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Jolene Bailie and Gearshifting Performance Works has been praised across the country! Find the most recent review below, to read more reviews click here.

Love, War, Dance
Love and War
Gearshifting Performance Works
The Gas Station Theatre
The Manitoban, November 18th, 2009

You can always expect the unexpected when Jolene Baillie puts on a show – and Tuesday’s was no exception.

Diversity was the theme at the Gas Station Theatre in this one hour and forty minute display of not only Baillie’s immense choreographic talents.

The packed house was also treated to a revival of two choreographies from 1955 by Anna Sokolow, who had apprenticed with Martha Graham and was herself an early driving force behind the creation of Modern Dance.

The first piece, private i, was choreographed by Denise Clarke with whom Baillie collaborated in creating the text for the piece. This was a fabulous way to open as its gut-busting humour made it easy for even those illiterate in the vocabulary of modern dance to enter into the performance.

Humorous textual readings received equal billing to incredible athletic dance movement. This was demonstrated early on when Baillie performed a slow, controlled crunch while maintaining animated facial expressions to go along with the sixties music to which she performed. Her tall, sinuous body is nothing but muscle. The piece ended with her collapsing onto a music stand which slowly sank towards the floor while she extolled the beauty of Jimmy Ruffian’s ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’, the lyrics of which were included at the back of the evening’s brochure.

The second piece, Give and Take in the Kingdom of Love, was Baillie’s choreographic contribution to the evening. It was danced by three members of the School of Contemporary Dancers’ Professional Program – Emma Rose, Mark Sawh Medrano and Spenser Halfyard to the music of Georges Bizet’s Carmen against a comic book style backdrop created by Production & Stage Manager Hugh Conacher. The choreography carved out a space between modern dance and ballet. Still retaining the humour with which ran throughout the first half of the performance, it also had moments of pas de deux beauty and eroticism. With these dancers, Winnipeg’s dance community promises to remain vibrant for some time to come.

Following intermission, the second half opened with Sokolow’s two pieces danced solo by Baillie. Using chairs as props – four in the first, one in the second, Baillie again exhibited her dynamic athleticism as she draped herself around, over and upon those chairs. These pieces were part of the pure Modern Dance repertoire.

As was evident from the first half, the current direction of dance appears to be a reconciliation of Modern and ballet together with performance art. Baillie demonstrated that the older style belongs on the same program as the newer in a fusion of styles.

The program ended with The Green Zone. Attendees at the 2008 Winnipeg Fringe Festival would have been familiar with this piece as Baillie workshopped it there. The piece has evolved between then and now. Dressed in a WWII W.A.C. uniform, Baillie created her own Maginot Line by dragging a string at waist level back-and-forth across the stage. She then began to breach this fortification by reciting facts about the level of destruction in the American invasion of Iraq. This was a powerful anti-war protest made even more powerful by its timing a day before Remembrance Day (coincidence?).

Jolene Baillie’s dance company goes under the name of Gearshifting Performance Works. A propos, she shifted gears throughout the evening. As stated in the evening’s brochure, Gearshifting Performance Works defines its mission as consisting of “three main activities: the advancement of education, creation and presentation of dance.” Mission accomplished.

Baillie’s next Winnipeg performance will be on February 18-21 at the Canwest Centre for Theatre and Film where she will showcase her new creation for an ensemble of dancers.

A+
inanimate jungles have clocks
GearShifting Performance Works
Venue 9, Canwest Performing Arts Centre (MTYP)
Uptown Magazine, July 20, 2009

This beautiful, hugely cinematic multi-media work by local dancer/choreographer Jolene Bailie is nothing short of spectacular. A pared-down reworking of this year’s Everything’s Coming Up Roses, inanimate jungles have clocks is a thought-provoking exploration of modern society’s endless, frenzied pursuit of success. But it’s not the theme that makes this piece a stunner. Bailie’s physicality is mind-boggling - whether it’s frenetic or fluid, her dynamic choreography is always artfully executed. The ethereal set also deserves credit. With video by Hugh Conacher and Andrew Milne and text by Jem Rolls, inanimate jungles have clocks is the kind of show that transports you to another world and leaves you feeling dazed when the lights come on. If you see it - and you should - don’t get too hung up on ‘what it means.’ Just sit back and experience it. You’ll be rewarded.
- Jen Zoratti