{"id":16570,"date":"2018-10-23T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16570"},"modified":"2018-10-26T22:05:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T05:05:54","slug":"frankenstein-meets-giselle-in-new-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/10\/23\/frankenstein-meets-giselle-in-new-ballet\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankenstein<\/em> meets Giselle<\/em> in new ballet"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Ballet Victoria (BV) artistic and executive director Paul Destrooper, opening BV\u2019s season with an original interpretation of Frankenstein <\/i>was a no-brainer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley\u2019s novel,\u201d Destrooper explains. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s kind of fun that, also, she was the first female writer to start a whole genre with essentially a bet she had going with another writer of creating some fantastic, scary novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novel tells the story of a scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, who builds a creature during an unorthodox science experiment. Destrooper feels this story is still relevant because it features so many archetypes of humankind.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppearance, provenance, and then, of course, back then there was the beginning of medicine and electricity, and all these things. It had that kind of surreal, science fiction kind of thing, and it\u2019s still true today,\u201d says Destrooper. \u201cAnd it has a lot of the themes also that begin with companionship, love, and kinship, and the lack of it in life\u2014in this case it\u2019s essentially self-destructive for both men.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision of what types of stories are good to adapt to ballet is one that boils down to the essence of the piece, according to Destrooper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout words, you kind of leave a bit more freedom of interpretation to the audience,\u201d says Destrooper. \u201cIt\u2019s a little more like poetry\u2014suggestions, ideas, and images\u2014and then people extrapolate their own interpretations from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there is something extra intriguing about the idea of a ballet centering around Frankenstein\u2019s creature, who conjures up the mental image of a bumbling, clumsy monster\u2014an image that seems counter-intuitive to ballet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ballet Victoria\u2019s Frankenstein offers a new twist on the old tale (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to have somebody that learns to walk, and move, and to control his body, into someone who can control his body, and move and dance,\u201d says Destrooper. \u201cI think that\u2019s the fun part of mixing some contemporary dance, and even kind of hip-hop… It\u2019s very jagged, very angular, contracted. You know, it\u2019s almost, like, spastic. And then it breaks as he learns to control his movement; just as he grows and starts to learn more about life and connection with others, and realizes his existence is learning, his physicality becomes more appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the movement in Destrooper\u2019s Frankenstein <\/i>may be unconventional, he includes a specific addition to his interpretation of Shelley\u2019s story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI do mix another very great classic in this program, which is Giselle<\/i>, which is very traditional and ethereal,\u201d says Destrooper.<\/p>\n

Giselle<\/i> is a classic ballet about a woman who falls for a scoundrel and subsequently dies of heartbreak when she learns he\u2019s engaged to another woman. Destrooper weaves the two stories together by having Frankenstein harvest Giselle\u2019s heart when he\u2019s in the cemetery collecting parts for the creature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, we\u2019re playing more with the power of the women and their strength,\u201d says Destrooper. \u201cAnd then I give a love interest to both the creature and to Giselle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blending of multiple genres and stories is not something new for Destrooper, who loves combining his passions\u2014sports, poetry, movies, horseback riding\u2014to create something new, which provides some unexpected moments on stage\u2014including a quick little homage to Star Wars<\/i> in the second act\u2014proving it\u2019s not all tutus and classical music in the world of ballet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come to the work which has beautiful tradition and beautiful technique, and it\u2019s executed that way,\u201d says Destrooper, \u201cbut we do bring a little humour and life into productions.\u201d<\/p>\n

GIVEAWAY!<\/b><\/p>\n

The first person to email editor@nexusnewspaper.com with the name of their favourite scary novel or movie wins two free tickets to Ballet Victoria\u2019s Frankenstein<\/i>!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Frankenstein
\n<\/i>Various times, Friday, October 26 to Sunday, October 28
\nVarious prices,\u00a0McPherson Playhouse
\nrmts.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Ballet Victoria (BV) artistic and executive director Paul Destrooper, opening BV\u2019s season with an original interpretation of Frankenstein was a no-brainer.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley\u2019s novel,\u201d Destrooper explains. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s kind of fun that, also, she was the first female writer to start a whole genre with essentially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-24-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16570"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16631,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16570\/revisions\/16631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}