Two major ballet dancers will be starring with the Boca Ballet Theatre this month in the company’s production of The Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky and Petipa’s 1890 classic drawn from Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose tales.
Dancing the lead role of Aurora will be Bridgett Zehr, a Sarasota-born, Harid-trained dancer who has been a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and the English National Ballet. Her Prince Florimund will be Nehemiah Kish, a Michigan-born dancer and principal of The Royal Ballet in England, and also a former National Ballet of Canada principal.
Dan Guin, co-artistic and executive director of Boca Ballet Theatre, said he’s been trying for at least eight years to get Zehr to do something with his company.
“I kept on asking my friends in the dance world: ‘If you had to pick an Aurora … who would it be?’” said Guin, who wanted someone versed in the English ballet tradition for Aurora, who falls into an enchanted sleep until her prince comes along to wake her. “Bridgett’s name just kept coming up, over and over. I would read reviews, and see clips of her, and I said, ‘This is the girl that I want for this role.’”
A company of 52 people all told will perform the ballet, which is perhaps the ne plus ultra of the imperial Russian ballet style, and the one that most people think of when they think of classical ballet. Its familiar story of magic and true love is expressed in world-renowned set pieces such as the “Rose Adagio,” accompanied by one of Tchaikovsky’s most familiar tunes.
“I think for the female ballerina, as hard as ‘Swan Lake’ is, I think ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is harder,” Guin said, in part because the dancer has to do so much work. “In Act I, she has three solos and the Rose Adagio, all in that act, which is as much as most people would do in an entire ballet. And then in Act II, she has two more variations and a coda. And then you go to Act III, and she does the pas de deux, with male variation, female variation, and coda.
“It’s just an incredible amount of dancing,” he said.
Also in the cast will be Shimon Ito, a member of the corps de ballet at Miami City Ballet who will be performing the Bluebird pas de deux with Boca Ballet student Sasha Lazarus, who attends the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, as Princess Florina. Clarissa Castaneda, a Boca Ballet student who will be attending the Juilliard School next year, will dance the role of the Lilac Fairy.
Guin is using the traditional choreography that Marius Petipa created for the show, but with changes and cuts.
“It has been edited for a contemporary audience. The ballet in its original form is nearly four hours. And even with all my editing, it’s the longest ballet that we do,” said Guin, who’s trimmed it to about two hours and 15 minutes.
The company will be performing the show at the University Theatre on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. It’s fairly complicated, with six different backdrops and substantial set changes between the Prologue and Act I, and again between Acts II and III. The action will pause briefly as the sets are changed to additional music from Tchaikovsky’s score.
“They are just very large transitions … I think we’re using every available rope at FAU,” Guin said.
Boca Ballet Theatre, which is in its 24th year, will present George Balanchine’s Serenade and Lew Christensen’s Con Amore in its summer show Aug. 1 and 2, and from Sept. 4-6 will host the South Florida College Dance Fair at its offices on Northwest Sixth Avenue, where young dancers can take master classes and meet with representatives of dance departments at nine universities.
The educational mission is central to the company’s work, and Guin rotates out six major ballets —Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppélia, Le Bayadère and Romeo and Juliet — so that during the six years when his students are able to dance en pointe around ages 11 to 12 until they graduate, they are able to take part in the most commonly performed classical ballets.
“I think with any dance education, if you don’t know what the classics are, it’s hard to branch out. It’s not just about that anymore, but that’s why we’re doing ‘Sleeping Beauty,’” he said.
And with a score by the greatest 19th-century ballet composer to a story that includes good and evil fairies, an enchanted kingdom, and love at first sight after a magical kiss, Sleeping Beauty offers the full classical ballet experience to devotees and newcomers.
“I think it’s Tchaikovsky’s grandest score … there’s nothing better than a glass of merlot and listening to ‘Sleeping Beauty,’” he said. “And it’s amazing to dance to because it makes you dance.”
The Sleeping Beauty will be performed at 7:30 p.m. May 1 and 2, and 2 p.m. May 3 at the University Theatre, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton. Tickets are $35 for adults and $25 for children and seniors. Call 995-0709 or visit www.bocaballet.org.