DANCING ALICE
Alberta Ballet returns to Wonderland
Hot on the heels of taking their glittery pop ballet Love Lies Bleeding to Winnipeg, Alberta Ballet returns a more seasoned troupe, ready to mount a family favourite, Alice in Wonderland.
Having not appeared on a Winnipeg stage since 2004, the western company proved to be an audience draw, earning standing ovations and rave reviews slotted within the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s season offerings. But life on the road with Love Lies Bleeding had some tumble-down-the-rabbit-hole moments. Two male dancers got hurt on the same day.
“It was terrible, I tell you,” says artistic director Jean Grand-Maitre. “Kelley McKinlay saved the day by dancing three extra parts he’d never rehearsed, but knew them all because we’ve been doing the ballet for so long. Other dancers had to step into other roles with 10 minutes of rehearsal. There is nothing better to help dancers mature and gain experience than to tour.”
With the tour galvanizing the group, Grand-Maitre hopes for more dance treks east across the Prairies in the near future.
“Our k.d. lang could do well there and so could Sarah,” he says referring to the company’s Balletlujah and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy as two more pop ballets in the repertoire with big box office touring potential.
Back in Alberta, it has been seven years since Edmund Stripe’s Alice in Wonderland smashed box office records to become one of Alberta Ballet’s most acclaimed productions. More than 11,000 people in Calgary and Edmonton attended six performances of Alice when it was last seen here in 2009. The company’s roster has almost completely turned over since then.
Only veterans McKinlay, Nicole Caron and Mariko Kondo remain.
Kondo has evolved significantly since her 2009 Alice in Wonderland casting as a Butterfly Queen. She’s adding Alice to her long list of starring roles, alternating with Luna Sasaki.
In 2006, when Grand-Maitre commissioned Edmund Stripe to create an Alice in Wonderful for Alberta Ballet, he says it felt like a great fit, first and foremost because the choreographer was an Englishman.
“He understood Lewis Carroll’s humour and how British culture permeates throughout this literary masterpiece. He understood the necessary pantomimes and characters.”
Grand-Maitre also put great stock in how Stripe, a father and creator of Alberta Ballet’s highly successful and lavish Nutcracker, had a special knack for what children are most responsive to and what theatrical conventions and metaphors worked best for familyfriendly ballet.
“Stripe’s Alice in Wonderland was never pretentious or grandiose. It was always about capturing the essence of a fairy tale story and its vivid, larger-than-life characters,” says Grand-Maitre. Stripe’s libretto loosely strings together threads from Alice in Wonderland with Through the Looking Glass into a series of entertaining dance episodes.
Grand-Maitre singles out Stripe’s inventive and surprising musical selections, from Ravel to Debussy, from Walton to Shostakovich, for working wonders to set a backdrop and propel the stories onward.
“There is no score for Alice in Wonderland. That’s the genius of making it into a ballet; it is all open for interpretation and many possibilities.”
When the Royal Winnipeg brought its Wonderland to Alberta in 2011, it was an adult vision of Alice in Wonderland. The Alberta Ballet’s version is less Lady Gaga and more Lewis Carroll.
“It isn’t a Freudian interpretation,” laughs Grand-Maitre. “It is more of a direct, narrative take on Alice in Wonderland. There is something about fairy tales; they say they make children smarter. “It goes something like, ‘If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want your children to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.’ There is a lot of wisdom in that. Sometimes you’ve got to trust the original writer’s vision.”
The parade of strange, colourful characters, from giant caterpillars, to the Cheshire Cat, to Tweedledee and Tweedledum, are costumed by designer Nadine Bayliss, “one of the most famous costume designers in North America.”
Alongside the comedic tea pouring, Alice in Wonderland serves up plenty of technical panache, too.
“The White Rabbit role is one of the toughest roles you’ll see. He spends more time in the air than on the ground. For any dancer, it is a real test in stamina.”
Alan Ma, a superb technical dancer from China in his first year with Alberta Ballet, takes on the challenge of the White Rabbit, alternating for Yoshiya Sakurai.