Alberta Ballet presents their take on classic fairy tales in new production Grimm
By Ansharah Shakil, October 18 2024—
Appropriately timed for the Halloween season, Alberta Ballet will be putting on their new production Grimm from Oct. 17-19, a world premiere from Italian dancer and choreographer Stefania Ballone of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, commissioned by artistic producer Francesco Ventriglia. In an interview with the Gauntlet, Ballone expressed her gratitude for being brought into the project by Ventriglia and being able to work with Alberta Ballet, and discussed her extensive background in dance.
“[Dance] is still a great passion for me. I’m a choreographer [now] but I still love … dance and I think we are very lucky to do this job,” Ballone said.
Grimm is an accurately dark take on seven classic tales by German academics and brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, and comes with a warning of mature content. These tales include Sleeping Beauty, The Town Musicians of Bremen, The Frog Prince, Snow White, The Three Spinners, Rapunzel and Seven Ravens. One of Ballone’s favourite stories to be included is Rapunzel.
“As a child I remember my grandmother told me this story about [this lady] with the long long braid and the prince trying to go up, join her. It was for me a very fascinating story,” she explained.
The stories by the Brothers’ Grimm have had an immense impact on literature and culture, a legacy that has inspired other artists across generations. Many of these tales will be immediately familiar to audiences, whether they are acquainted with the well-known Disney versions or are aware of the darker themes that were present in the original Grimms’ Fairy Tales, first known as the Children’s and Household Tales. But stories like Town Musicians of Bremen, The Three Spinners and Seven Ravens are more obscure and will be a treat to discover.
In Alberta Ballet’s Grimm, the main protagonist is Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, here called Aura, but she encounters the other fairy tale characters on a journey through the Boreal Forest.
“[Aura] meets the musicians of Bremen, [which] is a story about friendship. Then she meets The Frog Prince, [which] is a sweet story about love. Then she meets the step-mother [from] Snow White, so she meets [a] bad part of our life. Then she meets the Three Spinners, [representing how often] we are fascinated by mystery,” Ballone said. “So I chose stories that were important as a symbol of important elements of life, like friendship [and] love, and the characters that for me were really charming.”
The libretto for Grimm is Carmen Kovacs. The ballet will also include a new score from Taketo Gohara, a composer Ballone has worked with before.
“For me, when it started in the studio, it was really clear scene by scene what I wanted to show and which language I wanted to choose,” she said. “I wanted to create a language more free, more contemporary, more visceral, and the atmosphere is really surreal, from [the] subconscious and abstract.”
Ballone encouraged students to attend because of the subject matter, something close to many of our hearts and presented in an intriguing, creative new way to experience ballet and fairy tales.
“It’s another way to tell Grimm stories that we all know. It’s a way to see the stories with the language of the body, instead of cartoons or [reading]. It’s with dance and set and light and music,” she said. “It’s funny but it’s also weird, it’s also spooky, it’s many different things. It’s really articulated because each story is its own world, and I wanted to show this articulation that is the Grimms’ world.”
Tickets and more information for Grimm can be found on the Alberta Ballet website, with discounted RUSH tickets available on-site for seniors and post-secondary students one hour before performances.