Ballet Bras d'Or

This production portrays the absurdity of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical characters. What does it mean to be truly mad?…The original choreography was over an hour long and delved into some of the more abstract ideas behind the story. The first act was Alice in the Looking Glass, the highlight of which was the chess game. A game of chess played all over the world, where rulers, kings and queens decide, while knights and soldiers in red and white go and fight and the casualties thereof…. our own interpretation. The second act was an original choreography to Prokokiev’s fifth symphony and a new work for us. This piece of music seemed to be perfect and took us along into the schizophrenic world of the characters. The Cheshire cat is nonchalant and appears and disappears at will, therefore time is no threat to him. The rabbit is in a mad rush for an important date, a nervous character hard to pin down. The mad hatter is measuring everyone else’s head: his profession … therefore, he is hopelessly mad, The conclusion of the ballet is his masterpiece, a huge crown, that is too big for anyone to wear, yet all the queens fight desperately for it, and eventually break it, the little sleepy mouse is the one sweeping it off the stage. This was our only addition to the Lewis story, but we still felt we were in harmony with his own letter at the end of the book. The Queen of Hearts is quite the despot, she wants to cut everyone’s head off, yet her world, like a pack of cards, is neither real nor long standing… To Alice it is quite a strange world and a bit uncomfortable. Just a bad dream.
Alice was danced by Rachelle Aucoin, while Jesse Watson spinned as the white rabbit, and Haley Fraser appeared and disappeared as the Cheshire cat. Leah Lambie came from Halifax Maritime Conservatory to present the Mad Hatter and Brianna Covey returned from Moncton to take on her role as the Queen of Hearts.The duchess was danced by Julie Bartlett and the caterpillar by Mia Nishi. The cats and bumblebees were our youngest dancers while the cards and chess characters were performed by the students after many months of rehearsals.