Ink black Snow White RWB puts Grimm twist on familiar fairy tale By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 6:04 PM CDT Monday, Sep. 25, 2023

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Back in the mid-2000s, when French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj set about choreographing a new fairy-tale ballet for his eponymous company, Ballet Preljocaj, a question nagged at him as he paged through his Brothers Grimm.

Why aren’t there more ballets about the fairest one of all?

“There was a lot of ballet based on fairy tales and Snow White was never really done,” Preljocaj (pronounced prezh-oh-kahzh) says via Zoom from Paris. “I was very curious to know why but I didn’t find the reason.” Quite unlike Sleeping Beauty, he points out, which is among the most famous fairy-tale ballet adaptations.

“Snow White is very, very rich. Compared to Sleeping Beauty, it’s really a thriller in a certain way,” he says. “When I read again Snow White, I was very surprised, because the main image we have about Snow White is the Walt Disney version (from 1937), which is very nice. But when you read again, Snow White is really dark.”

Indeed, his is definitely not the Disney version. Preljocaj’s ink-black Snow White first premièred in 2008, and has toured extensively since.

Now, Snow White makes its Canadian première in Winnipeg this week with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The 2023/24 season opener runs Thursday to Sunday at the Centennial Concert Hall.

RWB artistic director André Lewis first saw Preljocaj’s Snow White in Berlin and knew, almost instantly, he wanted to bring it to his company.

“The show blew me away,” he says. “It’s an extraordinary work. I felt so moved by it.”

The contemporary ballet tells the classic Brothers Grimm story about a beautiful young maiden forced into exile after her evil stepmother, the wickedly vain Queen, orders her murder, set to a score of symphonies by Gustav Mahler.

“In the music of Gustav Mahler, there is a lot of reference about the nature, the forest, the river and almost the nature is another personnage, another character, of the story,” Preljocaj says.

The bold, dramatic (and vaguely dominatrix-inspired) costumes, meanwhile, were designed by French fashion icon Jean Paul Gaultier.

When he was thinking about Snow White, Preljocaj happened to see a fashion show featuring Gaultier’s collection inspired by another fairy tale, The Little Mermaid.

“I was thinking, oh, this guy loves fairy tales — if not, he wouldn’t do that,” Preljocaj says. “Then I get his phone number, and I call him and I say, ‘Hi, I am Angelin Preljocaj, I’m a choreographer.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I know your work. I come very often to see your ballet.’ I was like, ‘Wow, fantastique.’”

Stager Claudia de Smet came in from France and has been working with the company for the past nine weeks. She’s staged Snow White for Preljocaj several times now and knows the piece by heart.

“I felt, from the very beginning, that when we really started on the restaging, that they were all very focused, very curious, very dynamic, very motivated — there was a lot of very-very,” de Smet says of working with the RWB.

The RWB, like many ballet companies, is organized by hierarchy: principal dancer at the top, followed by soloist, second soloist, corps de ballet, apprentice.

Snow White was not cast by rank. Instead, de Smet observed the whole company during her first week, while they were rehearsing for Ballet in the Park in July.

It was valuable, she says, to see them in their element before tackling the new Snow White repertoire for casting.

“We had the occasion of seeing them all, so they all learned the Queen, they all learned Snow White, they all learned the Prince,” de Smet says. “The two casts are very different. They are not at all the same. So sometimes you go OK, on this cast movement is very, very powerful. On that cast, emotions are powerful. By having two casts that are different, they’re actually complementary.”

The chances afforded to dancers in lower ranks reminded Lewis of a career-altering opportunity he received when he was dancing in the company.

“I remember when we first did Romeo & Juliet, I was in the corps de ballet, and I got to do Mercutio and Romeo,” Lewis says. “We have beautiful dancers from the bottom all the way to the top, but everybody is not necessarily suited for everything.

“At the same time, it’s nice for the dancers to get a chance like I did when I did Romeo & Juliet. If I hadn’t had that, my career may have taken a different path.”

One of those dancers is corps de ballet member Taisi Tollasepp, who will be dancing in the role of Snow White (alternating with corps de ballet member Kyra Soo). Tollasepp, 19, just joined the company this season as an apprentice and has already been promoted to the corps.

“It’s been an incredible experience so far,” Tollasepp says of working on her title role. “Just being given the opportunity to do this role is huge. I’m so honoured and grateful to be able to perform.”

While there is a love story between Snow White and the Prince (soloist Stephan Azulay and corps de ballet member Logan Savard), it’s the relationship between ingénue Snow White and the narcissistic, jealous Queen that’s at the ballet’s bloody, beating heart.

“I felt, from the very beginning, that when we really started on the restaging, that they were all very focused, very curious, very dynamic, very motivated — there was a lot of very-very.”–Stager Claudia de Smet

“With the prince it’s new and it’s exciting and it’s love, right?” Tollasepp says. “With the Queen, it’s very powerful, it’s different, it’s dynamic, it’s aggressive — especially the apple scene, which is honestly one of my favourites in the ballet. But I think Jaimi (Deleau) does an amazing job and she gives the power and the dynamic that helps me to connect and create a story from that.”

Soloist Deleau has relished sinking her teeth into the meaty role of the Queen — and performing opposite Tollasepp.

“It’s kind of funny because I used to teach Taisi when she was in the school,” Deleau says with a laugh. “And now I’m this evil counterpart to her. But it’s been such a fun time working with her. I think she plays Snow White really, really well and I think we’ve just been feeding off of each other’s energies in the studio.”

Deleau, who will alternate in the role with corps de ballet member Maggie Weatherdon, wanted to give the Queen dimension and really think about why this woman is the way she is.

“You can put a frown on your face and pretend to be evil and that’s all fine and good,” she says. “But I think really diving into the Queen’s backstory and bringing that into the beginning of the ballet — so it starts before it actually starts and before you actually see her first entrance — helps build that character.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com