For this weekend’s Ballet West revival of Aladdin as part of the company’s Family Classics Series, audiences will have an excellent opportunity to see some of the rising stars of ballet’s newest generation. For example, in 2018, when Aladdin was last presented, it featured many current Ballet West artists in early roles, including Principal Artist David Huffmire, Soloist Victoria Vassos, Demi-Soloist Jake Preece and Corps Artist Joseph Lynch.
The Family Classic Series has featured some of popular culture’s best known fairy tales and fantasy stories including Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid and Snow White. Aladdin is perhaps the best known hero of the The Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights) collection of stories. Literary scholar Muhsin al-Musawi who has written extensively about the stories, said in an interview published elsewhere that “the continuing popularity is twofold: It relates to the Nights being a treasure of tales, and also significantly involves the art of fiction as the source of a perennial human desire for life. Narrative equals life, and Scheherazade, the character who narrates the Arabian Nights, survives her ordeal through narrative. Her duplicates are many in this treasury of tales, including mendicants and barbers. For contemporary novelists, she stands for an ongoing narrative art, undying for being creative.”
Ballet West’s Aladdin is suited for younger audience members, which has a shorter running time (65 minutes in two acts, including an intermission) and includes a narrator. This production offers a bounty of eye-popping theatrical elements, including an innovative rolling magic carpet that glides through a cloud-filled sky and a comedic dancing camel en pointe. Choreographed by Pamela Robinson-Harris and Peggy Dolkas, the ballet will feature members of Ballet West II and Ballet West Academy students.
Accessibility is an overarching objective in this particular series, Adam Sklute, Ballet West artistic director, said. He added, “The narration helps audience members follow the story, preparing them for longer narrative ballets. This accessibility has proven invaluable in building new generations of ballet enthusiasts.” For instance, the closing performance will feature the narration in Spanish.
Robinson-Harris choreographed the first act which features street scenes and Dolkas set the second act, which is set in the palace. In an interview with The Utah Review, Robinson-Harris said the intent was to create a ballet distinct from the Disney version and to ensure the timeless literary appeal of the stories are magnified in dance while connecting to the narration throughout the show. “The point is to create a fun little ballet,” Robinson-Harris said, adding that there are moments when Scheherazade occasionally feels irked that someone is trying to step in on her narration. Sklute added that the comic elements are reminiscent of what made Looney Tunes and other great Warner Bros. cartoons universal classics.
Of particular note are the dancing characters of animals, including the camel, a tiger cub, a snake turned into a rat (a nice hat tip to the company’s legendary Nutcracker production. The camel requires two dancers, with one handling the head and the other taking duties as the hump — challenging considering that without the best peripheral vision, the hump has the opening for dancers to see where they are maneuvering. The cast is substantial, with 57 dancers. The accompanying music comprises Khatchaturian, Kabalevsky, Sibelius, Grieg, Nielsen, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dvorak and others.
Aladdin will have the feel of Ballet West’s mighty and famous productions such as The Nutcracker and Cinderella. Robinson-Harris said that the goal is to give every one of the young dancers the experience of what performing in a full-fledged ballet production is like. “We tell each dancer that being a storyteller is such a big part of this ballet even if they are not Aladdin or one of the animals,” she explained. “If they are a food vendor, a daughter of one of the aunties or any of the villagers, we encourage them to bring a little of themselves into what is happening on stage.”
Performances will take place at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City on March 28 and 29, with evening performances at 7 p.m. and a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. The March 29 evening performance will feature Spanish language narration. For tickets and more information, see the Ballet West website.