Acclaimed Toronto-based Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC) proudly presents the world premiere of Against Nature (À Rebours), directed and choreographed by the renowned James Kudelka, who won the 2015 Dora
Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography for #lovesexbrahms. Inspired by a book of the same name by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848 -1907), Against Nature explores the beauty and perils of isolation and opens at The Citadel on Thursday, May 5, running through to May 15.
Against Nature (À Rebours ) is the second in a series of salon music/dance/theatre creations by Mr. Kudelka - the first being the celebrated From the House of Mirth which CLC premiered in 2012 and remounted in 2013 to sold out houses both times (original trailer for The House of Mirth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TXW20BvDEc&feature=youtu.be).
The original music for Against Nature is composed by K. M. Hunter Music Award winner James Rolfe; the libretto is by award-winning playwright Alex Poch-Goldin, who did the same for From The House of Mirth.
Against Nature features three on-stage musicians, one dancer and two singers who move: award-winning dancer
Laurence Lemieux, singers Alexander Dobson (bass-baritone) and Geoffrey Sirett (baritone), and musicians Steven Philcox (piano), Parmela Attariwala (violin) and Carina Reeves (cello) - all of whom were seen, except Philcox, in both versions of From The House of Mirth and performed with beauty and grace.
Lighting design is by Simon Rossiter who won the 2015 Dora Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for #lovesexbrahms. Projection design is by Jeremy Mimnagh and costume design is by HOAX Couture.
Huysmans' novel, written in 1884, became his most famous, or notorious. Says Mr. Kudelka of his inspiration, "I had come back time and again to Against Nature, a very strange novel by Joris Karl Huysmans. It is sensuous, celebrating smell, touch, colour, skin, poetry, painting, sex, and home decorating; to the point of decadence. A man, tired of the debauched and decadent world in which he has lived becomes a recluse, and aims to create his own universe within his home. What starts as a celebration of 'nature,' however, becomes a personal disaster as he turns far away from the world."
