BalletNext is ready to take a leap into “Echoes of Time.”
And the Park City-based company is taking Beethoven and the Grateful Dead along with three performances — July 15 and Aug. 12 at Founder and Artistic Director Michele Wiles’ home studio and Aug. 25 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City.
“I’ve always wanted to do something to Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata,’” Wiles said. “I love that piece. It’s so emotionally driven and has so much color and incredible technique, and the last movement, I think, is one of the hardest piano pieces to play.”
A BalletNext patron inspired Wiles to use Grateful Dead music.
“When we performed one of our (other performances), a patron asked if we have ever danced to the Grateful Dead,” she said. “I realized there are probably a lot of Grateful Dead fans here in Park City.”
Wiles dug around and found out former Park City Mayor Dana Williams plays Grateful Dead with his bands and that her next-door neighbors were Deadheads.
“They told me if I did this ballet, they were all going to come,” she said.
As Wiles contemplated the concept, she thought about doing a mashup of the iconic ballets — Marius Petipa’s “La Bayadère” and Joseph Mazilier’s “Le Corsaire.”
“I thought if I can put together Beethoven and the Grateful Dead, I can put together these two classics,” she said. “And then I found this interview with (Grateful Dead founder) Jerry Garcia who said the band started out so people could dance. And I thought about the whole thing and that fits the first movement.”
The night will open with a scene pulled from “La Bayadère” danced to the Dead’s song, “Althea,” according to Wiles.
In that scene in La Bayadere, the warrior Solor, smokes opium to quell the grief he feels after his lover, Nikia, dies.
“Then you see all of these ballerinas who represent Nikia dance down a ramp,” Wiles said.
So, Wiles decided to mix things up with guest performer Bashaun Williams and BalletNext’s resident dancer, Matthew Helms, before the company’s pre-professional corps make their entrance.
“Instead of being in tutus and going down a ramp, these young women will stand on chairs as a sort of swirl of ballerinas,” Wiles said. “They’ll have bell-bottom jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirts on.”
The more Wiles thought about this variation, she reflected on choreographers from the late 1960s and 1970s, including Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins.
“That’s when all of these crazy hand movements started coming out,” she said. “So. what we thought was going to be a classical ballet turned out to be a piece with Fosse hands and a big dream-swirl of the past.”
As Wiles built up the 50-minute long work, she found inspiration in other choreographers such as Mauro Bigonzetti, Brian Reeder and George Balanchine.
“I’ve always been inspired by Mauro Bigenzetti, who created the works ‘La Follia’ and ‘Bachground’ on us,” she said. “And that made me wonder what dancing to a heavy-metal version of Beethoven would look like.”
It just so happened that Wiles and Helms discovered a metal version of “Moonlight Sonata.”
“It starts with a werewolf howl, and when you think the piano is going to come in, you actually hear a guitar,” Wiles said with a laugh. “Matt and I will dance a pas de deux that was inspired by the first pas de deux of Solor and Nikia to that music.”
Other Grateful Dead songs Wiles selected for the production include “Shakedown Street,” “Touch of Grey” and “Good Lovin’,” which will be in what Wiles calls a “super coda.”
“These are the other pieces that I thought would fit in this cauldron of chaos I’m creating,” she said with a laugh. “They are all going to be in there, and it’s like we’re going into these different rooms or into different echoes of time.”
The choreography to the third movement of “Moonlight Sonata” will tie things together, Wiles said.
“We’ll have Bashaun perform the iconic Bronze Idol piece from ‘La Bayadère,’” she said. “And the girls will perform a mix of ‘La Bayadère’ and ‘La Corsaire’ variations with Fosse-inspired arm movements that give everything a cool look. These arm phrases are woven throughout the ballet, and that’s how it becomes cohesive.”
Adding more “La Corsaire” into the night, Helms and Wiles will perform the famous “Corsaire” pas de deux.
“We’re sticking to the classic version, but we’re doing it to a Pink Floyd remix of ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’” Wiles said with a laugh.
Working with Grateful Dead compositions pushed Wiles to get more organized with the musical timestamps, which added layers to the choreography.
“I started choreographing with the pre-professionals, and when Bashaun came in, I broke things up and put them all in different directions with the same movement phrases,” she said. “This holds up to the level of the technique and expresses the power and engagement and the aestheticism and dynamic feeling you get from classical ballet, but it’s performed to music people can really connect with.”
“Echoes of Time” is the culmination of a string of other BalletNext works such as “Beyond the Swan,” which is inspired by “Swan Lake,” and “Unwrapped,” inspired by “The Nutcracker,” Wiles said.
“These were all formulated during the time we performed at the Park City Library,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how this one comes together.”
BalletNext: ‘Echoes of Time’
- When: 6:30 p.m. July 15
- Where: BalletNext Studios
- Cost: $50 suggested donation
- Registration: tinyurl.com/2k9crxby
- Web: balletnext.org
Also:
- When: 6:30 p.m. Aug. 12 with guest Sienna Hopper
- Where: BalletNext Studios
- Cost: $50 suggested donation
- Registration: tinyurl.com/4r7m4vvb
- Web: balletnext.org
And:
- When: 6:30 p.m. Aug. 25
- Where: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center’s Leona Wagner Black Box, 138 W. Broadway, Salt Lake City
- Cost: $17.50 for adults, $10 for students and $7.50 for children ages 12 and younger
- Registration: tinyurl.com/42fjxa6c
- Web: balletnext.org