Leonard Cohen's music inspires Centaur theatre work

Steven Truscott play also part of 2012-13 season

CBC News

Posted: Mar 15, 2012 1:18 PM ET

Last Updated: Mar 15, 2012 1:17 PM ET

Denmark's Granhoj Dans Company will perform the North American premiere of Dance Me to the End On/Off Love in Montreal in October. (Centaur Theatre)

A performance piece inspired by the Leonard Cohen song Dance Me to the End of Love that blends music, dance and theatre will open the 2012-13 season at Montreal's Centaur Theatre Company.

Denmark's Granhoj Dans Company will perform the North American premiere of Dance Me to the End On/Off Love, which captures the sensuality and longing of Cohen’s music.

The multidiscipline piece is a dance and musical interpretation of the Montreal bard's song lyrics and poetry. The Danish company, founded by choreographer Palle Granhoj, is touring the work through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland this spring before bringing it to Montreal in October.

Play about Steven Truscott

Centaur, an English-language theatre company heading into its 44th season, is also planning a co-production of Innocence Lost: A Play about Steven Truscott with the National Arts Centre.

Beverley Cooper's play revolves around the true story of 14-year-old Truscott, sentenced to death for the murder of a 12-year-old girl in a small rural Ontario town. Truscott escaped the noose and served out a life sentence before his conviction was overturned in 2007. Cooper's drama examines the reverberations of the case in a small community, seen through the eyes of a fictional classmate of the victim.

Innocence Lost was first produced by the Blyth Festival in rural Ontario in 2008. It was also a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award.

Centaur's upcoming season also includes:

Good People: the Canadian premiere of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire. Set in Boston, it follows a single mom who is desperate for work and turns to an old flame for help.
Trad: a comedy by Mark Doherty about two eccentric, elderly characters who set out across the Irish countryside to find a son that one of them fathered in a fling 70 years ago.
August, An Afternoon in the Country: the English-language premiere of a play by Franco-Ontarian playwright Jean-Marc Dalpe. It explores a family reunion that descends into disaster.
The Number 14: a comedy, set on a careening urban bus, created by the Number 14 Creative Collective of Vancouver.
The Bacchae: a new translation of the Euripides play by Montreal's Andreas Apergis and Joseph Shragge.

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