Collaborating with playwright-musician Graham Porter, choreographer Roopa Cheema is well-prepared to rip away the centuries of cozy swaddling of this fable and restore it to its blood-drenched origins.
Not only is Roopa the recipient of a York University award for excellence in choreography, she's also a secondary school teacher and the artistic director of Toronto's Vessel Dance Projects - whose inspired mission it is to bring contemporary dance into venues with beer.
A Red with its edge intact? Let's go for it!
"The biggest challenge of Red," Roopa (pictured left and as Wolf) says, "has been making a
creature seem real without over-dramatizing his movement, at the same time as a choreographer's vocabulary is movement. There's a lot more character and intention inside the body going on than is usual for me."For Graham, who has composed Red's original17th-century-style score, the biggest challenge has been going without blood. Stage blood, that is.
"My first work on Red was in university, where we splashed a gallon of stage blood all over the walls and floors of our tutorial room. Regrettably the Hamilton Fringe schedule allows only 15 minutes for clean-up," he sighs.
Alternating with Roopa as the Red dancer will be Meaghan Giusti (below), M.A. in Dance and member of the Collective HEAT dance company.
Meaghan's performance credits include the Toronto Fringe, the Eros, Thanatos & the Avant-Garde series, and the fFIDA International Dance Festival. Presently choreographing her own contemporary dance circus, she has a definite fondness for beast roles.
Come see the fateful meeting of girl and wolf in the first act of Tell Me Another!
But, don't bring the kids. "As an adult, a feminist, and a teacher," Roopa concludes, "I think fables are reallyy f***'d-up. The more I look at them, the less I would read them to any future children I might have."
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