Two dance-related shows that shouldn't be missed

Billy Elliot is not your average teenage boy from a small mining village in Northern England, circa 1984.

He is not keen on taking boxing lessons at the local gym for 50p a lesson. One day, after another unsuccessful boxing lesson, young Billy stumbles upon a girls’ ballet class run by the local dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson. Somehow, Billy gets roped into taking ballet class, and thanks to the encouragement and nurturing by Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy finds his footing on the ballet stage, rather than the boxing ring. In fact, his dancing skills make him good enough to audition for a spot at the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London.

This is the premise of “Billy Elliot”, the smash Broadway musical that is in its final two days of an eight-day run at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts. The show, which won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical, takes place in a small northern English mining town during an actual bitter strike by coal miners in 1984. At that time, 300,000 miners walked off the job in order to save the British coal industry that was threatened with closure by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was politically opposed to Britain having state-owned industries and was a strong proponent of destroying the unions.

While Billy finds ballet and dancing as a sense of escape from the bitterness and turmoil of the continuing coal miners’ strike, as well as a ticket out of the dreary life of working in the mines, he finds his artistic ambitions not getting the moral support from the townspeople and especially his dad, who is spending his time on the picket line.

This show is a gritty, moving and quite uplifting production about pursuing an out-of-the-ordinary dream in the face of harsh economic and labor realities. Every element of “Billy Elliot” works so well together to make it the award-winning blockbuster that it is. The performances of the ensemble cast give it the loud, brash, cheeky and profane audacity of the struggling but proud English working class heroes. Special kudos go to Noah Parets in the title role (one of the four young performers who portray Billy in the touring company) and Jake Kitchin who is a scene stealer as Michael, Billy’s best friend and aspiring cross dresser. The musical score by Elton John is powerful and the choreography is breathtaking (especially the “Angry Dance” number, which closes the first half of the show). And just when you finish wiping the tears from your eyes at the emotional finale, the entire cast return to do an uplifting closing dance number … and all of them (male and female) sporting tutus!

If you think ballet and taking ballet lessons is still not cool (especially for guys), check out “Billy Elliot” the musical; it will quickly change your mind.

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Another addition to Montreal's ever growing list of cultural festivals is the Bouge d'Ici festival, which celebrates the art of dance in all of its many forms and is now running through January 19. 

The festival's nerve centre is the Mainline Theatre on St. Laurent Blvd., in which its artistic director is also the director of the Mainline, the irrepressible Amy Blackmore. It will be the site of a week's worth of shows, showcases and workshops dealing with everything that is dance and its many disciplines. 

Last night (Jan. 11) was the festival's opening night, which was marked by the performance of Sora, a Montreal dance collective. The group is made up of a trio of three young female dancers (Emilie Barrette, Magaly Gates and Alessandra Rigano), decked out in black dancing tights and with various selections of pre-recorded and live music (masterfully provided by guitarist Philippe Da Silva Ethier), provided a whirlwind 45-minute presentation of simple, yet complex contemporary interpretive dance. They say that seeing is believing, and that rings true for Sora. The trio puts so much energy into their visually stunning dance numbers, the odd silent pauses during the show are punctuated by their hushed, out-of-breath gasping for air, a true indication of how much hard work they commit to their unique interpretation to the beauty of individual and group dance. 

If what Sora offered last night is any indication, then dance fans -- and new converts to dance performance -- are in for a real treat during the entire run of the Bouge d'Ici festival.