Bengt's Blog

Back in the studio again, first week done!

It is great to be back working on Coppélia - I had forgotten just how much I enjoy this work! We first did it in 2001 as a co-production with the Hong Kong Ballet and I suspect I am one of only a few people who would think of re-doing Coppélia as a contemporary classical ballet (I know a bit of a contradiction in that statement, but it is both a very classical work and a very contemporary rendition).

Coppélia is one of those unique works that is a comedy yet has become a classic; hardly ever do comedies survive the times they are created in, so obviously there is something about this work that makes it quite special. In truth, I have always had a hard time understanding why. Most dancers I know hate to dance the work because there really isn’t that much dancing, and much of it is in character shoes doing mazurkas and czardas with little artistic satisfaction. You especially dislike doing Coppélia if you are new in the company because you will invariably be stuck doing dolls in the second act, which means that for most of the act you have to stand still in one position as all your limbs go numb! I had the great “pleasure” of doing two different versions of dolls as the youngest member both at the Royal Swedish Ballet and then when I joined the National Ballet of Canada in the early 80’s. I remember one of my colleagues fainting on stage in the second act…..

So why did I even think of doing another Coppélia? For one, I guess I needed to exercise some demon inside me and I also wanted to created a dancers Coppélia, a production that would be genuinely fun to dance, and with a lot of dancing (I was also determined that none of my dancers were going to faint after standing still for 30 minutes). But I also really needed to create a Coppélia that would seem more relevant and not be as stiff and awkward as some traditional versions can be. Often the characters come off as wooden and fake or very juvenile (with a notable exception of Dr. Coppélius when done by really great artists – more of that later), the comedy often a bit plastic and kitsch, and even the music at times very one-dimensional. In short, I wanted to create a version that would be able to speak to me and people of our generation while still honouring the tradition of the work. A version that is fun to dance and fun to watch.

I decided to build it around Dr. Coppélius as a real person, not a bumbling old fool but rather the central figure around which the story revolves. I remember well when I first danced Coppélia in Sweden and the late Erik Bruhn guested as Dr. Coppélius (I also remember him doing the same role here in Canada when I was with the National Ballet which has his version of Coppélia). He managed to transform the role in to a truly engaging, passionate and tragic man. Remembering this, I was also inspired by the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme of the Pygmalion tale of a sculptor falling in love with his own perfect creation.

I decided to set up the production as a dolls house – a creation of Dr. Coppélius’. In this way, I was also able to solve the problem of trying to make all the towns people real characters – I simply made them all wooden dolls. This also gave me great freedom in the choreography, allowing me to toss the character shoes and put all the women in pointe shoes – bringing more speed and diversion to the traditional dances. To keep the doll-like quality I had the dancers keep their fingers closed together – it works very well for the story but is a real challenge to do especially when you have to dance full out. Just try walking around with all fingers closed for five minutes and you will get the picture. At the beginning of the ballet, only Dr. Coppélius is a real person with a beating heart and strong emotions, lonely and desperate to create a life partner who can love and be loved. Reading the story on which the ballet is based (which is not a comedy, but quite the contrary), I was struck by the desperation of being smitten by “perfect beauty”. I wanted to bring the ballet a bit closer to its foundation, which seemed quite relevant to us today in our pursuits of happiness, without losing any of the comedic elements of the ballet. I also decided to break with tradition and call the main characters by their original names Klara and Nathaniel rather than Swanhilda and Franz, as the production no longer takes place in some pseudo alpine or south European village. The characters all live in a toy box which Dr. Coppélius opens up at the beginning of the story. But as with Pandora’s Box, once open you don’t necessarily know what is going to come out....

I set out to create, with the support of my late friend Donald Dawson, a ballet about the transformative power of love and the journey we all have to make from innocent bliss to mature adulthood, with all the twists and turns in between that make the human conditions a bottomless well of comedic inspirations. I am really enjoying putting the ballet back together even though dancing Dr. Coppélius is brutally hard (I have been running for the past month trying to get up to speed!) We have a lot of new people in the company since the last time we performed the work, so it is interesting to see how they take to the production which still brings a very big smile to my face. Tara and I watched a run-through of the “Mazurka” section on Friday and it completely cracked us up….yet again!

Please come out and share a laugh or two with us as we kick of the season with Ballet in the Park from August 20 – 22.

Bengt