Below are images from the 8-hour installation presented in Mississauga, November 2021.
The Paris Duet
The Paris Duet
EPISODE I
EPISODE II
EPISODE III
CREDITS
Choreographer: Belinda McGuire
Composers: Michal Jacaszek, Biosphere, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Taylor Deupree, Nina Simone, J.S. Bach and Isadora Zidore
Costume Design: Katharine Mallinson
Prop Design: Linda Zhang & Joelle Poitras (ghost furniture) & Belinda McGuire (piano)
Performers (film): Belinda McGuire, Doug Letheren, Jacqueline Calle-Hernandez, Laura Careless, Juliette Morel-Liocorno, Gabrielle Roulhac and Jordan McKinzie.
Filmmaker: Derrick Belcham
Premiere: TBD
Length: 60 minutes
About the Work: The Paris Duet is an exploration of emergence and disappearance of physical forms, relationships, identity, wealth, structure, socialization and sense of self.
It can be experienced in one of three forms:
site-specific/live
theatre adaptation/live
interactive dance film
Experienced chronologically/live, this is a full-length (60 minute) not-exactly duet piece which unfolds via three successive episodes. The audience is strategically repositioned between each to facilitate literal perspective change.
This project is anchored in and inspired by a monstrous and exquisite neoclassical mansion, the former residence of Mona von Bismarck in Paris. It serves as a compelling reference point for the content and style of The Paris Duet because of its aesthetic, its history, its inherent character and its paradoxical reality (the building performs wealth and luxury while its existence is made possible by hard work despite lack of wealth). Just as in architecture, an act of remembrance is always an act of re-membering. To member things together again, anew. The powerful and primordial act of remembrance through space, movement, and nostalgia is explored through this interdisciplinary collaboration.
This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and by The National Ballet of Canada’s Residency Programme.
Order in the Eye of the Beholder
Order in the Eye of the Beholder
PURCHASE OPTIONS:
$10 - 24 hour pass
$15 - 7 day pass
CREDITS
Direction/concept/choreography: Belinda McGuire
Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven and Nils Frahm
Directors of Photography: Derrick Belcham and Belinda McGuire
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Premiere: March 2021
Length: it depends…
Reflections? Please share:
Order Installation
Order Installation
Order in the Eye of the Beholder - Installation
NOON
1PM
2PM
3PM
4PM
5PM
6PM
7PM
photo credits: noon-1pm Colin Savage, 2pm-6pm Kendra Epik
instructions
you are welcome to do some or all of the following:
enter
roam
stand
sit
(if you would like a chair, and you can’t find one, just ask)
observe
(with your senses)
observe
(with your camera/phone)
tag
(#ordereyebeholder)
leave
return
(we’re here all day long)
this starts when you arrive and ends when you leave
(according to you, for now)
CREDITS
presented by The Chamber Music Society of Mississauga Inc.
on November 10th, 2021 at The Small Arms Inspection Building in Mississauga, Ontario
performance (dance)/creation - Belinda McGuire
performance (piano) - Dr. Penny Johnson
Thanks to
Steinway Piano Gallery of Mississauga
Tom Lee Music
CITY OF MISSISSAUGA
Hazel McCallion Fund in the Community Foundation of Mississauga
Hazel McCallion Foundation
Ontario Trillium Foundation
The Other Half
The Other Half
CREDITS
Choreography + Performance: Vanessa Goodman + Belinda McGuire
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot
Premiere: Calgary, October 2019
Length: 30:00
Anthem for the Living
Anthem for the Living
“…I found myself grasping for words to explain the weirdness and intensity of her performance. Nothing about my view had felt narrowed or zoomed-in on. McGuire made the piece feel less like a solo and more like a large ensemble work danced by one. Set to a dramatic orchestral score by Alexander Balanescu, Anthem looks like a Peter Greenaway movie on fast-forward, and McGuire seems to play a dozen parts that span centuries and styles. At one point, she is muttering to herself with the mannered gesticulations of a Baroque courtesan, an effect enhanced by her alabaster face and staccato acting. At another, she looks edgy and modern, shifting into a sequence of athletic splits on the floor.”
