On Saturday, February 11 some students from Absolute Dance attended The Alberta Ballet’s production of Cinderella. Here are a couple of reviews written by our very own students! Enjoy!
On Saturday, February 11, 2012 my family and I had a wonderful opportunity to attend the Alberta Ballet’s production of Cinderella at the Jubilee Auditorium. It was amazing to learn that there were over 40 ballet dancers involved in this performance. The stars of the show were Hayna Gutierrez as Cinderella, Kelly McKinlay as the Prince, Mariko Kondo as the Fairy Godmother, and Mark Wax, Nicole Caron, and Melissa Boniface as the Stepmother and Stepsisters. It really was a lot of fun. We were first given a backstage tour. It was amazing to see how much work goes into making Cinderella, so wonderful to watch on stage. There are people who are in charge of props, in charge of lighting, and in charge of costumes. The costumes were so beautiful. We were very lucky to also have an opportunity to meet the ballerinas who play Cinderella’s two stepsisters. They seem like really nice people and not at all like when they are performing in the ballet.
The ballet itself, was divided into three Acts with an intermission between the first and second Act. My favourite part of the ballet was the part where Cinderella comes out of the hidden hutch under the stairs and the Prince realizes that he has found his true love. My favorite character of the whole play was the bird who was played by Anthony Pina. When he danced he almost seemed like a real bird! He seemed very nice especially towards Cinderella. I didn’t think the performance was too long or too short…it was just right. It was very interesting to watch because it was a different version than any I have ever seen. It was definitely better than the Disney version.
I really enjoyed myself and give this ballet two thumbs up. I would recommend everybody have the chance to see it.
Catarina Hill
Cinderella Review
By Kathryn Strayer
Next time the Alberta Ballet puts on Cinderella, I would recommend seeing it. It is very interesting and well put-together with many lively characters. A crowd favorite was the Jester, because he was entertaining and he was an incredible dancer. His technique was amazing when he “kicked” the guests at the ball it demonstrated amazing strength and body control. Another stunning character was the bird friend, his duet with Cinderella was graceful and well-performed.
The stepsisters played their part perfectly. They appeared rude, annoying and self-centred on stage. In parts of the ballet, they were actually screaming out orders to Cinderella, adding an amusement factor. Some ballets cast men as the stepsisters because they’re supposed to be ugly. Other ballets cast women, but tell them they’re ugly enough to play the part. In the Alberta Ballet version they do neither, instead they cast “beautiful women” as the stepsisters because the choreographer, Jean Grand-Maitre, thought that it doesn’t matter what a person looks like on the outside it’s the ugliness on the inside that made the stepsisters “ugly”. The stepmother, however, was cast a man so that she was visibly ugly, and ‘she’ appeared much taller than the stepsisters making it easy to tell at first glance who was a stepsister and who was the stepmother.
Hayna Gutierrez who played the character Cinderella was full of emotion and performance. You could really tell how the stepsisters made her feel, and Cinderella’s reaction to the old hag who visited her who turned out to be the fairy godmother. Cinderella was dressed in rags in the first and last acts, which are made to look shabby, but you can tell that the costume designer put a lot of work into creating the perfect look. Many of the other costumes in Cinderella were beautiful, and fit the role they played perfectly. The set transitions were smooth, and the screen dancers walked behind in the beginning, and when arriving at the ball added a nice effect to this performance.
