Pastoral setting perfect match for western work

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This article was published 26/07/2022 (839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Yeehaw! After three long years, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s beloved Ballet in the Park series returned to its leafy roots this week with all the high spirits of a country hoedown

This summer marks 50 years since the event’s inception in 1972, though we’ve not seen it since July 2019 owing to the global pandemic.

Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal held under clear blue skies at Assiniboine Park’s Lyric Theatre lassoed an estimated 200 curious audience members, from babes in arms to seasoned balletomanes, with tots in tiaras frequently upstaging the professional dancers as they leapt and spun through grass.

The 90-minute (including intermission) mixed bill hosted by RWB artistic director and CEO Andre Lewis also includes pre-show children’s activities: face-painting, pointe-shoe decorating and a creative movement class. It’s free and runs nightly at 7:30 p.m. to Friday (weather permitting) with scheduling updates posted at www.rwb.org.

This year’s centrepiece is Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, last performed at the Centennial Concert Hall in October 2021 and set to Aaron Copland’s guns-ablazing music.

The buckaroo ballet hasn’t lost a bit of shine since its company première in 1973. Set in the American Southwest, the witty, 30-minute narrative work melding ballet and Broadway tells the story of how the Cowgirl, a tomboy living on Burnt Ranch, eventually ropes in her man after being hopelessly in love with the Head Wrangler.

The perennially popular work with its “Prairie fresh sensibility” is quintessentially RWB; it was brought into the company’s stable of contemporary repertoire by its late legendary artistic director Arnold Spohr, who knew de Mille personally.

If Oliver Smith’s original sets — simple, painted backdrops as seen onstage last fall — felt decidedly low-tech, having no sets at all for the al fresco performance, and virtually no lighting effects, with Copland’s iconic score pre-recorded, throws even more focus on the dancing itself, but that’s not a bad thing.

Second soloist Katie Bonnell (all leads alternating) brought just as much spit and vinegar to her reprised role as the lovesick Cowgirl as she did last fall, including ripping off several stylized, athletic solos.

The charismatic artist possesses fine comedic chops, but also instils vulnerability into her lead character, crumpling to the floor several times after being rebuffed by the Wrangler.

Second soloist Liam Caines puffed and preened in that latter role, fleshed out with swaggering bravura as he pitches woo to the Ranch Owner’s Daughter, while his counterpart, newly promoted soloist Stephan Azulay (who seems to be making a career these days with hunky, macho roles) provided plenty of spirit as the Champeen Roper, tossing off a sizzling tap dance that ultimately wins the Cowgirl’s heart.

The RWB’s newest principal dancer, Elizabeth Lamont, proved another standout as the prim and proper Ranch Owner’s Daughter, joined by her primped up Eastern Friends from Kansas City, while a raucous square dance number saw Joshua Hidson bellowing out to the “Women Folk and Cowhands” to “promenade home” and “go like thunder.”

Ballet in the Park is also a showcase for the youthful talent that has always been the backbone of this company. A trio of RWB School professional division students treated viewers to Marius Petipa’s Paquita Pas de Trois with the promise of even greater things to come, including solid pointe work by both Camilla Hood and Olivia Kowalchuk, while Felix Jinga (casts alternate) showed off his natural dramatic flair.

One of the RWB’s most cherished dancers has been former soloist Yosuke Mino, who retired from the stage in May after nearly 20 years. However, the artist is also a fine choreographer and audiences were treated to his latest creative outing, Burgeon, featuring 10 sock-footed dancers culled from the RWB School recreational division ranks dressed in diaphanous, lilac chiffon pants and shirts.

Mino’s spot-on choice of composer Max Richter’s Spring — excerpted from Recomposed, which re-imagines Vivaldi’s iconic The Four Seasons score — proved an ideal vehicle for his artistic vision, which included the dancers positioning themselves in line formation with a palette of gestural-based movement vocabulary. There’s truth to the timeworn adage “leave them wanting more,” and this all-too-short short ensemble work certainly did that; it would have ultimately been more satisfying had spring blossomed into summer.

The program rounded out with Sparkling Diamonds, featuring seven dancers from the recreational division who toss off jazzy combinations as easily as saying “I do,” their blingy black bodysuits as glittering as stars in a Prairie night sky.

holly.harris@shaw.ca