A Hometown Homecoming, Set to Music: Keaton Leier, The National Ballet of Canada and the SSO
by Scott Roos
photos courtesy of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra
There was something pretty special about watching Keaton Leier dance on the stage at TCU Place last weekend. Leier, a Saskatoon native and second soloist with the National Ballet of Canada, came home for the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra’s At the Ballet concert on Saturday, Sept. 19, and the hometown connection was impossible to miss.
This wasn’t simply another night of orchestral music.
The SSO combined live orchestral performance with ballet, giving the audience the chance to experience the music and the movement at the same time. It was a unique approach for the orchestra, and one that worked particularly well throughout the evening. The grace and poise of the dancers was remarkable.
From the audience, the movements can look effortless, but there is clearly an incredible amount of strength, discipline and determination behind every leap, turn and carefully placed step. There was also a real emotional quality to the performances. The dancers weren't simply moving along with the music. They were responding to it, telling stories and conveying emotion through their movements.
Paul Leonard-Morgan’s Atmosphere was definitely one of the highlights. The music provided a beautiful backdrop for the choreography, which was expertly created by Leier, and the two seemed to fit together naturally. The dancing was fluid and expressive, with the movement and music working almost as one. This performance was even more poignant with Leonard-Morgan himself being in attendance and performing the piano parts with the orchestra.
It was also a lot of fun to watch Leier himself take the stage in his hometown. He danced during Max Richter’s Summer (from The Four Seasons Recomposed) and later returned for selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. There’s always something enjoyable about seeing a Saskatchewan artist who has gone on to perform at the highest levels return home and show a hometown audience what he can do. And Leier wasn’t simply a performer for this concert (as mentioned). He was one of the creative forces behind At the Ballet as well.
The musical selections provided a nice mixture of traditional and contemporary works. Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty selections gave the audience the familiar sounds of classical ballet, along with the more traditional ballet costumes, while Richter, Leonard-Morgan and Philip Glass offered a more contemporary contrast. That variety helped keep the evening moving. But ultimately, At the Ballet was about seeing what happens when two forms of performance share the same stage.
The orchestra supplied the music, while the dancers gave that music a physical presence. Watching them work together gave the audience a different way of experiencing the pieces.
And for Saskatoon, there was the added pleasure of seeing one of its own return home.
Leier has spent his career dancing on stages far beyond Saskatchewan. On this night, though, he was back where it all started, performing for a hometown crowd. That made At the Ballet more than just an interesting experiment for the SSO. It was a very memorable homecoming.
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