When one thinks of classic Christmas stories, usually included are The Little Match Girl, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and A Christmas Carol. But that was exactly why MOTUS O Dance Theatre wanted to have its own adaptation.
“You say, ‘Oh yeah, I could see that becoming a dance,’ and that’s why we did it,” said MOTUS O co-artistic director and performer James Croker.
“Well, it’s one reason we did it, and it’s because it’s a great Christmas story and it was a challenge. We’ve been doing it for seven years, this particular production, and we go to communities and involve local performers. We do an audition and put them into five scenes, movement scenes, and then we couple them with professional performers ... and then we put on the show.”
A Christmas Carol by MOTUS O Dance Theatre, will take place Friday, Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in The Banff Centre’s Margaret Greenham Theatre.
In each community the dance theatre company performs in, it’ll hold separate auditions to find local talent for participation. “In Banff, I think we auditioned 50 potential dancers ... Everyone was advised of who was going to be in it, I think we’re including about 30 young people in Banff,” said Croker.
He is playing the part of Ebenezer Scrooge and joked that he thinks it was a bit of typecasting. “It’s because I’m bald, I think.”
He and the other members of MOTUS O have extensive dance and performing backgrounds that add esthetic layers to the productions they have become known for.
“We were all trained as dancers back in the day, this would be the early ’80s. What we did is most of us – at least, the three artistic directors were street performers – used our dance abilities. We were doing street shows in Europe, North America and Asia,” said Croker on his earliest performing days.
“We were working with other companies and then when we worked together, the three of us (James, his wife Cynthia Croker and Jack Langenhuizen) on a project, we said, ‘ah, this is sort of fun,’ and started MOTUS O in 1990.”
Dance is the genre which the theatre company draws from – ballet and modern dance – and it is also known for its street arts ability and expertise. Croker also has an extensive background in mime.
“We ask this question when we read a story, ‘What inspired the story or what inspired that particular scene?’ Then we always ask the question, ‘Well, what’s the best way to present that inspiration?” Croker said on the development stages for an adaptation.
“So what we do is present the best way and we’ll do it whether it’s through movement, drama or text. We use video through this production and also singing. Primarily, most of the story is told non-verbally, so we use our bodies to tell the story.
“It’s physical theatre in the sense that we use our bodies, but of course the voice is a part of the body as well. A lot of our pieces deal with pathos and humour.
“Humour is a great gateway or bridge to release and peak the audience’s emotion, and once you get people laughing you can begin to take them somewhere. So you can begin to take them more into the empathetic parts of Scrooge’s life; why he is the way he is and the terror he expresses with his own death. We always say that, ‘people can laugh and people can cry when they come to our shows’,” said Croker.
“That’s the goal of any performance, or any artwork – wanting the viewers to empathize, in our case with the main character even though he’s a nasty, anti-hero character. But that empathy, skill, the storyline and the plot bring all of that to bear and of course colour and costumes are all part of that.
“Also, I’m originally from Australia and I’m a fan of the old English pantomime – there’s a lot of tongue and cheek, there’s a lot of allegory and usually social commentary about modern day that they bring into it, so we do that with our Christmas Carol.”
