However, instead of going into the details of what its like to be a ballet dancer or how cute the audience of little 3rd and 4th graders was, as you might have expected from this post, I would like to make an important note about the artistic process.
You see, while rehearsing for the role of Little Red I got to look closely into the mind of the original choreographer of the ballet, Victor Trevino. Victor is an ingenious man who has choreographed countless ballets for my company throughout the years and is extremely dedicated to the art of dance. I have rehearsed and performed the role of Little Red in the past, but only through learning it off of videos of prior performances and hearing feedback from teachers not linked to the creation of the ballet. This was the first time I had the chance to rehearse the ballet with Victor himself, its creator, and through this experience I realized a whole new undertone to the story that had somehow disappeared over the years in his absence: comedy.
Comedy, as you may assume, is not common in ballet. Often, dancers become too focused on the steps or too caught up in the pretentiousness of what it means to be a “ballerina” that they disregard the true intention behind the choreography and why certain movements were placed in certain moments of the piece. As a young dancer simply learning the role off of a DVD, the meaning behind the steps of this ballet was not clear. I didn’t know why it took 5 pique turns and 8 counts of bourrés just to make it from one side of the forest to the other. But then Victor came along and transformed our perception of the ballet that my fellow dancers and I had reduced down to a monotonous string of meaningless turns and leaps. He truly brought it back to life!
After seeing our first run-through, it was blatant to Victor that none of us were aware of the intention of our movements. He explained to us that this ballet was created for children, and he pointed out all of the moments that were originally created to serve as points of humor and comic relief. He told us to exaggerate our movements, to capitalize on what seemed odd about the plot or the manner in which we were dancing. For instance, there is a point in the ballet where Little Red produces a flashlight from her basket and shines it at the audience, emulating the fact that she had lost her way in the dark woods. As I first began rehearsing the role, I simply took the flashlight out of the basket as if it was completely normal for a character in the 15th century to know what a flashlight was, let alone how to use one. Victor revealed that comedic factor here to me and showed me how to manifest that comedy within my movement.
Over the course of our rehearsals, Victor identified several more key points of comedy and showed us as dancers how to reveal them to the audience. While the room of dancers once used to sit up against the wall and doze off while the others were rehearsing their individual parts, now all were actively engaged, laughing at the ridiculousness of the movement and the comedic irony of the plot that was somehow missing before. I almost felt embarrassed for my company, how we had shallowed Victor’s intricately layered, well-though-out choreography into some mesh of steps and blank faces; how we had wasted this opportunity to perform a comedic piece, which is so rare in the ballet world. This is why I urge all of the young dancers out there to truly understand your choreography, recognize that there are layers to your movement, and don’t ever get too caught up in executing the steps. After all, 90% of the audience members end up focusing on nothing but your facial expressions in the first place! So please, especially if you have the chance to work with the original choreographer of the ballet that you are rehearsing, search for the integrity of the steps and consider your acting abilities just as important as your dancing abilities - it will certainly provide a way to stand out from the crowd.
Shaina Arsenault
