From February 22nd to March 3rd, Denver-based contemporary ballet company Wonderbound will perform its world premiere. Awakening beautya modern twist on a classic sleeping beauty.
Unlike the original ballet, this story does not involve salvation by a prince. Instead, it focuses on her protagonist Talia’s difficult transition from her childhood to her adulthood, including the challenges she faces in realizing her own agency.
Choreographed by Artistic Director Garrett Ammon, the new production features music composed and performed live by Tom Hagerman, a member and frequent collaborator of the Grammy-nominated rock band Devotica. Mr. Hagerman will be on stage with local musicians.
Pointe We spoke to Ammon about the creation of this new work.
Could you talk about how to do that? Awakening beauty reconsider the traditional story of sleeping beauty?
It has been completely reconsidered. [Tom Hagerman] Incorporating some of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s themes sleeping beauty He incorporated them into the score, which is primarily his own music, and some of those themes come to the fore at various points, sometimes very subtly, sometimes very strongly.
I looked at the story from the perspective of wanting to explore this character. I went back and looked at all the material for the original fairy tale. The name of the main character comes from a fairy tale called Talia. Sun, Moon, Talia [by Giambattista Basile, 1634]It was like a forerunner. sleeping beauty Story. When we look back at these fairy tales, we often find them to be very disappointing, especially from modern eyes. But at the same time, I was interested in it and said, “Obviously, this is not a story about a young woman sleeping.” This is a story about a young woman discovering who she is. ”
That is the journey we are on. She gives this young woman her family and home life and then puts many situations and obstacles in her way. It ranges from infidelity within her family to her own interactions as she moves through her adolescence and into her young adulthood. And it puts her in a difficult situation where her choices may not be clear, either for herself or for those involved.
What was the choreography process like?
My process generally is to do a lot of front-end work to develop the situation or theme I want to explore, but I don’t create the movement until I’m in the studio with the dancers. Not only do they have a huge influence on the movements we ultimately create together, but they also discover a lot about the stories and characters within the studio. That can have a cascading effect on the entire story.
The musicians arrive a week before the opening and have multiple rehearsals with the dancers. The goal is to have a pretty good idea of how everything works together by the time everyone gets together in the room.
Can you explain the set design and costumes?
I developed the landscape design early in the process. What I ended up leaning towards was adopting simple architectural forms, like mid-century Bauhaus, to create positive and negative spaces. What interested me was that it looked like a child’s building blocks. I wanted to anchor it in the idea of Talia starting the story as a young girl and expressing the simplicity of life as we do when we are young and that we are not yet aware of all the complexities.
And those shapes have lots of opportunities to work with shadows and distortions. Incorporating lighting design can dramatically transform a space. An in-depth look at the bright, dark, and gray areas of psychology as we transition from childhood to adulthood.
My wife and the organization’s president, Dawn Fay, is working with Wonderbound costume designer Sloane Crazybear to create the costumes, which will be incredibly vibrant. Contrasting the ultra-minimalist aesthetic of the set are these pop outfits.
The story is set in an ambiguous place. This gave us a lot of flexibility as to when and where we were.