• Touring Repertoire
• The Sacra Project
• Court of Miracles

Repertoire:

A career in dance spanning over 130 choreographic works across four decades is difficult to encapsulate. However, Dance Collection Danse have done a superb job in commissioning Michele Green to create David Earle: A Choreographic Biography in 2005.

David has continued to create since the publication of the book and web archive, and you will find information on more recent works below. 

Visit Dance Collection Danse's web exhibit David Earle: A Choreographic Biography right here in the DtDE site.

 

 

 

2011

Tango Dreams, in nine scenes, depicts a tale of addiction to the dance of darkness. It is inspired by a composition of the same name by Ray Luedeke. From Sideshow to Cabaret, through seasons, through Love, through years - the dance leads on. 

 

2009

Odyssey

Composer: Omar Daniel

Music Title: Penelope and Odysseus

Music Performed by: Penderecki String Quartet 

Lighting Design: Aaron Kelly

Set Design: Aaron Kelly

Premiere Date: November 28, 2009

Premiere Location: Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta

Premiere Cast: Odysseus - Michael Sean Marye       

                      Penelope - Suzette Sherman                    

                      Telemachus - Michael English                   

                      The Suitors - Anh Nguyen, Graham McKelvie

                      Athena - Danielle Baskerville

                      Death - Evadne Kelly

                      3 Fates - Julia Garlisi, janet Johnson, Georgia Simms

 

 

Program Note: Homer's "The Odyssey" is a tale of separation and reunion. Odysseus, on his voyage homeward after the Trojan war, encounders many dangers but is protected by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. He has been away for 20 years, and no one knows if he is among the dead, or living still. His wife Penelope is beset by suitors and agrees to marry when her weaving is done - but every night she undoes what has been done that day. Athena sends Telemachus, their son, in search of his father. Odysseus returns, is reunited with Penelope and, with Telemachus, takes his revenge. 

Canticles

Premiere Cast: Old Men Dancing - Jim Angel, Colin MacAdam, Peter Earle, Chris Lemieux, Paul Clifford

 

Program Note:

 

Those who are a source of disdain

those who carry with them the taste of eternity that life demands

those who never knew their measure

traveling a road covered only by the sky

bow their heads

stars staying caught in their hair

one burns within

and everything appears as a cavalcade

where metal rings and burts into flame

- Pierre Reverdy

 

Antico: Seven Antique Fragments

Music: Medieval European

Lighting Design: Aaron Kelly

Premiere Date: Saturday November 28, 2009

Premiere Location: Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff Alberta

Premiere Cast: Barbara Pallomina, Michael Sean Marye, Graham McKelvie, Michael English, Anh Nguyen, Matthew Montgomery

 

Mass of the Children

Composer: John Rutter

Music Title: Mass of the Children  

Music Performed By: Guelph Chamber Choir and Guelph Youth Singers

Lighting Designer: Aaron Kelly

Premiere Date: Saturday November 7, 2009

Premiere Location: River Run Centre, Guelph, Ontario

 

Premiere Cast:

DtDE: Suzette Sherman, Danielle Baskerville, Michael English, Barbara Pallomina, Evadne Kelly, Julia Garlisi, Anh Nguyen, Janet Johnson, Georgia Simms, kelly Steadman, Nicole Rose Bond, Susan Bowden, Claire Turner Reid, Skye Nicolson, Matthew Montgomery, Duncan Parviainen

Guelph Youth Dance Company: Maggie Bolton, Elena Campell, Shanti Cosentino, Ben Harvey, Maryn Klein Beernink. Rowen McBride, Brooke Powell, Lindsay Lafferty, Victoria Ridley, Elijah Smythe, Ari Zimmerman

 

2008

Rememberings

Composers: V. Hulmann, Joseph Kropinsky, Charels Abeles, H. Gurtler, Karel Berman, Pavel Haas, Z. Stryjecki, Viktor Ulmann, Ervin Schulhoff

Lighting Designer: Aaron Kelly

Premiere Date: November 14, 2008

Premiere Location: King Street Theatre, Kitchener, Ontario

Premiere Cast: I. David Earle; II. The Company; III. Julia Galisi, Janet johnson, Barbara Pallomina, Georgia Simms, Kelly Steadman, Meredith Thompson; IV. Michael English, Michael Sean Marye; V. Julia Garlisi, Gergia Simms, kelly Steadman, Meredtih Thompson; VI. Suzette Sherman, Graham McKelvie, Meredith Thompson, Michael Sean Marye, Julia Garlisi, Anh Nguyen; VII. Janet Johnson; VIII. Danielle Baskerville, Barbara Pallomina; IX. Suzette Sherman, Michael English; X. Janet Johnson, Georgia Simms, Kelly Steadman; XI. Danielle Baskerville, Michael Sean Marye; XII. Suzette Sherman, Graham McKelvie, Barbara Pallomina, Michael English, Julia Garlisi, Anh Nguyen

 

Program Note: Ever piece of music in 'Rememberings' was composed by a musician in a concentration camp.

