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Alice goes balletic

By Ian Bartholomew
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Jan 17, 2003, Page 17

With its colorful costumes and intricately designed masks, Alice in Wonderland as produced by the State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara is a very different kind of ballet performance. PHOTO COURTESY OF DADA ARTS

Pretty much everybody knows about Alice in Wonderland, but the fact that it has been turned into a ballet with sumptuous costumes may come as something of a surprise. Just more children's theater you might say, but according to Rodney Gustafson, the artistic director of the State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara, the production of Alice in Wonderland that will play at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall tomorrow, this is simply classical ballet brought into the modern age, and while it might appeal to children, it is not specifically directed at them.

A quick look at the State Street Ballet's track record counterbalances the first impression given by the title of the show being brought to Taipei. Gustafson himself is a veteran of the American Ballet Theater, performing during its heyday under Mikhail Baryshnikov and most of the dancers with the ballet are classically trained. The repertoire ranges from established ballet classics such as Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, adaptations of theater classics by Shakespeare, and in the case of Alice in Wonderland, an adaptation from a children's classic.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DADA ARTS

So, this is this proper ballet? Yes, but without the tutus and with a Broadway vitality that is drawing crowds who might normally keep away from yet another Swan Lake by yet another former Soviet-satellite state ballet. "What we do has a classical base," said lead dancer Jennifer Batbouta, "but there is also a jazz quality."

For State Street, interminably long ballet productions with dancers showing off their technique is not the stuff of modern theater. "People simply do not have the patience anymore," Gustafson said. "We want to speed things up, show things in shorter spans. After all, art must reflect the times. It is a statement of who we are." So in the age of MTV, ballet takes on a new look.

Alice in Wonderland picks elements out of Lewis Carroll's two books Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, creating a simple narrative of a young girl growing up and maturing within the confines of a weird and wonderful world. Many of the characters are tailor-made for the stage, and this has allowed for something of a departure in State Street's performance in that Alice uses elaborate makeup and costumes for the characters.

"Parts of the show, like the pack of cards, are more like a Broadway chorus line," Gustafson said, but the music is that of Sibelius. It is not all strictly classical; modern music has made its appearance in their shows before. While Gustafson emphasized the need to bring ballet into the modern age, he said there was a fine line between this and selling out.

"There is a fine line between creating art and simply entertaining," he said in reference to the many children's acts, of greater or lesser quality, that now proliferate. While it is all right to introduce elements that may attract a broader audience -- the opera Aida comes to mind, with the opportunity for live animals, naked dancers, and other such kickshaws to put bottoms on seats -- art must be at the core. It is the beauty of ballet that State Street is here to present -- just simply in a more modern guise.

In addition to Taipei, the group will be performing in Hsinchu, Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung. For more information about the troupe, visit their Web site at http://www.statestreetballet.com/.

What: Alice in Wonderland
Who: State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara
Where: Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei
When: Today and Tomorrow, 7:30pm
Tickets: NT$300 to NT$800, available through ERA ticketing
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