Ballet Kelowna rehashing adaptation of Macbeth
Ballet Kelowna closes its 2023/24 Season of Drama with the highly anticipated return of Macbeth, the Company’s first commissioned, full-length ballet, at the Kelowna Community Theatre on May 3 and 4, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Premiered in May 2022, this visceral production is choreographed by Canadian rising star Alysa Pires, and features an original score by award-winning composer Adam Sakiyama along with atmospheric multimedia visuals from Okanagan landscape artist Jane Everett. Guest artist Jake Poloz will make his debut as Macbeth while senior artist Desiree Bortolussi is set to reprise her role as Lady Macbeth.
“We are thrilled to close Ballet Kelowna’s Season of Drama with the return of Alysa Pires’ Macbeth, which not only represents the most ambitious project in Ballet Kelowna’s 21-year history, but also one of the most enthusiastically praised works in our repertoire,” Orlando, Artistic Director
Ballet Kelowna.
“As one of the first ballet companies to embrace Alysa’s incomparable talent through the commissioning of MAMBO in 2018, we are incredibly proud to see Alysa’s choreographic career continue to skyrocket – most recently as the first Canadian woman to create a work for New York City Ballet, in 2023. What a gift for Kelowna audiences to have Alysa join us for the remount of Macbeth this spring, back by popular demand.”
With its themes of ambition, power and corruption, Macbeth’s renowned tragedy has remained relevant throughout time. Considered one of Shakespeare’s bestloved plays, Macbeth follows the story of the titular character, a brave soldier and powerful man whose heady ambitions to Scotland’s throne turn him into a callous, yet tortured, murderer, spurred on by his equally determined wife, Lady Macbeth. As Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become says Simone and CEO of hopelessly entangled by their atrocities, the pair descend into madness.
Praised for her “clarity and consistency in aesthetic” (The Globe and Mail), Pires brings her signature athleticism and theatricality to this contemporary retelling of Macbeth, exploring the dark side of human nature. Featuring Ballet Kelowna’s full Company of dancers, the demanding two-act ballet will showcase Ballet Kelowna’s full breadth of technical and artistic prowess, featuring complex pointe work, unconventional groupings, and cinematic staging, bringing the multilayered Shakespearean work to life through deeply expressive movement.
Pires’ works have been presented by Ballet Kelowna numerous times, including MAMBO and In Between in 2018, Spring in 2019, and Macbeth in 2022.
A sought-after contemporary choreographer and Artistic Director of Alysa Pires Dance Projects, Pires’ works have been performed by companies such as New York City Ballet, The National Ballet
of Canada, Alberta Ballet and Ballet Edmonton.
A thrilling mix of dance, music, and spectacle, Macbeth features a haunting, original score by award-winning composer Adam Sakiyama, whose recent composition credits include Divorce Lunch (Musical Stage Company) and Quench (Axon Interactive). Macbeth’s aesthetics will be further enhanced through ethereal digital backdrops created by Okanagan-based landscape artist Jane Everett, whose solo exhibitions include Understory at the Kelowna Art Gallery and Birch at Bugera Matheson Gallery in Edmonton.
PHOTO BY EMILY COOPER
KELOWNA — Seventy-nine years after he was executed by the Nazis, Wilhelmus Cornelis Meere was finally honoured Thursday for his leadership in the Dutch Resistance.
A medals presentation at the Ramada Hotel in Kelowna marked the end of a 22-year mission by his 84-year-old son, Wilhelmus Cornelis (Pim) Meere Jr. of Kelowna.
The ceremony was all the more meaningful and personal since the two prestigious war medals were presented by Dutch Air Force Lt.-Col. Mark de Wit, who also lost family members serving in the Dutch Resistance during the Second World War.
“When my mom (Lena) passed in 2002, I was unable to find any new information in regard to my father’s service during the war and when the Dutch government moved my dad’s remains to the Dutch Honor Fields in Loenen where he is presently buried,” explained Meere Jr.
