Bossov Ballet Theatre - Vaganova Ballet Technique

A Ballet Treat for Mom: Alice in Wonderland at the Opera House

by Michael Duncan Wyly
Executive Director, Bossov Ballet Theatre
after seeing many, many rehearsals.

Mother’s Day Weekend at The Waterville Opera House, Andrei Bossov’s cast of forty talented and professionally trained dancers representing three different continents, and thirteen U. S. States from California to Maine, will present four performances of Andrei’s own Ballet “Alice in Wonderland”, Friday through Sunday, May 7^th through 9^th.

It is pure coincidence that the ballet opens at the same time Tim Burton’s 3-D movie “Alice” is making its premier. See the movie. It is like a walk through a high-tech haunted house. Thrilling. Sometimes frightening. But don’t miss seeing the ballet, too!

The Wall Street Journal’s March 5^th, 2010, review of the movie says the film “catches the look [of “Alice”] but fumbles the spirit.” Thus the review’s headline, “ ‘Alice’: Half a Wonderland”. According to the Journal’s reviewer, Joe Morganstern, the film is “more gothic than Victorian – more akin to Dungeons and Dragons than Lewis Carroll’s dreamy and brilliant prose.” We have a way to recapture the spirit!

For those of us (perhaps all of us) who have already heard the Lewis prose read to us by our mothers, the spirit, so sadly lost in the high tech world of 3-D, is alive and well in Andrei Bossov’s high-energy, fast-moving, seamlessly flowing ballet. And when better than Mother’s Day to relive our childhood memories?

The ballet that will premier through Mother’s Day weekend in Waterville is an original Andrei masterpiece. An essential part of the choreographer’s art is choosing just the right music, and Andrei’s musical choices are a close second to the dancing in restoring the spirit that the movie lost. Andrei’s ballet suite is a medley of tunes drawn from Italian opera – Rossini, Verdi, Ponchielli – so rich in vigor and emotion, and conducive to the ballet’s ever-present humor. My favorite is the “Caucus Race” where Alice, White Rabbit, and other curious creatures of Wonderland contend with a moving finish line and no rules. They are off and running to Rossini’s Overture from William Tell. Having been a boy through the weekly radio and then TV serials of “The Lone Ranger”, I find myself in rehearsals waiting to hear hoofbeats and the white-hatted, horse-mounted ranger’s familiar shout to his trusty steed, Silver: “Hi yo Silver, Away!” that every week introduced the program with the music of William Tell blaring in the background. Growing up in Russia, Andrei was unaware of the Lone Ranger, but he certainly could not have picked a better accompaniment for Alice’s race in pointe shoes.

The unbroken movement of dancers driven by some of the liveliest, merriest music ever written solves another problem the journal’s critic has with the movie version. “Every scene sweeps away recollection of the previous one”, he writes, leading him to ask “why the peerless author’s [Carroll’s] enchanting prose is so resistant to dramatization.” One thing that Carroll’s story is not resistant to is Bossov’s never-a-dull-moment choreography as it brings the story to real life, leaving no need to re-read the prose you have already heard because it will all come rushing back to you and leave you laughing and enchanted in world full of frivolity and some deep and clever satire about the more bizarre quirks of the human race.

All children love ballet by nature as George Balanchine correctly observed. So we urge you to bring the kids. For adults the choreography, the music, and an ample dose of virtuoso dancing bring the classic story we first heard through our mother’s voices to a poignant and sophisticated level of excellence.

Shows will be Friday and Saturday, May 7^th and 8^th at 7:00 PM, and matinees at 2:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday, May 8^th and 9^th. The May 9^th Mothers’ Day performance will be followed by a Tea Party at The Opera House, costumed dancers in attendance. Call the Opera House Box Office, 207-873-7000 for tickets, or sign on the www.operahouse.org.