Alberta Ballet’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello runs until October 27 at the Jubilee Auditorium
DETAILS
Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
Thursday, October 25 - Saturday, October 27
More in: Dance
Alberta Ballet is everywhere — on the world stage, the big screen, even the cover of Joni Mitchell’s latest album, Shine. “The artistic community is quite impressed with how far we’ve come,” says artistic director Jean Grand-Maître. “Ten years ago, Alberta Ballet was considered a little Prairie company. Now there is international interest in our company — we have already toured to China and Quebec before starting our (current) season at home.”
Alberta Ballet opens its 41st season with a Shakespeare classic, Othello, part of a three-year Shakespeare cycle. Grand-Maître commissioned Kirk Peterson, ballet master at the American Ballet Theatre, and an accomplished choreographer from the United States with over 50 choreographies under his belt, to create the piece. “Kirk’s creations are very dramatic and athletic. I knew that he would be a great choice for our audience here,” says Grand-Maître.
Peterson was given the freedom to choose his favourite Shakespeare play and opted for Othello, one of the Bard’s greatest tragedies. The play revolves around love, jealousy, deceit, revenge and murder. Othello, a Moor, marries Desdemona and promotes Cassio to the position of lieutenant. But Iago, who wanted to marry Desdemona and obtain the promotion, takes revenge on Othello.
“Although Othello is primarily about four people, I felt that it could be fleshed out and made into a much larger work,” says Peterson. With elaborate choreography, the dance version of Othello is still closely tied to its original text. “I wanted the ballet to be very accurate, so when I was stuck or couldn’t remember a particular transition, I would always refer to the written play,” he adds. “My goal was to create something that really explores ballet technique in a contemporary way and at the same time athletically push the dancers.” Further to creating powerful scenes, Peterson has created six duets for the ballet, with each pas de deux expressing a particular emotion. “I enjoy finding ways for dancers to work well together,” he says. “You have to find the right nuances and find a way to put words into movement and make that as clear as possible.”
Peterson has choreographed Othello mainly to Jerry Goldsmith’s movie score The Wind and the Lion. “Goldsmith used North African ideas, musical sonorities and different textures from that whole area of North Africa and the Middle East. Intermixed with his wonderful classicism, you have this extraordinary meshing of western sound with North African sound,” says Peterson. “There are parts in that score which often make me think that it was written especially for this ballet.”
Because the score wasn’t long enough for the entire ballet, Peterson had to find more music and went through all of Goldsmith’s scores and hand-picked pieces that would complement The Wind and the Lion. In that process, based on orchestration and rhythm, Peterson used a number of musically related scores to develop a voice for his two main characters, Othello and Iago.
Othello promises to be a visual delight. Dancers will be wearing colourful costumes borrowing on African designs, incorporating different cultural aspects of the whole continent. “We talked about the colours of Africa as the spices of Africa,” says Peterson. “We wanted to evoke the smells of Africa, such as cinnamon and saffron, through fabrics and colour.”
Peterson hopes that audiences will walk away having experienced a theatrical event that they will remember for a long time. “I have painted Othello with a very large palette and a very broad brush,” he says. “If audiences look beneath the surface, they will discover multi-layers of intent and desire and recognize the play in its entirety.”