- Martha Schabas, The Globe and Mail (10-12-15)
“Her ability to go instantly from light to dark, still to explosive, silly to deep, is impressive and continually startling… McGuire, though, throws off flashes of virtuosity from nowhere, blasting fast jumps or other large explosive devices so quickly they seem improbable. The power in her body is remarkable, as is the sheer volume of movement in this piece and the evening...”
CREDITS
Choreographer: Sharon B. Moore
Composer: Alexander Balanescu
Costume Design: Katharine Mallinson
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Premiere: New York City, 2011 - “The Heist Project”
Length: 21:00
About the Work: Stirring, mysterious and tremendously physical, Moore’s Anthem for the Living unleashes deep layers of McGuire through textured and magnetic movement, which synthesizes dance, theatre and circus to music by Alexander Balanescu.
Slaughterhouse/Requiem
Slaughterhouse/Requiem
facing this;
being a part of it all;
the body as both a vessel and an artifact;
our wants and losses;
being replaceable;
the beauty of a vase the moment before it hits the floor;
how fragile it all is;
pre-emptive mourning;
the reverence for good things that never came to be;
things that overstay their welcome;
the accumulation of artifacts that make a monument;
being forgotten;
once you are born, you immediately start to die.
“DO NOT MISS THIS PERFORMANCE…It will move you to the core!”
- Peggy Baker
“Slaughterhouse/Requiem” was highly original and impressive, and is one of my highlights of the year in dance... it was “Slaughterhouse/Requiem” that invited us in, with a vivid and creative staging of some of her journey thus far."
- Penelope Ford, The Fjord Review
“There is deep meaning… great courage and melancholy here. Expansive movement, immense sounds and carefully crafted, elaborate scenic design makes the scale seem larger than life. This “bigness” has a layer of complexity.”
- Colleen Snell, The Dance Current
CREDITS
Choreographer: Belinda McGuire
Composers: Arvo Pärt, Michael Gordon and Alfredo de Angelis
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Set Design: Belinda McGuire
Lighting Design: Solomon Weisbard
Projection Design: Michael F. Bergmann
Premiere: Toronto, September 22, 2017 - “Belinda McGuire: Waltz Slaughterhouse Requiem”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Length: 34 minutes
About the Work: Slaughterhouse/Requiem explores the thrilling and frightening, reassuring and intimidating, grounding and unsettling proposal that “every day is a gift”.
This 34-minute solo dance work unfolds in three chapters, each shorter and more distilled than the last, the same story through a starkly alternative lens. Chapter I features music from Arvo Pärt’s Berlin Mass, Chapter II an orchestra of air raid sirens composed by Michael Gordon and Chapter III a melancholic and sweet tango waltz by Alfredo de Angelis.
Through the live dancer (and the myriad vestiges, reflections and impressions of herself which exist within and pass through the work) wrangle with connections between pre-emptive mourning, nostalgia, and the fleeting awareness that life is happening now.
Til 120, Again
Til 120, Again
In Hebrew this expression is a blessing for one’s birthday, to live as long as 120 years of age.
Til 120.
1 belinda.
1 plastic flower bag.
1 video camera.
37 destinations.
Everyday is a birthday.
CREDITS
Choreographer: Idan Sharabi
Composer: Frederick Chopin
Premiere: Toronto, 2015 – “Three Muses”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Costume Design: Katharine Mallinson
Film: Belinda McGuire and Idan Sharabi
Length: 8:00
About the work: Titled with reference to the Israeli blessing wishing one a long and full life, Sharabi’s newest solo for Ms McGuire is a reflection upon the passage of time, of hope and the journey toward deeper personal authenticity, set within the elemental beauty of Chopin’s Nocturne In F Sharp Minor, Op. 48. Til 120, Again was created as an echo of Til 120, another solo commissioned of Sharabi, which premiered as a part of “The Desert Island Project” in 2008.
The Eight Propositions
The Eight Propositions
“Reaching her arms out, with her dark hair flying, Ms. McGuire uses momentum to whip in and out of twists that place her body on a ragged edge of control. There are stops and starts; she arches her back, allowing the fine muscles of her shoulders to glimmer, nearly ghostlike, in Kate Ashton’s lighting. Even though it ends up where it starts, there is a hint of mystery along the way.”