“So I started to dig a little deeper and did not really find any additional information until I finally found a volunteer-run organization (focused on military honours never awarded) which allowed me to contact the right people and ask if my father was ever honored for his services during the war.”
The result of his inquiries was the presentation of the Mobilization War Cross established by royal decree on Aug. 11, 1948 by former Queen Wilhelmina to honour those who performed military tasks and the Domestic Armed Forces Remembrance Badge 1944-45 by Prinz Bernard, commander of the Dutch armed forces at that time.
“The Mobilization War Cross was originally made for soldiers but because of his remarkable bravery and the specific duties that he performed, and the fact that he acted as a commander with the Resistance, made him exceptional and eligible for this medal,” said de Wit, who is currently the defence attache at the Netherlands embassy in Ottawa and a Lockheed C-130 Hercules military transport pilot.
“In May 1940, their house near Schiphol Airport was bombed, destroying the family home and they had to flee with two little children,” said de Wit, noting the couple subsequently added a third child.
“The name, Wilhelmus, a very Dutch name, is also the name of our national anthem. The meaning of the name is ‘Resolute defender’. Looking at the history of Mr. Meere, a very suitable one.”
Meere Sr., a radio telegraphy technician who worked pre-war for the government airline KLM, was soon teaching other Resistance fighters how to operate telegraph keys to send messages to Allied forces and he became a commander in the Committee for Resistance. Lena acted as a courier delivering new telegraph codes and key communication to Resistance fighters.
The new family home with their in-laws had radio equipment hidden between double walls which also served as a hiding space for four members of a Jewish family for two years. A friend with a butcher shop had electrical power so radio equipment was hidden in a secret compartment in its cold room.
On Feb. 7, 1945, the Nazi used a special signal locator to pinpoint the secret radio base. Four radio operators, including Meere Sr., were arrested and sent to the Scheveningen prison - the ‘Oranje Hotel’ where a Dutch collaborator had the fatal greeting: “Welcome to hell. You will never leave here alive.” Meere, then 34, and the other three men were executed on March 8, 1945, two months before Canadians liberated the country.
The importance of posthumously awarding the two medals, “even after so many years, is that we want to ensure his heroic efforts are recognized, remembered and honoured,” said de Wit. “By doing so today, he is and will be an inspiration for future generations through his powerful and exceptional example of courage, commitment and loyalty.”
The Dutch Resistance played a pivotal role trying to make it as hard as they could for the invaders, he added. “I’m not totally impartial because my own family was in the Resistance. My grandmother survived; her brother didn’t. They were both sent to Germany to work in the labour camps. She was actually liberated by the Russians and she had to walk back from Germany to the Netherlands.”
It is “impressive” for him to meet the families of those who didn’t survive as well as war veterans, some of them 17 years of age who lied about their age to enlist. He could share those stories with more than 300 young students at a recent ceremony held at the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa.
“It’s been a long time coming but they ‘done right’ by giving him the medals. That’s what all I was after: recognition for my father, for the work that he did, the right thing at the right time,” said Meere Jr.
Although he is grateful his father was finally honoured, “another question would be: how many other people didn’t get awards?” asked Meere Jr. who has accepted another mission. “I’m going to check that out. I’m going to see about the people that my father associated with and also got executed. What did they get? I’m going to see if I can locate those people or family and maybe guide them through the procedure.”
After such a traumatic war, many heroes like his father fell through the cracks, he said. “It’s tough when you come through the war; you want to forget the bad things and look to the future. They didn’t think back as much as they should have.”
The ceremony included 30 family members, close friends and senior officials from the BC Dragoons. Meere Jr. has two children, three grandchildren and three great grandchildren who can learn more about their war hero, thanks to Meere Jr. and a commemorative album put together by his daughter. Unfortunately, his brother, Rob, died three months ago, and his other brother and brother-in-law couldn’t attend.