As terrific an artist as Leonard Cohen was, his is probably not the music you think of first when you think of dancing. For Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal’s Artistic Director, Louis Robitaille it was, at times, all he could think about. Montreal was about to celebrate its 375th anniversary and what better way to throw a party than with a new work celebrating one its most famous exports.

That result of his work with choreographers Annabelle Lope Ochoa, Ihsan Rustem and Andonis Foniadakis is Dance Me, which will be performed on Friday and Saturday night at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

Robitaille secured the rights to Cohen’s music, and his blessing, shortly before Cohen passed away in 2016.

Last week I spoke by phone with Robitaille about Cohen, his music and how he and his team put Dance Me together. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

As wonderful a poet as Leonard Cohen was, dynamic range is not something that’s inherently built into his songwriter. He even said, “Journalists, especially English journalists were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chords when I knew five!” Did that lack of range pose a challenge for Dance Me?

I recognize Mr. Cohen’s sense of humor. But it is true. One of our concerns was to find some songs with different rhythms so we could modulate the evening with something more sometimes poetic, sometimes more dark, sometimes more humorous, sometimes more punchy.

One of your choreographers, Rustem, said that this show is “less about the songs and more about the poetry.” That seems counter-intuitive to how new dances are created.

It was different from one choreographer to another. Each choreographer had their own focus on Mr. Cohen’s work. Ihsan Rustem paid a lot of attention on the words. He made some research to find out the reason why Cohen wrote the song, where he was in that point of his life. Andonis was inspired by music first. Annabelle by words first. It is, after all, an abstract work, even though we have a dramatic line throughout the evening. Dance has this wonderful quality to express emotions and feelings – sometimes stronger than words themselves.

You obviously have to include certain well-known songs, but the making-off documentary talks about the painful job of eliminating some songs. What was that process for you?

The Partisan was a song that was difficult to let go. This was one of the only songs he sings in French, but we couldn’t use it. It didn’t fit in the process. Some songs were too much the same or the theme or the music. We had You Want It Darker, but I didn’t realize we were not at the level for that song. This is still on our minds to change the production a little bit and create for [that song.] I wish we could have created a three-hour show. It was heartbreaking, painful, but we could not retain all the songs that we liked or people like.

The works of a single artist have inspired other dance companies. The Joffrey Ballet had Billboards which was all set to Prince’s music. Obviously these shows are easier sells. How does Dance Me challenge and extend the capabilities of Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal as well as its financial resources?

Mr. Cohen brings a diversity of audiences to a dance performance, to our dance performance. Some of them have never seen a dance performance. This is a great opportunity to open up our discipline to people. Dance Me is the most expensive production in the history of the company. We are still paying the debt, but thanks Lord, it is very  popular, very in demand. We have almost 100 shows on our calendar this year. It brings a great dynamic to our dance company, but also to the industry of dance.

In his novel Beautiful Losers Cohen wrote, “How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?” Do you face the same challenge he wrote about?

We are all part of history. In this part we have baggage that we all carry. Even if it’s not ours, somehow it is in our genes, our culture, our personality, our close family and community. It is almost impossible to create something new.

But the beauty of creation is you have a blank page in front of you. Creation for me is like building a house. You start with the foundation, you put the structure, at the beginning you have an idea, but suddenly elements bring changes. Sometimes compromises, sometimes it is wonderful ideas that just pop up. This is creation. It’s not exactly as I  thought at the beginning, but I think it is more surprising than I thought. Each one of us has our own story.

Does Dance Me reflect your story?

Above all I believe that this world, it’s a lot of beauty, some inspiration, some creativity, some emotions, some feelings, positive energy and that’s our personality. To try to make and forget all those factors for an hour and a half each during a dance performance. If we succeed, during a performance, just to bring positive energy, emotion, beauty and love and make them forget their anxieties and problems, maybe we did a part of what our goal is.

