Ballet Wichita will present “Alice in Wonderland” this summer with a variety of performances across the state.
The tour opens in Ottawa on Friday, then arrives at Friends University June 26- 27. There will be a performance in Emporia at the Granada Theatre on July 11, and one on July 18 at the McPherson Opera House.
Choreographed by Company Director Katie Andrusak and inspired in part by Christopher Wheeldon’s “Alice in Wonderland” for The Royal Ballet, performances feature classical ballet, tap, and neoclassical technique.
Andrusak said the costuming, which is essential to the story, was provided by Ballet Wichita’s costume team, while custom projections are presented in the performances thanks to a partnership with Wichita State University.
Andrusak recently spoke about the production and how Ballet Wichita is offering its own take on a classic.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. This is the first part of a weekly series on Ballet Wichita’s summer tour.
Tell me about the decision to do this show this year. Why was this the right time for “Alice in Wonderland”?
We’re on our 51st year, and in the summer we have primarily toured shorter story ballets to parks around Sedgwick County and neighboring counties. This year we chose to change up what we do over the summer and do a full-length, in-theatre touring show.
A number of years ago, I choreographed a portion of “Alice in Wonderland” that I just fell in love with. So when they came to me about choreographing this new summer series, I immediately (thought of) “Alice in Wonderland,” taking what we had already created and (expanding it) into a full-length ballet.
It’s a crazy book, and it’s a crazy story, and so the ability to have so many options to choose from [was incredible]. We’re not doing everything that you know from “Alice in Wonderland” or “Through the Looking Glass.” I was able to pick and choose and create a story that everybody’s going to recognize, but that can be unique to our dancers and even a little bit unique to the times.
I think of dance as being about telling a story through movement. Here, you’re dealing with telling the story of an existing text and translating that to dance. Tell me a little bit about that process.
It’s a challenging process because everybody knows a version of “Alice in Wonderland,” and so trying to stay true to that story and staying unique while also staying true to our dancers (is part of that challenge). Not every dancer is the same. Some dancers are good turners, some dancers really like Petite Allegro, so (it’s important) to make sure that I also choreograph the roles to the story and to the dancer.
That took a lot of prep work. I started planning this ballet in July of last year. I created my storyboard with lots of choose your own adventures, depending on who showed up for auditions and what the casting would look like. This ballet had about 10 different directions it could go that stayed within the story of “Alice in Wonderland” but could be unique to our dancers.
Once casting came out, I was able to solidify that a little bit more, and then came the music selection. I think the costuming is really where you’re going to be able to see the characters as well as the dancers acting. It’s a very acting-heavy ballet. You’re not going to see a lot of Sleeping Beauties and sugar plums that have that very pleasant smile that doesn’t change. You’re going to have a lot of different character development for a lot of different dancers.
I think it’s interesting what you said about working with the individual dancers and their abilities. Tell me a little bit more about that.
I want them to go out there confident. The more confident they are in their steps and the movement, the more the character is going to come out, so I threw a lot of things at these dancers, some that stuck and some where I said, “We’re going to pivot and we’re going to change it here,” so that they’re super comfortable with the steps.
We’re at a point now, as we’re going through some of our final run-throughs, where the characterization is just …. It’s really exciting to see all of these wonderful dancers bringing to life the characters of “Alice in Wonderland” and loving being out there every second of rehearsal.
