Mix It Up, Shake It Out
Take the music of the Beatles, toss in dancers, mix with ballet, gumboots, whacking, and hip-hop, shake them all out and the result is Cirque du Soleil's "LOVE." Two of its versatile artists include a classically trained, leggy beauty named Charlotte O'Dowd and a vibrant, compact hip-hop/jazz artist named Melissa Flérangile.
Charlotte was recruited at a three-week summer intensive in Canada. "At the time, I had never thought of Cirque as an option. I was really aiming for a dance company because I went to, like, professional dance school and that was my goal from like thirteen years old."
She hadn't thought of Cirque as an option mainly because Cirque is known for its acrobats, not its dancers. "I didn't know what kind of dance. Like it turns out that there's a pretty broad spectrum of different types and styles of dance in this show, but I think I'm a pretty versatile dancer and was up for the challenge."
The same can be said of Melissa. "I do technical dances and I do street dances and to me, they're both completely different worlds. My forte, I think...would be jazz. I'm a high jumper. I love to jump."
The best part is that "LOVE" offers two very different options - the beautiful lines of ballet and the uninhibited expression of street styles. Charlotte said, "Their styles are really far from what is most familiar to my body and what I most enjoy doing. Well, the gumboots. It's a lot of fun and you can really get in with the audience and it's like a really entertaining piece, I think. But it's really far from ballet, where we're wearing rubber boots and hitting them...I think it looks easier than it is, but to be so animated, you have to be really animated and like sharp and aggressive almost, the way you hit your boots and stomp, and so we really try to get each other pumped up for that number because it's really tiring."
The high-energy gumboots number, however, is balanced by a soft, lyrical number - albeit with a twist of its own: it's done in the air. "I do an aerial act also, which is kind of like ballet in the sky. It's exciting. I'm the kind of person who loves scary rides and I was like, 'Go faster. Take me up higher. Drop me faster.' It's really an amazing feeling to be flying through the air and like, to be lyrical and dancing in the air effortlessly."
This exposure to new styles is something most dancers pay hard-earned money to learn. Luckily for Charlotte and Melissa, the lessons are free of charge, and nightly, in "LOVE." Melissa said, "I knew I was also going to be hired as a dancer, but I didn't know what a dancer meant at Cirque. They've never hired dancers before so what does that mean? I didn't know."
Well it didn't take long to figure it out. It meant be prepared for anything. "I like that it's very versatile. They don't restrict us in our dancing. There's a lot of times in the show when I can freestyle. That's cool because, especially doing a number for two years or more, you want to be able to express yourself differently every day and have different intentions."
"Be technically trained but know about these new street dances. In street dances, you have no one teaching you. You have to come up with your own moves and be innovative." It's important, Melissa thinks, to be equally comfortable with structure and with improvisation.
"I've been to technical auditions where it would be, 'Okay. We show you eight counts of eight.' Well, first of all, you've got to pick it up fast. One. And so you have to have a brain who can pick up fast. You can't just go, 'Okay, well I'm a street dancer and I've never trained like that." So the technical dancers will probably ace that section. Before you start that, they may say, 'I'll give you five counts of eight where you just freestyle.' Okay, well then the technical dancers are like, 'Oh my God. You have to tell me what to do.' They're freaking out and it makes me laugh because, you know, both worlds."
As Melissa aptly pointed out, many dancers are comfortable with either structured choreography in their preferred style or improvisation and aren't willing to spend time experimenting with the other. "LOVE" provides the setting to study, and mix, various styles: the ballerina doing contemporary; the hip-hopper doing gumboots; the whacker doing jazz. For Charlotte and Melissa, it's an unprecedented opportunity to shake up their comfort zones, mix in a few interesting styles and expand their dance vocabularies.