OLD DISNEY TALE WITH A TWIST
New version of Cinderella features a strong role model for young girls
Unlike most of the western world, Jennifer Gibson was not familiar with the Disney version of Cinderella.
In fact, it was the only Disney movie she didn’t own as a child. This turned out to be a good thing. After all, it’s much easier to thoroughly reimagine a character if you are starting with a blank slate.
As classic as the Cinderella tale is, it is also a fairy tale that could use a little tinkering to update it for the modern age. After all, telling a story about a downtrodden girl who is saved by a prince thanks to her good looks is not the most empowering of messages to send girls.
Gibson is one of three dancers performing the lead in Alberta Ballet’s new version of the classic, which will have its world premiere at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium from March 14 to 17 before moving to Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium from March 22 to 24. She felt the story had the potential to be more than “Cinderella gets pretty shoes and a rich husband.”
“Cinderella can be a really cliched character and it’s hard not to play it that way when you’re dancing,” she says. “With this new version, it’s not so much that it’s changing people’s perception of her, but she’s just got so much more strength. I think little girls these days need strong role models that can challenge the status quo and seek a better life for themselves.”
Gibson is a nine-year veteran of Alberta Ballet, having graduated from its school alongside her twin sister Alexandra, who plays a fairy godmother in Cinderella. Jennifer will alternate with Hayna Gutierrez and Luna Sasaki in the lead role, but she spent nearly a year helping develop the character with choreographer and Alberta Ballet associate artistic director Christopher Anderson.
“It was important to me as I created this character to really delve into the complexities of her,” Gibson says. “It’s not just her being always happy and having little birds make her dress and the fairy godmother side of things. She lost her mother and she’s got a lot of facets to her character and I think it’s important to bring as many to the stage as possible so people can relate to her. She’s not just a fairy tale.”
The ballet is set to Sergei Prokofiev’s lively score, but Anderson also went back to French author Charles Perrault’s 1697 version of the tale, which was far more humorous than the Disney version. So in Anderson’s take, the vain stepsisters are more comically self-obsessed than nasty.
Mostly, he wanted Cinderella to be the author of her own fate rather than a damsel in distress waiting for a handsome saviour. Yes, she goes to the ball and meets a handsome prince, but her character is fuelled by her own aspirations and strength rather than a need to be saved. One of the changes Anderson made — spoiler alert! — is to forgo the traditional happily-everafter wedding at the end.
“I tried to put her in a position where she is directing her course through the story,” Anderson says. “I tried to make it less about Cinderella is being rescued from a terrible situation and make it more about Cinderella has stuck to her optimism and her dreaming and is chasing down opportunities as they come her way. So, it’s putting the ownership of the story with her as opposed to it being the prince thinking she is beautiful so now she is saved.”
Still, the ballet will contain enough hallmarks to make it easily recognizable and accessible, particularly for newbies. Besides the comedy, it also has romance, and athletic dancing, tutus and tiaras, 12 young dancers from the School of Alberta Ballet and a much quicker pace than most classical ballets.
All of which makes it a good entry point for younger fans who may not be familiar with ballet and dance.
“Yes, there is incredibly challenging technical elements to this ballet, but there is also so much humour and visually it’s very engaging,” Gibson says. “For a younger audience, it’s a way to get enchanted by ballet as opposed to a Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty that is a little grander and can lose those young audiences. This one grasps them right from the beginning. You have jesters, you have stepsisters, you have all of these fantastic characters. It’s the characters that really makes this approachable (for) everyone.”
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