Photo courtesy of The Cultch
Relationships are never simple. In fact, they are one of the most complicated and challenging parts of life. And Nova Bhattacharya and Noam Gagnon, both award-winning dancers and choreographers, want to dig beneath the surface and consider why we connect with one another and why we don’t. In their collaborative creation, DVOTE – presented by The Cultch from May 27–31 – they boldly explore the dynamic relationship between a man and woman and the unseen forces that guide them.
Because Bhattacharya and Gagnon come from different cultural and technical backgrounds, the first and perhaps most important step in their creative process was coming to understand each other as performers and creators.
Bhattacharya, who is Bengali, is known for her innovation within the classical bharatanatyam form and contemporary dance. French-Canadian Gagnon is known for his emotionally and physically intimate performances.
Upon meeting at the Canada Dance Festival, Bhattacharya and Gagnon expressed a shared respect and admiration for each other’s work, and started discussing the possibility of working together. Gagnon describes their collaboration as serendipitous, explaining they both sought to examine the dynamics of relationships, and the powerful forces that exist beneath the surface.
“It really started as a conversation between artists. We seemed to have an energy and a strong connection,” says Bhattacharya.
Striking an emotional chord
Through their latest collaboration, Bhattacharya and Gagnon discovered an in-between space where their creative energies and artistic visions came together. The world of their characters seems to relate in some aspects to their own collaboration; and as the story explores the relationship between a man and woman, their personal effort to connect with one another is revealed to the audience.
Bhattacharya says the work is about two people who are trying to find a connection, and the moments of disconnect that sometimes occur between them. She considers relationships to have many colours and feels DVOTE explores a relationship’s most striking contrasts: longing and hope, power and struggle, desire and fear.
“These two characters are in a tumultuous relationship of push and pull, and there are extraordinary forces that keep them apart,” says Gagnon, who hopes the piece resonates with the audience and strikes a universal chord.
Sharing creative spaces
In 2011, Bhattacharya and Gagnon spent a week at Vancouver’s Chateau Theatre, where they worked together in a studio space and began experimenting with ideas, exploring thematics, and researching material.
“Because of the opposition of where we come from, we spent a lot of time generating a common language,” says Gagnon. “We are extremely different as artists in the way we create, and we both have such strong perspectives.”
Bhattacharya and Gagnon point out it was very important to use their shared time to learn about each other, and develop a sense of what it was like to create and dance together.
“When it is a new collaboration, there is a lot of discovery that needs to happen in order for the work to come together,” says Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya discovered there was not only variation in their technical backgrounds, but also in their performance energies. She feels they both bring a high level of intensity to their work, and because of the significant differences in their performance styles, this proved to be a challenge. They needed to find a way to combine their two unique aesthetics so that it made sense for the piece, as well as for the audience.
“We are sharing who we are and what we are all struggling with,” says Gagnon.
DVOTE invites us to enter the world of its’ performers and the world of its’ characters, where the intimacies, desires, and tensions of relationships are uninhibitedly revealed.
“There is quite a lot of intensity in what we are presenting on stage,” says Bhattacharya. “It is very emotional.”
DVOTE performs May 27–31 in the Historic Theatre at The Cultch. There will also be a Q&A session on May 28 and 29.
