LIGHT and DARK
Ballet Arkansas’ ‘Swan Lake’ marks the company’s 45th anniversary
Among the gifts from “my true love” listed in the popular Christmas song: “seven swans a-swimming.” Ballet Arkansas ups the count to 10 swans a-dancing this weekend at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall in its full-scale production of Peter Tchaikovsky’s true-love ballet “Swan Lake.”
The 16-member Little Rock-based professional company and a community cast of about 100 (mostly children) takes the stage twice on Saturday and again on Sunday.
Ballet Arkansas is sandwiching the production between its annual performance of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” in December and a March 9 gala fundraiser.
The performances also mark 45 years, more or less, since Lorraine Cranford created Ballet Arkansas in 1978 from what her husband, Donald Cater Cranford, had founded as the Little Rock Civic Ballet in 1966.
Michael Fothergill, Ballet Arkansas’ current executive and artistic director, acknowledges that is putting a lot on the company’s plate.
“And it’s four acts — that’s a lot to manage,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a better way to mark [our] 45th anniversary. This production marks the beginning of a new chapter for Ballet Arkansas.”
Between the mid-December “Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake,” the dancers got “a little break to recondition,” says company member Alden Vendt. “We knew what was coming.”
Fothergill is sticking to the original Marius Petipa choreography — making this the only production in the region to feature it, according to the company — while making some adaptations for the
community cast, in the firstact waltz and third-act divertissements and folk dances. Acts II and IV will feature only company members.
Ballet Arkansas thus completes the troika of titanic Tchaikovsky ballets. “The Nutcracker,” an annual production at Robinson, regularly sells out all 2,200 seats for every show. The company and a community cast offered a full staging of “Sleeping Beauty” in February 2023 in the smaller venue of the Center for the Humanities and Arts theater at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock.
“Swan Lake” is probably the most dramatic of the three. Beautiful young Princess Odette has been transformed by evil semi-avian enchanter Von Rothbart into a white swan. She is only able by night to resume her human shape, in which she captivates Prince Siegfried. Only if a man promises his eternal love and remains faithful to it can she break Von Rothbart’s spell; he so vows and together they dance the moonlit second-act pas de deux to seal the deal.
Alas, at a third-act ball at which Siegfried is to choose his royal bride, Von Rothbart disguises his daughter, Odile, as Odette, fooling the prince, in the aftermath of the Black Swan pas de deux, into making a formal oath that will confine Odette to eternal swan servitude. Instead, she chooses death, diving into the lake; Siegfried follows. The spell broken, together their spirits soar in freedom.
TWO CASTS
The company divides into two casts over the three public performances. In the Green cast, performing for both matinees, Meredith Loy dances the dual roles of Odette (white) and Odile (black) with Vendt as Prince Siegfried. The Blue cast, onstage Saturday evening, features Lauren Yordanich as both principal swans and David Cummings as the prince.
“This is one of the iconic ballets I have always wanted to do,” says Loy, who also danced the principal role of Aurora in performances of “Sleeping Beauty” this time last year.
And for Vendt, “this is the most time onstage that I’ve ever had. And it’s the deepest I’ve ever had to dive into a character.”
Fothergill stresses that “Swan Lake” tests not only the dancers’ ballet techniques — it strengthens not only the corps but their cores, he quips — but their acting skills, in part because of the ballet’s emotional intensity.
“It requires a certain level of commitment,” he explains. “One of my mentors once told me that for this ballet, ‘if you don’t commit, it’ll break you; if you commit, it’ll make you.’”
The dancers, who must tell the story entirely in pantomime, without speech, must make personal dramatic choices.
“‘Swan Lake’ takes a certain level of maturity,” Loy explains. “The ballets we’ve done before helped lead up to this moment, not only physically but emotionally. I’m trying to make it my own, to bring my personal life experiences.
“Odette and Odile are completely different characters, and I’m having to shift back and forth. It’s not just the steps. And I’m dancing both [characters] with the same partner — the Act II pas is gentle, the Act III is fiery, but still with the same partner. It’s fun to switch it up.”
