Dance me Through the Panic: a conversation with Travis Knights of the Secret Chord: a Leonard Cohen Experience
by Darragh Mondoux
December 3, 2024
Soulpepper Theatre is teaming up with the Segal Centre to bring a tribute show to a beloved Montreal poet & performer home in time for the holidays. The space will be filled with musicians, singers, and storytellers, with minimal set dressing or costumes, fusing the mediums of theatre, documentary, and tribute concert. Fresh arrangements of each song led by musical director David Terriault will elevate the biographical background of Cohen’s life and enduring legacy, leaving audiences with a new love for one of Montreal’s most beloved poets. There will also be lots of dancing!
We spoke with another homecoming Montreal Man Travis Knights about his journey dancing, singing, grieving and giving with the Soulpepper Theatre production of The Secret Chord: A Leonard Cohen Experience.
Photographer unknown.
Photographer unknown.
Knights has been a part of several Soulpepper concert series shows, singing Simon & Garfunkel and American folk music and says that singing in The Secret Chord has given him the richest and freshest appreciation for an artist he did not previously have an affinity for. “I'm a Black dude from Montreal, Quebec, " he explains, “There's a certain cultural lens that I'm looking through. And so my interfacing with Leonard Cohen has, has not been a thing. But because of this production, I've learned about Leonard Cohen. These concerts have given me a window into different cultures that I'm really grateful for. It's just expanded musical horizons.”
Cast performance from Toronto photo by Dahlia Katz, Left to Right: Andrew Penner, Divine Brown, Hailey Gillis, Evan Buliung
Cohen’s lyrics reflect a scholar’s intimacy beyond the biblical references of his Jewish upbringing embracing the pancultural spiritualism of the beat poets and hippie wisdom. What makes his poetry feel so post-modern and contemporary even in our current era is his irreverent vulgarian flair for the flesh, its coarseness and its warmth, its refuge and its refuse. No matter what complex emotional state you find yourself in, there’s a Cohen line for it. To listen to these songs alone is to experience private recognition of your own unflattering but ultimately distinctly human passions. To hear them collectively, being sung live, might give one reason to blush.
Knights agrees that there is both something for everyone in this concert, and plenty to cover your baby’s ears about as well. As a fan of Leonard Cohen’s works in his adulthood, his fatherhood, and his identity, he is drawn in by the same songs that arrested many before him.
“So there's one song,” Knights recalls, “when we first mounted this in Toronto, I was going through a rough time. I’m a tap dancer. I'm very much grateful to the form itself and the woman that gave me my life in this form - that taught me all my lessons: Ethel Bruneau, who lived in Montreal for a long time. She passed away around the time that we were doing this show [in Toronto]. And so my world was rocked. And there's a line about acknowledging the cracks, because that's when… that’s where the light comes in. I feel sorry for the Toronto audiences. I would spontaneously cry on stage. But it wasn't just what I was going through. It was the power of Leonard Cohen's words, those lyrics, they just went directly to my soul.”
Travis Knights & the cast of The Secret Chord at the extended run at Soulpepper Theatre , photo by Dahlia Katz
“Having said that,” Knights continues with a smile, “on a lighter note, I'm also a romantic, and I got married in Jamaica in 2015. Our wedding song was ‘Dance me to the end of love’. And so getting to sing that song, getting to perform that song. I don't know, it's not really full circle for me, but it's just like a confirmation of a journey that I'm on. ‘Hey, you're doing the right thing. You're on the right track.’ I adore that song, especially being accompanied by the incredible Jacob Gorzhaltzan. It sends me into a tizzy every single time.”
A fusion of music, biography, dance and theatre is a perfect piece to give to a city whose English language performing arts sector is in dire straits. Knights sees its simplicity and honesty as the transcending bind that each of these mediums have in common, and says the audience feels the difference.
“These concerts are where documentary meets theater meets music. It's really not about the sequential order of happenings that happened in Leonard Cohen's life. It's more about giving ourselves and each other the opportunity to reflect on this artist, but mainly to reflect on our experience in this life. It really brings the audience into it. By the time we get to the end, if you're not thinking about your loved ones that you've lost or loved ones that you still have and want to hold even tighter, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, we will learn about Leonard Cohen. We will celebrate Leonard Cohen's work and perspective. But the whole point is to connect to you!”
The descriptor of “experience” gets thrown around on a lot of event posters these days. This evening at the Segal celebrating Cohen’s oeuvre gets to the very base line of what it means to experience music. On his podcast, The Tap Love Tour, Knights speaks fondly of the original musical director of The Secret Chord, Mike Ross. The Slaight Family Director of Music, Ross reflects on what a musical experience means to him;
“In this day and age, everybody’s so isolated, and I know that’s cliche to even say anymore, but it’s true! And what we do is we offer a thing where your phone is in your pocket and you are experiencing something with other people. I mean, that’s what church has always been, that’s what gatherings around a fire have always been. [...] And I feel like there’s going to come a time when we’re spiritually going to understand that that is an essential part of our human condition, and we need to look after that in the same way that we need to take vitamin C, the way that we need to drink enough water, eat your vegetables - we need to experience things communally.”
This reflection conjures images of what the sentimental and holy weeks of the winter solstice mean to everyone, of all ages and all faiths.
The Secret Chord: A Leonard Cohen Experience opens on December 8th, presented by the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, an accessible venue. It runs right into 2025, closing January 12th.
The Secret Chord
A Segal Centre Presentation of a Soulpepper Concert Production
December 8, 2024 - January 12, 2025
At The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts