Note: This event has been cancelled.
ON STAGE
What: Ballet B.C.鈥檚 Romeo + Juliet
Where: Royal Theatre
When: Friday, Mar. 13, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 14, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $29-$105 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) and
Romeo and Juliet 鈥� the couple whose destiny remains a question mark throughout William Shakespeare鈥檚 16th-century play of the same name 鈥� ultimately meet a tragic end, which has given playwrights, singers, actors and dancers plenty of room for dramatic interpretation over the years.
Thousands of versions have been staged across a variety of mediums, ranging from Sergei Prokofiev鈥檚 1938 ballet to Franco Zeffirelli鈥檚 1968 film. Medhi Walerski took cues from the former when planning the choreography for his re-telling for Ballet B.C., which runs Friday and Saturday at the Royal Theatre, and incorporated elements of the latter as well.
Perhaps his biggest influence, however, was something much more radical than what had come before: Baz聽Luhrmann鈥檚 violent, modern version from 1996, with a gun-toting Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Romeo.
鈥淚t is a very beautiful take on Romeo and Juliet,鈥� Walerski said of Luhrmann鈥檚 Oscar-nominated hit. 鈥淚t is a genius way of looking at the history. It鈥檚 the same, just through a different mind. But what comes out 鈥� the essence, the emotion 鈥� manages to extract the universality of the story.鈥�
Walerski has been named Ballet B.C.鈥檚 new artistic director, so his work on Romeo + Juliet (which premi猫red in 2018) served as something of an informal introduction. He has been associated with Ballet B.C. for years, but staging the Prokofiev classic in his first full-length narrative work, a commission funded in part by Dance Victoria, through the Chrystal Dance Fund, was certainly ambitious.
With nearly 30 dancers participating, Romeo + Juliet remains one of the bigger productions in Ballet B.C. history, he said. 鈥淚 wanted to stay as close as possible to the Shakespeare play, which was one of the biggest inspirations for me. But I wanted to bring something new from my聽vision to the story. That was the greatest challenge for me, because it has been done so many times in so many beautiful ways.鈥�
The sets are modern and minimalist, which allowed Walerski to work with his dancers on craft and composition almost exclusively.
Extravagance was out, in favour of more natural beauty.
鈥淚 wanted the dancers to sculpt the space. Because it鈥檚 a very ambitious project, I wanted to come back to something more simple, to highlight emotions, to play with the narrative to make the story more universal.鈥�
An important aspect of Walerski鈥檚 vision was favouring psychological time over real time 鈥� putting the audience in the subconscious mind of Romeo鈥檚 friend, Mercutio, when he is being stabbed, for instance, or knowing what Juliet is thinking when she drinks the poison.
鈥淚t was about removing the medieval and Italian context, and bringing more ambiguity to the [Montague and Capulet] families. The dark side of humanity, and why this conflict is happening. Visually and esthetically, I tried to strip the story to its essence.鈥�
