How do you make ballet relatable to people who don’t already like ballet? Every year, thousands of ballet companies and dance studios of all levels around the world draw their biggest audiences of the season with “The Nutcracker.” Besides that, professional companies struggle to draw audiences while maintaining artistic integrity with serious dancing.
Meanwhile, touring companies often achieve more success because of their notoriety. For instance, World Ballet Company (WBC) has been traveling throughout the United States and abroad for 10 years, bringing a mix of classical standards and new ballet works to the stage with an international cast of professional dancers, many of whom are from Eastern Europe. The company was founded by Belarusian producer Sasha Gorskaya and Latvian producer Gulya Hartwick in 2015.
Ballet for People Who Don’t Know Ballet
WBC’s goal is to perform productions “that appeal to newcomers and seasoned balletgoers alike,” and the company “intentionally presents in cities with less access to ballet.” This may be the case in some Midwestern and Southern cities on the tour, but San Diego is hardly ballet-deprived, as it’s home to three professional ballet companies and numerous independent dance groups. Nevertheless, from the audience’s reactions, I would estimate that most were not ballet fans or experts. These people came to see a good spectacle, something novel from a fun era with a recognizable title.At the show’s opening, the scene was impressive. The loud music, bright lights, and immersive projections made a strong impression. The ballet opened with an overdubbed voice reading the book’s opening lines as the dancer playing narrator Nick Carraway pretended to type them on a typewriter before his typing turned into dancing. As the prologue gave way to a crowd scene in a train station, I was impressed. The costumes were high quality and quite historically accurate, with well-fitted suits for the men and stylish dresses for the ladies. The backgrounds and lighting were beautiful. The choreography was exciting, giving the impression of a bustling New York station as dancers entered and exited the stage in different vignettes.
Unfortunately, the performance couldn’t maintain this level of entertainment throughout two 50-minute acts. The “smoke and mirrors” of old theater magic has been replaced by lighting and projections. I have nothing against using these helpful modern tools if employed tastefully, but the heavy-handed use of obviously AI-generated images became cloying during the long runtime. The height of carnival-like showiness was when a jazz singer dressed like a Vegas showgirl came out to “entertain” during a party in Act 2. She sang a modern rendition of “It Don’t Mean a Thing” while a few dancers did balletic variations on the Charleston. She got the crowd going with her borderline burlesque antics—she opened her act by saying, “Hello, San Diego”—but it deviated from ballet and the story.
The production was obviously a well-oiled machine, as the scene changes, technological features, and choreographic execution were seamless. You’d expect this from a production that had been running almost a month, but it’s impressive when you consider how many different theaters and tech crews they’ve encountered during that time. However, that well-practiced precision was accompanied by the lack of spontaneity that can come with excessive performance. I was waiting for that “wow” moment with the partner dancing, which is called “pas de deux” (French for “step of two”) in ballet. It never really came with Daisy and Jay, but my desire for some thrilling choreography was somewhat fulfilled by dances featuring Daisy’s rival, Myrtle. The dances with her two partners, Tom and George, were much more exciting, with daring lifts and engaging storytelling from all three dancers.
Gatsby for People Who Don’t Know Gatsby
Telling a complex story through ballet is no easy feat, because the art form is traditionally wordless. It’s especially challenging when the tale originated as a very contemporary 20th-century American novel, driven by dialogue and fast-paced action rather than classic ideas. The ballet opened and closed with a disembodied voice quoting from the book as Nick. Between these direct quotations, the story’s presentation was a quandary. You really had to know the story of “The Great Gatsby” to understand what was happening, yet those very familiar with the novel were sure to be frustrated by the unnecessary deviations from some of its most recognizable elements.I’ve read the book and studied several adaptations, so I know the story very well. Nevertheless, there were a few plot points that confused me and had to be explained by my sister, a true Gatsby scholar. I couldn’t help wondering how much of the story the rest of the audience understood. From snippets of conversation I overheard during intermission, it was apparent that this story is not as well-known as people think it is. It’s not the storyline that everybody knows, as is commonly stated; it’s simply a title that everyone knows. Contrary to popular opinion, every American did not read it in the 10th grade. (I’m sure some high school assigned it, but I’ve never discovered any of its graduates.)
The finer points of a complex plot are often lost in balletic translation, but my fellow theatergoers were unexpectedly confused about core relationships. After Act 1, my father confessed that he thought there was a love triangle between Daisy Buchanan, her husband, Tom, and her cousin, Nick, rather than Gatsby. Pas de deux is a powerful but dangerous tool in relationship building that must be used sparingly, since it inadvertently implies romance. There were several instances where it falsely conveyed romantic scenarios. Little details like the projection of Gatsby’s opulent car as blue instead of yellow or the omission of the title character’s famous pink suit were inconsequential but frustrating errors. More concerning were moments that left the audience wondering what was happening.
A Spectacle
Putting on a classical ballet is one thing, and I’m sure it’s something which the World Ballet Company does beautifully. Putting on an original ballet which tells a beloved story is quite another. The blending between classical technique and modern story elements can be hard for ballet dancers to achieve. In this production, the dancers’ technique was very clean and accurate, yet the mechanically classical precision demonstrated by Daisy and Gatsby in particular left their characters feeling soulless and out of place in the Roaring Twenties. Nick stood out as the most dynamic performer and thus the most compelling character. His dancing was excellent, but more than that, he conveyed fluidity, expression, and emotion through his movements. It’s usually a toss-up as to whether Nick or Gatsby is the story’s central figure, but the answer was obvious in this performance. This contrast was partly due to Ilya Zhivoy’s choreography, which gave Nick expressive movements while Gatsby executed an impressive jumping combination from an advanced ballet class.The most jarring element to me was the music. An original score by Anna Drubich, it was a disjointed blend of synthesized instruments and musical genres. There was contemporary classical, sweeping cinematic, modern jazz, 1980s arrangements of Tin Pan Alley tunes, and an unnerving house beat at times. It was pretty hilarious to see the corps of international ballet dancers jiving and partying to a hip-hop arrangement of “Sweet Georgia Brown” like they were at a disco club. Popular dancing of the 1920s was considered wild and scandalous at the time, but let’s just say they weren’t partying like it was 1925. Music is the very soul of a ballet, the fabric which creates the mood and inspires the movements. If the composer had stuck with one style, such as the beautiful contemporary classical sound she used in the opening and ending, it would have been a much stronger production.
Ultimately, the point of any production is to entertain its audience. This production seems to have done that. However, true connoisseurs of ballet, “The Great Gatsby,” and the traditional arts may have to look elsewhere for classical entertainment.
