Bridging two widely different cultures and aesthetics, Hatzis' richly layered score for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's multimedia production Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation borrows from aboriginal sources as well as European ones. Featuring Polaris-winning throat singer Tanya Tagaq, Steve Wood and the Northern Cree Singers, Going Home Star explores the world of Annie, a young, urban First Nations woman adrift in a contemporary life of youthful excess. But when she meets Gordon, a longhaired trickster disguised as a homeless man, she's propelled into a world she's always sensed but never seen. Not only do they travel the streets of this place but also the roads of their ancestors, learning to accept the other's burdens as the two walk through the past and toward the future. Together, both Annie and Gordon learn that without truth, there is no reconciliation.
Recorded with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Going Home Star soundtrack album (Centrediscs CMCCD 22015) was released in November 2015 to critical acclaim, being included in Musical Toronto's "15 Classical Music albums for Christmas".
Hatzis directly quotes and echoes sections of iconic 20th-century European ballets The Rite of Spring, Swan Lake and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. In addition, Christian liturgical chorales, medieval chant and dance music by Jean-Baptiste Lully are all skilfully reworked in Hatzis' characteristic tonal-centric style. To this he adds elements in multiple vernacular music genres, as well as acoustic and electronic soundscapes, diffused from the studio-produced digital audio track.
Is Going Home Star "the most important dance mounted by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in its illustrious 75 year history," as described by one CBC TV commentator? Hatzis' cumulatively moving, highly eclectic score compels me to see Mark Godden's choreography and to find out how this important national story plays out on stage. I invite my fellow Canadians to join me on this journey during the RWB's upcoming 2016 national tour."