- Gia Kourlas, New York Times
CREDITS
Choreographers: Emio Greco, Belinda McGuire and Pieter C. Scholten
Composer: Jerome Begin (original composition)
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Lighting Design: Kate Ashton and Pieter C. Scholten
Performers: Belinda McGuire
Premiere: New York City, 2011 - “The Heist Project”
Length: 17:00 (approximately)
About the Work: The Eight Propositions was created collaboratively by Greco, McGuire and Scholten via ICKamsterdam with sound design by Jerome Begin. Originating from spherical imagery, McGuire etches each segment in space, defining the content, boundaries and dancer within. The purely physical, geometric approach yields a human expression of goals, challenge, effort, relativity and identity. All the elements of a performance – the space, lighting and sound – drive impulses from the body and self-examination.
Fable
Fable
“she stretches and sprawls upon the stage, riding a turbulent emotional sea”
- Susan Walker, Toronto Star
"...using a relatively small movement palette with deep lunges and backward arches, Ms. McGuire created a dreamy, sensual mood. But there were hints of darkness..."
- Claudia la Rocco, New York Times
CREDITS
Choreographer: Belinda McGuire
Composer: Richard Wagner (from “Tristan und Isolde”)
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Premiere: New York City, 2008 - “The Desert Island Project”
Length: 12:00
About the Work: Fable, set to the love duet from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, captures the anticipation, acceptance, enjoyment and disillusionment of a dark fate. A signature work, Fable captures McGuire’s movement identity most effectively - full-bodied, physically rich, and musical.
Waltz
Waltz
In search of moments which marked the course of a life. An attempt by the body to revive and feel again that which was for a time pleasant or brutally intense. Caught between the necessary availability of movement and the desire to bring out what is now part of oneself. Does memory interfere with our ability to fully understand the present moment?
À la recherche de moments qui ont marqué le parcours d’une vie. Une tentative du corps à revivre et ressentir ce qui fut pour un temps agréable ou brutalement intense. Prise entre la nécessaire disponibilité du moment et le désir de faire ressurgir ce qui fait maintenant partie de soi. La mémoire interfère-t-elle dans notre capacité d’appréhender pleinement le moment présent.
“The music, composed by Martin Tétreault, mirrors the inner landscape of the dancer with rhythmic waves of static, layers of intense noise and sudden silence. The turbulent minimalism of Tétreault’s sound is supported by François St-Aubin’s costume design and André Rioux’s lighting. McGuire is draped in a black mesh dress with dark undergarments, exposing bare limbs, subtly revealing her sinuous power. In the dim light, McGuire’s skin often appears to glow, generating a delicate sense of vulnerability. The waves of movement, sound and the gentle darkness together immerse the viewer in an environment filled with human emotion. There is a sense of unmooring from linear time; we become disoriented as time overlaps. It seems McGuire is reliving the past while experiencing sensations in the present. McGuire waltzes with the human condition, with awe and loss, sensation and recollection in equal balance.”
- Colleen Snell, The Dance Current
CREDITS
Choreographer: Sylain Émard
Composer: Martin Tétreault (original composition)
Costume Design: François St. Aubin
Lighting Design: André Rioux
Premiere: Toronto, September 22, 2017 - “Belinda McGuire: Waltz Slaughterhouse Requiem”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Length: 17:00
Blue Solo, Joni
Blue Solo, Joni
CREDITS
Choreographer: Idan Sharabi
Composer: Joni Mitchell, with sound editing by Idan Sharabi
Premiere: New York City, 2011 - “The Heist Project”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Lighting Design: Kate Ashton
Length: 5:00
About the Work: Blue Solo, Joni stirs the spirit and nuance of Joni Mitchell’s work, transferring the simplicity, truth and shade of her music into the reality of live movement.
Speaking English
Speaking English
CREDITS
Choreographer: Doug Varone
Composer: J.S. Bach
Costume Design: Belinda McGuire
Premiere: Toronto, 2015 - “Three Muses”
Performer: Belinda McGuire
Length: 4:30