By Emma Ford
A common Notion about ballet is that it is the art of strong leading men lifting small girls in white into the air. But beyond “The Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake,” ballet as an art form has the potential to modernize its unique visual language into a storytelling medium like no other. Instead of simply retelling classic stories in familiar steps, ballet can also express these timeless tales in new and exciting ways.
Oregon Ballet Theatre’s “Hansel and Gretel” retells the familiar fairytale from the Brothers Grimm about two children who run away from home only to meet a witch in a candy-covered gingerbread house in the woods. As the witch reveals her monstrous nature, the quick thinking of Gretel saves her and her brother Hansel from a terrible fate.
The comfort of a fairy tale is similar to the comfort of a ballet — as children, we are exposed to these art forms with their simple plots and characters, bright and beautiful worlds and triumphs of good over evil. Other Grimm tales like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White (adapted as the ballet “The Magic Mirror”) have received stereotypical ballet treatment of Romantic-era tutus, filling stages with dancers who look like a Degas painting come alive.
However, this fairytale folly is made, at least on the surface, of different stuff. “Hansel and Gretel” is a modern ballet, composed by Claire Cowan and choreographed by Loughlan Prior in 2019 for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Both the visual and musical style of the show shrug off the bonds of expected ballet forms in favor of turn-of-the-century stylings of flappers and early cinema— including the work of the film director Georges Méliès’ famous “Man in the Moon”.
The ballet spends much of act one in black-and-white, with bare sets and an emphasis on lighting and projections behind the dancers to sell the setting. The original costumes and sets from the Royal New Zealand Ballet continue to look fresh and exciting five years later, with particular praise stemming from the fairies and their “Metropolis”-referencing headdresses.
In the second act, as the world of the witch explodes before us in a Candyland-swirl of pink, the visual language departs from the familiar trappings of the last century and catapults the viewer into a truly fantastical realm of magic and danger. When the witch is revealed and the sugar-coated colors corrupt into rotten metallics before their eyes, the audience is already primed to accept that she is not of this earth.
The quality of music is also maintained across acts, with just enough jazz and old Hollywood influence to playfully support the vocabulary of images established by the production, nevertheless it remains faithful to the musical conventions expected by audiences accustomed to classical, Romantic ballets.
It is in dance, as one would hope of a ballet, that the true beauty of “Hansel and Gretel” is found. The distinctive movement styles of each set of characters, from townspeople to the witch’s minions to the good fairies, aid the uninitiated in following the story unfolding before their eyes without the crutch of dialogue or even the necessity of the synopsis in the program. The corps de ballet (the chorus of dancers) is fantastic, although not fully uniform, at creating groups for the audience to identify with.
The lead dancers playing Hansel and Gretel showcased an excellent sibling chemistry, although of course the audience may be forgiven for the occasional cognitive dissonance at seeing two fully grown adults acting as children onstage. But their charisma and talent at playing off each other are undeniable regardless of casting. The dancers playing their parents also steal the spotlight with multiple pas de deux, a tender pairing with more complexity than much of the rest of the show combined.
If there is one character meant to steal the show, it is clearly the witch. Played by two dancers in drag who switch off mid-way through act two, the exaggerated flair of the choreography is assuredly reminiscent of a drag show, with the witch’s minions evoking an almost-kinky troupe of submissive followers. However, other dancers are more than a technical and charismatic match for the witch, and she is, at times, less of a standout than was perhaps intended.
Where the production does not subvert classic tropes is in the simplicity of its story. As with any art form, ballet has its limits. While “Hansel and Gretel” neither falls short in the delight factor nor the strength of its style, any pretense of making ballet a mode of more complex storytelling is surface-level at best. The simple nature of the source material is also likely to blame, and this is not nearly enough to make this show a failure — it simply does not push its chosen method of storytelling the way that its visual language and talented dancers might have led one to expect.
With such a concrete nature, ballet as an art form can be difficult to break from classical habits. Even modern scoring and costuming, talented dancers and a subversion of famous source material can all still result in the familiar feeling of watching ballet that takes us back to our childhoods. Some things are meant to stand the test of time, and as this modern take on an old tale continues to be performed, it will hopefully blend its influences with its aspirations to become something truly special.
“Hansel and Gretel” is by no means revolutionary in the form of a ballet, yet at the same time it was nothing short of beautiful. After all, as Oregon Ballet Theatre should be well aware of by now as they celebrate their 35th anniversary, everyone is beautiful at the ballet.
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