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WCD company dancers performing Roger Sinha’s Left Hook, Right Jab and other musical notes (LEIF NORMAN)

WCD’s triple bill Sinha, Browne and Lott presented a trio of very strong — and very different — choreographic visions

Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers delivered a one-two-three punch with its latest production, Sinha, Browne and Lott, which ran Dec. 1 through 4 at the Rachel Browne Theatre. The eclectic triple bill presented new works by Montreal-based choreographer Roger Sinha, WCD artistic director Brent Lott and founding artistic director Rachel Browne, performed by company dancers Kristin Haight, Lise McMillan, Johanna Riley and Sarah Roche, as well as freshly minted apprentices Mark Sawh Medrano and Emma Rose.

Sinha’s Left Hook, Right Jab and other musical notes is like seeing a portrait of the artist as a young man. The 51-year-old Indian/Armenian choreographer’s 35-minute autobiographical piece explored defining moments of his life: being bullied for the colour of his skin, his martial-arts training, being rejected from the ballet world, and his subsequent ascent in the contemporary dance world.

The episodic piece opened with the company in sharp tableaux with clenched fists and striking arms underscored by deafening drums. A martial-arts battle ensued between McMillan and Medrano, with Roche’s hysterical, foul-mouthed referee screaming about body piercings, immigration and GLBT-XYZ. Another section, set to Swan Lake, mercilessly skewered the unforgiving world of ballet. At times, the piece’s momentum became slowed by its own theatricality. But when the company exploded into Sinha’s glorious combustion of intricate, Indian-flavoured choreography, frankly, it was a thrill. The through-line of bullying, to martial arts, to the liberating joy of dance made this work a tour de force that threw a few left hooks of its own.

Browne’s Radiance, dedicated to the late Babs Asper and Canadian composer Ann Southam, was an eloquent solo beautifully performed by Haight and set to three J.S. Bach chorale preludes. The nine-minute piece began with the curly-haired dancer standing upstage in a circle of light before she swept across the stage. Her movement became more playful in the second section as she quickly darted on tiptoes as if propelled by a force outside her body. The final, stirring image of her returning to the circle of light, beating her arms like the wings of an angel, underlined dance’s power to communicate what so often cannot be put into words.

The program also included Lott’s Untold, presented as a work-in-progress. Beyond the debate as to whether pieces still in gestation belong on a regular season program, what the 29-minute piece lacked in finished quality, it made up for with Lott’s establishment of a gritty, urban world. His intriguing choice to have Roche seated upstage throughout as a watching witness successfully created dramatic tension. Cryptic songs performed by Riley and Roche added to the postmodern vibe.