 

Souvenirs Fugitifs

Composer: Valentyn Sylvestrov Music Title: Fugitive Visions of Mozart Music Performed By: Gryphon Trio Premiere Date: July 30, 2008 Premiere Location: Ottawa, Ontario - Chamber Music Festival

 

Une Couronne des Roses

Composer: Ervin Schulhoff

Music Title: Une Couronne des Roses

Premiere Date: July 5, 2008

Premiere Location: La Roche D'hys, Burgundy, France

Program Note: I chose music by Ervin Schulhoff and choreographed this work in three sections.

Reaching for Nothing

Composer: Peter Hatch

Music Title: Reaching for Nothing: Water's Thirst

Lighting Designer: Laird Macdonald

Sound Design and Audio Engineer: John D.S. Adams

Premiere Date: May 1, 2005

Premiere Location: Mike Lazaridis Theatre of Ideas, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Ontario

Premiere Cast: Suzette Sherman and Michael English

 

2005

The Heart at Night

(a requiem for Anna Akhmatova)

Music:  Dimitri Shostakovich, 13th String Quartet Dancers:                                                                          The Poet            Suzette Sherman   Her Muse            Danielle Baskerville Graham McKelvie, Evadne Kelly, Michael English, Barbara Pallomina When I began this work, I did not have a program in mind, that is, it wasn’t about anything beyond a physical and emotional response to the Shostakovich quartet.  I began by making the walking patterns. After reading Shostakovich and Stalin by Solomon Volkov, to learn more about the Life that produced this extraordinary composition, I was inspired by the great courage of Dimitri Shostakovich in the face of alternating encouragement and public humiliation, and even worse, the threat of death not only to him but to those he loved. (It is difficult in these times when the artist is so marginalized, to imagine that half a century ago in Russia their powers of influence were so feared by their government.) Returning to the studio, to the work at hand, I came to the moment of introducing a solo figure.  This work is part of a larger project in which I hope to create new works for the dancers who have influenced and embodied my ongoing quest in this art form.  Suzette Sherman and I have offered each other inspiration for some 25 years. Initially I found it very difficult to find the role that she could play amongst these people who walk the streets with no destination and who are constantly threatened by unseen danger.  She could be, except for gender, the composer himself, who constantly produced music in which his true feelings were concealed, risking everything. But then I thought of Anna Akhmatova, another hero of that time.  In her youth she was dark and slender, not unlike Suzette. I don’t believe in one human being actually representing another... so Suzette is not Anna Akhmatova, she is the poet in an arena of control and persecution.  Akhmatova became the spokesperson for the Russian people.  Her most famous work is entitled “Poem Without a Hero”.  When I first went to Russia with Bill Coleman and his magnificent work Convoy PQ-17, the very first morning I went to see the little apartment in which Akhmatova lived and wrote.  It is in the servants quarters of a vast baroque palace and has become a museum.  Seeing her photographs, her pens and papers, her desk and chair were moving enough, but hearing her poetry declaimed in the next room to a group of Russian tourists brought me to tears. Her Life was fraught with challenges and tragedies.  Her former husband, the poet Nikolai Guliev was executed on Stalin’s orders, her dear friend and fellow poet Osip Mandelstam died in a prison camp, and her son Lev was constantly arrested and imprisoned.  The great poets Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Essenin and  Marina Tsvetaeva took their own lives, but Akhmatova and Pasternak survived. I have added a layer of imagery over a piece of music that has no need of it.  It will still be played, hopefully for centuries, without my interpretation in dance.  I have responded as the music dictated to me, after listening to it for months.  It is a very rich creation, full of darkness and light. In one of my many books on Anna Akhmatova I read that during the seige of Leningrad she was evacuated by plane “clutching the score of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony”. Choreographing this quartet was suggested to me by Jeremy Bell.  I’m very grateful for his constant support and to all of the Penderecki Quartet for their courage in embarking on so risky a project, this foray into the unknown, with their formidable artistry and generous spirits.