The Kaohsiung City Ballet (KCB, 高雄城市芭蕾舞團) has produced some of its most challenging works in recent years for the Kaohsiung Spring Art Festival since its inception five years ago.
Its ballets have been inspired by tales from both Taiwan and the West, including Peter and the Wolf (彼得與狼) in 2010 and the Third Prince — Rebels Na-Zha (三太子–哪吒) in 2012. And they’ve been designed to appeal to children as well as adults.
For this year’s festival, company founder Chang Hsiu-ru (張秀如) decided to restage Coppelia (柯碧莉亞), a 19th-century romantic ballet that is filled with humor and has a happy ending instead of the usual doomed love and tragedy of Giselle or Swan Lake.
Photo courtesy of Kaohsiung City Ballet
The ballet is based on an 1815 story by the German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann and was originally choreographed for the Paris Opera by Arthur Saint-Leon in 1870 to a score by French composer Leo Delibes.
In a nutshell, Coppelia tells the story of a mechanical doll built by Doctor Coppelius, which is so life-like that a young man falls in love with her, much to the dismay of his fiance. Jealousy makes the young couple behave badly toward each other and toward the doctor, with pranks and hidden identities, before everything is sorted out and the village can celebrate a wedding.
To restage the ballet Chang recruited freelance Romanian dancer, choreographer and video artist Constantin Georgescu, who spent several weeks rehearsing with the company.
Photo courtesy of Kaohsiung City Ballet
Having seen Dialogue (對話), a humorous work that Georgescu co-choreographed with Germany-based Taiwanese dancer Yuan Shang-jen (袁尚仁) last year in Taipei — which was a huge hit in the Collecting Button show produced by Meimage Dance (玫舞擊) — I am looking forward to seeing what he has done with such a classic European tale.
Photo courtesy of Kaohsiung City Ballet
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