As you guys probably know, this year we’ve been creating a podcast that surrounds a topic of our choice, I decided to go with dance. As you can expect it requires a lot of research and that was no different for our most recent episode.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4K419NI7QlHxoo96kyDz3i?si=lARanFpTQKSxcDRJxrcH-A
This episode surrounded the idea of adaptions and how ballets adapt classic stories into to the ballet format. Naturally, I did a good amount of research on different ballets and what techniques they used to tell these stories with the limitations that come with ballets. Sadly I wasn’t able to fit all of my thoughts into the episode so instead I’ll be using this blog post to tell you about the truly amazing ballet that in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
To start off, yes, there is a ballet based off of Alice in Wonderland and although it is a fairly new ballet, only premiering in 2011, it is one of the best adaptations of a story into ballet that is out there. The main thing that stood out to me when I watched the ballet is how well the choreography is used to not only tell the story but to also express the characters themselves. Each character has their own style of dance or movement that shows off their personalities and clues the audience into their role in the story.
Take for example the Mad Hatter. In the story, even in this wacky world he is still a very out of place character and that is accentuated by the fact that he play percussion by tapping in this ballet. His eccentric movements are even further emphasized by the fact that Alice, being for the ‘normal’ world, dances in a very elegant and professional style that is reminiscent of most other ballets like Giselle or Sleeping Beauty.
Another great example is the Queen of Hearts main dance, the Tart Adage. As anyone who has either watched or read Alice in Wonderland knows, Wonderland is basically a twisted version of the normal world and that idea is really shown off in this variation due to the fact that it is pretty much a twisted version of the Rose Adage from Sleeping Beauty. The Rose Adage is set during the first act of Sleeping Beauty at Aurora’s 16th birthday party with her doing dancing with four suitors that each give her a rose and is infamous for the balance that she has to hold while each suitor takes her hand one by one. In the tart adage, the choreography follows the basic progression of the variation with one key difference, it keeps getting messed up. Unlike the one in Sleeping Beauty, the suitors are forced to dance with the queen due to the fact that refusing would mean certain death, leading to some great moments in the dance further achieved by the queen’s terrible dancing skills. Overall the variation helps with both our perception of the Queen of Hearts and how twisted this world really is.
However, as with all ballets the music plays a big part as well in the storytelling. At the beginning of the ballet it starts with the introduction of all these different characters at a garden party that Alice’s family is holding with each guest getting their own moment with a very classical version of their character’s ‘theme’ music. These themes are then brought back during each of their solos when they are represented in Wonderland by an extreme version of who they are in Alice’s mind with the music itself becoming a lot more personalized to the character. Finally they are brought back once more in the court scene where each of them tell their story to the Queen with a shortened version of their music playing and gradually they all overlap as the different characters come on at once as if they were all talking at once. This continuous use of music that evolves each time after it’s use really helps with the story progression and keeping the story feeling like one long narrative.
In conclusion, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is not only an extremely engaging and beautiful ballet it also has done an amazing job at adapting this story and making it it’s own. I highly recommend watching it when you have the time.