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Contemporary dancer gets some Teenage Head

LOVE ME OUT OF IT choreographed and performed by Laurence Lemieux with music by Teenage Head. Presented by Citadel + Compagnie at the Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance (304 Parliament). Opens Thursday (October 11) and runs to October 20, Wednesday-Saturday 8 pm. $25-$50. See listing. citadelcie.com

Music and dance are often structurally intertwined. But when contemporary dancer Laurence Lemieux began researching soundtracks for a new solo she was working on, she looked for something to drive a mood rather than steps. Eventually, she landed on Hamilton punk rock band Teenage Heads classic album Frantic City. The resulting mashup a full length solo called Love Me Out Of It revisits the 80s, from wildly divergent perspectives.

Its a kind of a map of things that happened at the same time that are not really connected, yet they are in a way, says Lemieux. Rather than interpreting the music, Lemieux is using it to frame a more personal and introspective journey.

In May of 1980, when Frantic City was released, Lemieux was a 15-year old Quebec City separatist beginning a career in dance and waiting for the Referendum.

I remember how I felt: I was a teenager and I couldnt vote and I was rebellious, she says.

Since her father was noted political scientist Vincent Lemieux, posing as a separatist was just about the most defiant position available. Teenage Head was never part of Lemieuxs own music experience, but all these years later, she relates to the bands spirit of rebellion and dogged survival.

After chasing down the remaining members of the band on Facebook (lead singer Frankie Venom died in 2008), and then catching a show in St. Catharines, Lemieux obtained their blessing and the rights to use all of Frantic City.

She ditched the hip-hop tracks, Eminem and the like, which shed been using in the studio to generate movement up to that point, feeling that Teenage Head still touring Frantic City almost 40 years after the fact brought something more rhythmically interesting and Canadian to the creative table. Didnt hurt that their music also felt kissed by the influence of Elvis Presley (Lemieux is a superfan and made a pilgrimage to Graceland while making her 2014 work Looking For Elvis).

With cabaret-style seating, Love Me Out Of It is built around the conceit of setting up for a rock show. Marshall stacks and a techie set lights and test microphones while Lemieux dances. The ten Frantic City tunes get a largely straightforward sonic treatment. But as the piece progresses theres more room between each song and textures are added.

Composer John Gzowski plays with found sound (some of it pulled from Quebec radio) and barely there audio levels. Lemieux counters some of the more frantic selections (Lets Shake, for example) with slowed-down movement and delays that contribute another layer of narrative.

When you start creating to that fast pace you either match it or you dont, its counter or its in sync, says Lemieux.

And that really pushed me in different ways choreographically. When I was first working on it I thought that each song had to be a completely different story. But its actually a bit more of an internal journey, with imprecise landscapes, like different colours maybe.

She tells me about the show-closing Disgusteen section, danced to the Teenage Head hit best known for its sampled lines from The Exorcist.

It gets a bit crazy, says Lemieux. Im in a shaky trance and there are lots of Catholic references.

For the two-week run of Love Me Out Of It, next-generation bands will do a short live set following Lemieuxs solo. Her 19-year-old daughter Juliette curated the series, which features Pony, Brenda, Rapport and St. Catharines Frankie the Pig, among others. On October 13, Teenage Head themselves will take the stage for a special performance. It all makes for a beautiful multi-generational palimpsest of memory and music in a place that Lemieux has carefully built in the former Salvation Army soup kitchen on Parliament Street.

Solo projects like this are an increasingly rare occurrence for a dancer who is considered one of Canadas most compelling. At 54, Lemieux admits to hearing a certain kind of clock ticking.

Theres a type of dancing that Im on the cusp of leaving behind, she says.

Ive never been that kind of extreme dancer. I like life and I want to feel healthy and I want to enjoy life as long as I can. If it means not jumping, thats okay. Throughout making this solo there have been some frustrations about what I feel I cant do any more it hurts and there are restrictions. But Ive decided to just do it differently. Theres no competition and maybe something else can come out that is unexpected.

If thats not rock and roll, I dont know what is.

stage@nowtoronto.com

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