As of press time, Friday night’s performance was sold out. For tickets on Saturday, please go here.

Except as noted, all photos courtesy of Les Ballet Jazz de Montréal

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Audiences will share that world on stage with Souza at The Soraya in Northridge on Friday and Saturday night. These concerts will find her singing her album The Book of Longing in its entirety along with other songs from her over 20-year solo recording career.

Souza was born in São Paulo, Brazil. Her career has found her singing standards, Brazilian music and collaborating with classical composers such as Osvaldo Golijov. (She recently performed his work, Oceana, a work written for her, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale.) Attempting to define her by one style or another is a pointless endeavor.

Last week I spoke by phone with Souza about The Book of Longing, her newfound appreciation of silence and about her hope for the future.

Since you first recorded The Book of Longing, an album for which you wrote all the songs using your own poetry or that of others, how has your relationship to the songs and the poems that inspired them evolved?

It’s so interesting. When I make a record it’s a mysterious thing. Two songs have really become more meaningful to me. I haven’t performed Tonight or A Life live. A Life is a poem by Leonard Cohen and Tonight is mine. We haven’t done them live because they haven’t felt good in the sequence. You have to think about sequencing a show, contrast, telling a story. The songs that I have performed that have meant a lot more to me, These Things is one of them. And Paris. Every time I sing them, I’m not saying those because of the melody I wrote, but the words. Every time I sing them I feel differently every time. I want to say every song is that way, but those two songs feel different. 

Much has been made about the quiet nature of The Book of Longing. As a songwriter, poet and singer, how do you find the moments where pauses and silence function to the benefit of the song more than words might?

As I’m writing the music I can control it. When I’m performing live and I’m dealing with jazz musicians, and I think of myself as a jazz singer, the pauses may be longer. I enjoy not knowing and this unexpected thing that will happen; however quiet or loud we go. I think you’ll see that dynamic range in concert. 

In a 2018 interview for melminter.com you said you had been searching for this truth about your work, yourself and how you live. You continue to say it took hitting 50 to get there. What new truths have you discovered since that time?

I think that hitting 50, you just care less about certain things or some things take a difference place or dimension. I used to think for example being on the road was really important. Now that I have a richer  family life with a child, I feel other parts are more important. Community is more important to me nowadays. And my musical community is still really rich. I love silence more than I used to. And slow things. It allows for more introspection and something for me that keeps the mystery and privacy that I crave so much.

Have you started work on a new solo album? If so, how do you follow-up a project like The Book of Longing?

I’m working on a solo project that I hope to release next year. That will be more geared to the Brazilian repertoire. That may change. The Book of Longing was going to have some non-original songs. In talking to Larry (Klein, her producer and husband) he said I should go back and write more. The beauty of having a collaborator like Larry, who understands me and the path of my career, is he can push me into places of discomfort for me and in the end I loved the results of the record. 

You’ve recorded The Book of Chet and The Book of Longing. If fifty years in the future someone recorded The Book of Souza, what do you think that would look and sound like?

I think it would be eclectic. It would be wordless and Brazilian. I don’t know. It  would have music that I would describe as a sense of humanity – how the human voice can  travel to these different places.

Emily Dickinson, whose poem We Grow Accustomed to the Dark inspired one of the songs on The Book of Longing, wrote in Poem 314: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tunes without the words and never stops at all.” In the chaos that is the world in 2020, where does your hope live and how will that infuse the work you do going forward?

I think we’ve been here in terms of dark times. I know we have. Somehow people shining a light have taken us to a better place. I feel we are in a very dark time and very troubled and a lot of us are alert to that and more are waking up to that. I think we are being told now that we are all of this planet. My hope is that most of us will wake up and look around and take action. For me it might be writing new music, or recycling more or using less and being more conscious about that. More of us will wake up more, see more things and do more.

Photo of Luciana Souza by Anna Webber/Courtesy of lucianasouza.com

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