Just blocks away from the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays were playing in top form in the final game of the World Series on Saturday night, the National Ballet of Canada offered up an equally thrilling performance with the world premiere of Procession.

Created on the company by choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Procession brings 32 dancers, a cellist and a soprano to the stage for a show that reinvents the story ballet in an extraordinary piece of theatre.

Both professional and life partners, Smith and Schraiber developed their craft as members of The Batsheva Dance Company under the leadership of Ohad Naharin. They are among the most sought-after creators in contemporary ballet and in commissioning this full-length work from them, NBoC artistic director Hope Muir was betting on a collaboration that would take the company to a new level of artistry.

And so it has. Procession will knock your socks off.

The curtains come up on an empty stage that is soon inhabited by a stately procession of dancers in evening dress, each costume designed by Dana Osborne unique to the individual wearing it. The music is mainly baroque – Purcell, Vivaldi, Rameau – arranged by Coleman Itzkoff in six movements for each of the two acts. Itzkoff also performs, joining the dancers on stage and playing cello in ways you’ve never seen it played before.

The music provides a strong framework within which the dance can move in unexpected directions, just as the elegant formal wear is loosened or removed as the dancers burst forth with a passion that upsets our expectations of sombre rituals. As does the presence of on stage of mezzo-soprano Rachel Wilson who at one point appears with a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail glass in the other.

Procession is all about the possibilities of imagining a world on stage, a journey on which anything might happen. Traditional forms are evoked, from the Jewish wedding dance, the hora, to the procession of ballerinas down a ramp in “La Bayadère,” to bits reminiscent of the dancey musical Grease.

Formality is juxtaposed against everyday actions as the dancers break out into trios or solos or pas de deux, then coalesce in grand ensemble moments.

By turns complex, witty, moving and demanding, Procession is like life itself. Not always easy to process, but profound. A kind of Canterbury Tales in dance.

Procession

Choreography by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schreiber

Performed by the National Ballet of Canada at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto until November 8, 2025

Photo of Hannah Galway and Christopher Gerty by Bruce Zinger