Beauty dances into the future (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Beauty dances into the future

6:00am Friday 9th February 2007 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Northern Ballet Theatre's new production brings a science fiction twist to the fairytale A Sleeping Beauty.

The fantastical ballet, set in a futuristic landscape, asks what life would be without beauty.

The birth of our heroine, Aurora, brings a fragile peace to neighbouring planets, and on her wedding day to Korak a treaty is fulfilled and the fate of two planets is sealed. But peace is quickly shattered when he carries out the ultimate deception. Adameta, the only man to truly love Aurora, must overcome formidable challenges in a quest to save Beauty.

A Sleeping Beauty Tale - Northern Ballet Theatre's latest production - is described as "a new tale for the 21st century."

Artistic director of the Leeds-based company, David Nixon, was inspired by his interest in environmental issues and says his approach to A Sleeping Beauty is how conflict might destroy the world as we know it. "We have created a whole new story, rather than a version of the traditional ballet and fairytale," he says. "Many adaptations of the story exist in literature, which inspired me to try something new and I hope our audiences will see this ballet as a great adventure. For me, creating and collaborating with such imaginative artists, it has been exactly that."

David is working with French designers Jerome Kaplan and Olivier Oudiou who have created futuristic sets, lighting, costumes and special effects for this new take on the classic.

"When we started working on the project six months ago David started to question the idea of the science fiction adaptation," says Jerome. "All choreographers can be a little bit cautious sometimes, but I encouraged David to keep his first idea because it's new, it's interesting.

"There are so many versions of Sleeping Beauty and it's interesting to play with the classical code, to try to refresh it, do something different and new. I think it's the best thing for young audiences to have something different because if classical ballet doesn't change, it will probably die.

"It is important to bring the audience to see A Sleeping Beauty Tale and to surprise them - that's what we are trying to do."

Jerome was given free rein with the design brief. "I started with some sketches for the synopsis from the classical Sleeping Beauty and drew up images to visualise how the set would look, with the change from blue to red planet," he says. "Historical documents of costumes are, for me, a source of creation. For A Sleeping Beauty Tale the costumes aren't from a particular period, although the style is a bit Oriental and antique. I like science fiction movies; like everybody I saw Star Wars, and Blade Runner is one of the best science fiction movies. Both these films influenced my designs.

"The costumes must look modern, be easy to dance in and comfortable for the dancer, and they must suggest the character very clearly."

Jerome says designing costumes for dancers means the fabric and style must allow for movement. "Some of my costumes are not so interesting when they're immobile, but they look fantastic through movement. In general, a costume without anybody in it can look dead or cheap, but when it's on somebody it's different, it becomes alive with the movement.

"You must try to plan that, so you take the fabric, and play with it, you dance around with it! Something like silk chiffon is good.

"The fabrics we use for this ballet are mixed colour fabric with different colours on each side. This gives a strange effect; it's not flat and the reflection is different which I think is interesting for the stage, especially for science fiction."

The set uses arches to give the ambience of space, and Jerome had to design it with flying sequences in mind. "I've tried to open the stage up as much as possible as the action takes place outside," says Jerome.

"Sometimes when you work on a set for ballet, you try to suggest things you don't see on stage, but that you can imagine. I tried to do that especially for this story - there is one planet, but you can imagine the other. David wanted a red spaceship, so we had to find a way to have a space ship without having a real one on stage.

"It was an idea of David's to have the Evolved Beings' flying on stage because they're everywhere. The characters don't see them but they move the story forward. They see all the action in the ballet and try to move it in a different way."

A Sleeping Beauty runs at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, from February 24 to March 3. For tickets ring (0113) 274 5355.