Dance, a highly respectable art form of which I have much to learn, continues to intrigue me. Depending on its subject matter and execution, it can also be riveting and engrossing.
Choreographer Sasha Ivanochko’s twenty-year-old Heaven, presented in a twenty-year remount, is one such work. The production may initially seem startling for two reasons.
First, the three dancers appear nude rather than naked—the former being the more appropriate term in an artistic and aesthetic context when performers are unclothed.
Second, there is no music. Only silence remains, punctuated by the sounds of the human body moving through space. I found myself wondering: without music to establish a rhythm, do the performers keep time internally as they move?
Heaven is rooted in the idea of a site of union, and Ivanochko’s choreography invites the audience into an intimate encounter with the body—here, three bodies—and with its limits, desires and need for connection.
There are moments of sexual and non-sexual intimacy, kinetically charged encounters, passages of primal, almost animalistic harshness, and quieter moments of silent pondering. Yet beneath these contrasting physical states lies a palpable sense of human compassion and a longing to meet, understand, and ultimately connect.
In this remount, dancers Jessie Garon, Sully Malaeb Proulx and Scott McCabe convey elegance and grace throughout Ivanochko’s one-hour work. In her programme note, Ivanochko describes Heaven as exploring “the tension, connection and isolation” that emerge through attention to “the body as a site of vulnerability, human and cultural complexity.”
James Proudfoot’s lighting design contributes significantly to that exploration. Mysterious shadows surround and partially conceal the dancers as they move with fluidity and ease. When spotlights isolate a performer, the effect is never harsh or glaring; the dancer often remains partially enveloped in shadow, reinforcing the work’s tension between exposure and concealment.
As someone without formal education or training in dance, I recognize that my reading of Heaven remains grounded primarily in my personal response to what I see and hear. I may not have the vocabulary to fully articulate the choreographic structures at work, but I can respond to the surface-level beauty of three bodies intertwining, separating and reconnecting, accompanied only by the aural sounds of human movement.
And what comes through most clearly in this wondrous production is a simple, life-affirming message:
Don’t be afraid or hesitate to connect with others.
That invitation to connect is ultimately what makes Heaven such a life-affirming encounter.
Heaven played at Toronto’s The Theatre Centre from September 29 to October 3, 2026.
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM
Choreographer: Sasha Ivanochko
Dancers: Jessie Garon, Sully Malaeb Proulx and Scott McCabe
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot
