Tonight I was an impostor.

Taking the place of Guerilla’s regular blogger, Mr. Martins, I joined a small army of Ottawa bloggers for a privileged backstage tour of the National Arts Centre (NAC) followed by a meet and greet with the NAC Tech Director Charles Cotton and Cathy Levy, the Dance Producer for the NAC. As if this wasn’t enough, the evening was topped off with an opportunity to see world famous contemporary dancer Saburo Teshigawara’s latest solo show: Miroku.

And a one-man-show it certainly is. Teshigawara is not just the choreographer and performer, but he also designed the lighting, the set, and his costume. He even composed the music sequences.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited about the entire evening and so showed up unfashionably early. I soon found out that this was not the bloggers way. If I wanted to fit in, I was going to have to chill out.

The first stop on the tour was the NAC Theatre in which tonight’s performance was to take place. The room was calm in anticipation of Teshigawara’s storm. The stage was surprisingly decked out in carpet. How was the man going to pop and slide over that? It was also vast, which led me to wonder whether one man could feasibly hold the stage all by himself. Luckily, I kept my mouth firmly shut on the subject.

Next we ventured down into the underbelly, through twisting corridors lined with coloured doors, until we reached a magical place: the Vomitory underneath the stage. (It’s called the Vomitory because in the olden days of theatre people would get so wasted they needed a designated puking area. Nice! I should mention that none of that goes on at the NAC; just a bit of pub quiz trivia for you.)

Time was ticking on so we had a brief chat with Charles Cotton before we emerged from underground, back into the light of the foyer, and prepared to meet the woman who makes it all happen: Cathy Levy.

Levy said that she saw Teshigawara perform Miroku back in 2008 and was blown away: “If one artist can light the fire on stage, it’s an amazing testimony to his artistry.”

And when the curtain finally rose, light a fire he certainly did. Dancing for a full hour, Teshigawara owned that vast space from start to finish. To me, a girl from Essex, UK, where modern dance equals a crowded sports hall booming with teenaged Britney Spears fans wearing too much make-up and not enough Lycra, Teshigawara was something else.

I’ve never seen a human look more alive. Energy just seemed to emanate from his body as he traversed through a pale blue box, manipulating impeccably structured light and shadow sequences to create a spectacle far larger than his slight frame. Liquid movements morphed into staccato jerks, expressing a full range of emotions. If this was contemporary dance, I was hooked. Although I quickly learned that moves such as Teshigawara’s should not be tried at home. Blogging is not easy with a crick in your neck.