2par2

Sometimes as couples, sometimes as a community: in 2PAR2, Alexandra “Spicey” Landé explores the vast, almost impossible-to-map spectrum of emotions and conflicts that arise as couples, cliques and families navigate their relationships. We can sacrifice ourselves for another person – or destroy them. The piece moves between tenderness, love and violence, across private and public spaces. The performers wear contemporary streetwear, yet at times seem to have stepped out of a Baroque painting.

The ten dancers from Québec’s hip-hop scene impress not only with virtuosic duets and solos but also with their acting. They laugh, cry and swear; the result can be absurd, comic or tragic, ecstatic or playfully exaggerated. With a sure instinct, Alexandra “Spicey” Landé has brought together a company that combines street dance and contemporary dance theatre with remarkable ease.

She also draws on her own biography. Alexandra was only nine months old when her parents moved with her from Haiti to Canada. How does such an early experience of uprooting affect a person’s later relationships? What experiences have shaped the dancers and continue to resonate in their relationships? In the end, life plays with us all. Today Landé is one of Montréal’s distinctive choreographic voices, increasingly present on international stages.