Crossing the Stars

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. Have there been MORE retellings of any story other than Romeo and Juliet?

Baz Luhrmann gave us an updated version set in some sort of contemporary beachy milieu

Matthew Bourne gave us a R and J that was set in a mental institution

And of course there is the beloved West Side Story, which put the whole thing on the streets on New York. So the idea of re-interpreting classic pieces is not something new and it is not something that is being fueled by "woke"-ism. It is a natural response by artists who wish to present works in ways that will resonate with thier current audiences. Sometimes that means doing everything exactly as it was done hundreds of years ago, but sometimes that means getting rid of the tutus and putting a bunch of men in feathered pants.

In the world of San Diego Ballet... today was a day off, so time to reset for the upcoming weeks. Of course that doesn't mean a real day off. As our Giselle has a decidedly Mexican slant, I spent some time today doing some invites to local Latin organizations. 

Thank You Facebook

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. I WAS going to post all of the different iterations of Romeo and Juliet today, but I serendipitously saw this pop up on my Facebook feed.

The 20 year old Orson Wells made New York City theatrical history when he directed an all-black cast in a production of Shakespeare's Scottish play, MACBETH in 1936. Wells set his adaptation on a Caribbean island resembling Haiti. The show allowed black actors to be seen more seriously in the theatre world.

Meanwhile in Balletland... Taught class today. Finished getting the SDBS students into Act Two. Cleaned it up a bit. Worked on some details in Act One, beefing up the parts for some small girls and a new role I added for Alberto's squire. Looking forward to the day off tomorrow.

Nothing More American Than A Western

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. As the title states, the Western is them most American of movie genres... except when it isn't. Case in point...

The Magnificent Seven (1960) Gunslingers saving a tiny town from bandits. Steve McQueen AND Charles Bronson AND James Coburn. And years later, Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington. Too bad,  Akira Kurasawa made it 6 years earlier in Japan as...

The Seven Samurai. :)

Back in Balletland, we worked on Act Two today with some of the students who are taking part as part of the corps. In ballet companies, you will often see a slight blurring between the professional company dancers and students at the school. Sometimes, the students are 100 percent ready for the opportunity. Sometimes, the opportunity is going to stretch their abilities. The important thing is to make sure that an environment is created where both can succeed. And that usually means... lots of repetition and practice. :)

Wait A Second, I Thought She Was Spanish

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. Behold Carmen Jones.

Carmen is pretty much synonymous with fiery Spanish heroines, but not so fast. Once again, the book was written by Frenchmen and the composer (Bizet) is French. So all that Spanish music in the opera... isn't. To add insult to injury, it is even sung in the French language, even though it takes place in Spain. And to top it all off, Carmen herself is supposed to be a gypsy. That means, she isn't Spanish at all. She would be Hungarian. 

That said, in the 40's, Oscar Hammerstein decided that it would be cool to move the whole story to the contemporary American South creating the musical, Carmen Jones. A few years later it was filmed with the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge in the lead (and the equally beautiful Harry Belafonte supporting her). Ah well...

On the home front, Giselle is moving forward. More cleaning today. Spent some time adding a few more folkloric steps to Act One, integrating a couple of Act Two Fantasmas into the action and finessing some of Giselle's first act solo. It's all in the details.

I Woke Up Today

I came in to work today and started rehearsal. Giselle is coming along quite nicely. The dancers looked strong, were dancing well, and spirits were high. As I was working, my Executive Director came in to tell me that the promotion below that had just been sent out...

And as part of the description, it stated. "Velasco's evocative production shifts the locale from 19th Century Europe to the pueblos of Spanish Colonial California." And based on the picture above and the sentence stated, that the ballet company had received a handful of comments from extremely upset Facebook members who were accusing us of trying to push our "woke, liberal agenda." 

I shall leave a space for thought and reflection.

Done.

Where to begin? In the first place, SDB's production of Giselle dates back to 2019. It is not a response to anything in recent years. It was a direct response to me seeing some interesting parallels between the story and the Mexican folklore I had grown up with.

A second reasoning behind the placement of the piece in So Cal as opposed to Medieval Rhineland is because I wanted my audience to have as strong a connection to the storytelling of the piece as possible. Whether you are brown, white, black, or any color in the lovely spectrum of humanity, if you live in San Diego, you know Old Town and you know the whole faux Spanish colonial architecture of America's Finest City. It is part of your DNA. This version of Giselle was designed as a piece for my local San Diego audience.

What is so interesting (and saddening to me) to me is just the depth of anger that was directed at the piece in the comments. As if somehow, viewing the "Germanic" piece through a Mexican lens was somehow sullying not just classical ballet, but some sort of Aryan mythology. I have to wonder whether these folks realize that even though the ballet was originally set in Germany, the story was written by 2 Frenchmen. The score was written by a Frenchman. The choreography was created by a Frenchman. And it was originally danced by an Italian ballerina. There is NOTHING authentically German about it. Giselle isn't even a German name. :)

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures, over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works starting with.

Dance Theatre of Harlem's CREOLE GISELLE. Premiered in 1984, CREOLE GISELLE moved the action of the piece to the antebellum South. The piece gave Black classical dancers a chance to shine in the mostly traditional staging and gave me "permission" to look at the piece through my own lens. 40 YEARS AGO. Before woke was even a word. :)

Day of the Fool

April 1 is April Fool's Day. Rather than try to come up with a clever trick to play on my friends, for the past few years, I have used the day to thank those "fools" (visual artists, cartoonists) whose work has delighted me during the year.  Support indy artists. Support local artists. The next time you walk through a street fair... buy a bowl, sketch, candle, or necklace and strike up a conversation. After all, "the fool on the hill sees the sun going down and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round." Art by Joe Phillips. http://www.joephillips.com/

Things Change

As we are getting ready for the event on Sunday, we are spacing things out and adjusting the way we present the dances. At the Thursday Club, we will have the viewers arranged around the dancers in a horseshoe pattern. These dances were all originally staged to be presented in a proscenium style. So we have to change some facings and angles so that we don't just keep our backs to half of the audience the whole time. What has been funny about this process is that I actually like the facing changes in the 3 adjusted pieces from Carnival of the Animals, so much that I'll probably keep them even when we go back to presenting it on a proscenium stage.