“It’s been very challenging,” Vendt says. “I have to draw from my own experience, and must pull away from my cheerful and friendly instincts. Siegfried is more somber, more thoughtful. I’m exploring different sides of the character and myself.
“And I do enjoy dying on stage. Since covid, I’ve died once every season. I hope to keep that going.”
LIGHT, DARK, GOOD, EVIL
The contrast between white and black, between light and dark, symbolizes the duality of good and evil, purity and deceit, and is crucial to the ballet, Fothergill says.
“Duality is important,” he explains. “You cannot have light without darkness.”
That duality is not just within the characters but in the way they are presented, he adds. The lighting design for Odette’s is typically soft and ethereal, “bathing the stage in a gentle glow, emphasizing the purity and innocence of the character,” Fothergill notes. “As Odette dances, her movements are graceful and fluid, evoking a sense of tranquility and elegance. The contrast of light against her white tutu creates a visually stunning effect, highlighting the vulnerability and purity of the White Swan.
“In stark contrast … Act III introduces Odile, the Black Swan. The lighting dramatically shifts to reflect the darker, more deceitful nature of the character. The stage is often bathed in shadows and the use of harsh, contrasting lights accentuates [her] mysterious and alluring quality …. The Black Swan’s movements are sharper, stronger, more seductive, and filled with a sense of calculated cunning.”
Also crucial to the ballet is its corps of swans. For many ballets, the big corps numbers are not integral to the story; in this one, they are. “Take those swans away and it makes no sense,” Fothergill says.
“It’s hard to be a swan — their time on stage goes from big energy, a lot of jumping, to standing for 20 minutes. It’s like running a 5K.”
The company will dance from a recording, the same one by a London orchestra to which Fothergill and his wife, Catherine, now Ballet Arkansas’ associate artistic director, danced with the Alabama Ballet before they retired as dancers.
“I’m a huge fan of Tchaikovsky,” Michael Fothergill says. “The last 30 seconds is some of the most potent music you’ll ever hear. The sun is coming up, the curse is broken — you can feel the sunrise in the music.”
The company already had some of the costumes — swan tutus made for a 2019 performance of the ballet’s second act (as part of a larger program). Others, and the sets, have been built and/or rented. (Fothergill says the war in Ukraine stranded a Russian-based company that has been outfitting U.S. ballet tours that is now having to sell off much of its stock, “so the things we needed were available” — and, apparently, at a fairly reasonable cost.)
LONG TIME COMING
It has been difficult to determine when — or if — Little Rock saw the last full production of “Swan Lake.” Fothergill says it has been at least 20 years since Ballet Arkansas presented it at what was then the Robinson Center Music Hall. There have been performances of the second act several times over the years, including May 2019 and as part of a “Tchaikovsky Classics” program in May 1995. The company staged another portion of the ballet in March 2012.
Ballet Arkansas has been using various area venues, most often in recent years performing at Pulaski Tech’s CHARTS theater. Returning to Robinson is in some way comforting for the dancers; Vendt says they know going in “‘how hard the floor is, the dimensions of the stage, know how much room you have, where to go to warm up.”
The company is also returning later this season to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, formerly the Arkansas Arts Center, where founder Lorraine Cranford established it.
Fothergill says this is the beginning of a return to Robinson for more performances other than “Nutcracker”; he’s keeping details close to his chest, but expects to put on a full-length ballet there next season. Possibilities include Ludwig Minkus’ “Don Quixote,” Adolphe Adam’s “Giselle” and Sergei Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
Meanwhile, also next season, he’s looking to expand the company from its current lineup of 10 women and six men to possibly as large as 20.
“We’ve had 862 audition since October, and invited 129 to take company dance class in April, and we still have two open auditions to go, in Little Rock and Chicago,” he says. “We’ve had quite a slew auditioning from other countries.”
Fothergill says that’s in part the result of Ballet Arkansas’ status as one of the United States’ top 100 ballet companies (as rated by the the Dance Data Project) and the recognition it has been receiving through exposure and media from other countries.
That includes its participation in Covent Garden’s 10th anniversary Celebration of World Ballet Day in 2023, in company with the Royal Ballet (in London), the Australian Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, National Ballet of China, the Stuttgart Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada.