Mummers' Progress

I'm excited this weekend to be working with Pierre Chartrand, an impressive folk dancer and actor and musician from Montreal, who is a good friend and colleague of Marie-Nathalie's. Together with a local dancer, Hannah Naiman, Pierre is choreographing the dance and movement for The Mummers' Masque. He has fantastic technique and playing fiddle while he dances is a real pelasure. Like Marie-Nathalie, Pierre is so musical and is able to find the nuances, phrasing and dynamics in his dance to match what's happening in the music. I've learned so much, playing and working with dancers, about rhythm, "intention", rhythmic accents and drama. Also like Marie-Nathalie, Pierre is a real character and is able to bring out the humour, warmth and drama in each of his scenes, without saying a word! It's going to be a pleasure to work with both Pierre and Hannah on this wonderfully wacky piece.

We had our "read-through" last Sunday with the singers (Laura Whalen, Krisztina Szabo, John Kriter and Giles Tomkins), bass (the great Andrew Downing), rehearsal piano and me on fiddle. Reading through it gave us a great sense of the scope of the piece, and the work that we'll need to do in the next few weeks. We laughed alot and had great fun. I'll write in more detail about the piece as we get closer to the performances, but suffice it to say, it's a wonderful mixture of classic mummers plots involving St. George, dragons, sheep, doctors, princesses and familiar carols (that the audience will have a chance to sing along with) and lively dances (which is where Pierre and Hannah come in).

It's going to be an exciting ride and I'm thrilled with how things are going so far!