Showing @ Festival Theatre until Sat 15 Jan
Arriving to the ball in a horse-drawn carriage is so last season. If you’re after something really attention-grabbing, it has got to be the latest trend in fairy tale transport: turning a pumpkin into a hot air balloon and flying in with intrepid postmodern glamour.
And so sets the tone for Scottish Ballet’s Cinderella, which comes to life in a traditional-yet-current fusion of pure dance for the enthusiasts and enough comedy and plot for the less ballet-savvy. Anthony McDonald’s sets are fantastically elaborate and playful, from poor Cinderella’s ceiling-high pile of washing up, to her wicked stepmother’s all-dominating androgynous portrait with its evil glowing eyes, to the hideous, gigantic animal feet of the Prince’s suitors.
Choreographer Ashley Page manages to create faux-dance-beginners of endlessly pure Cinderella (Sophie Martin) and her stepsisters when they first put on their ballet slippers, which makes for unique viewing, creating awkward movements and body shapes rarely seen in dance, let alone ballet. It is at times like these that Page’s vision really shines, the highlight of which is the separation of Cinderella and the Prince (Adam Blyde) at midnight, where both the harsh music and energetic dancing become an overwhelming throng of chaos, rigidity and brutality in an otherwise gentle love story.
The stepsisters (Sophie Laplane and Kara McLaughlin) are deliciously awful; graceless, vulgar and cruel. They bond together in a cohesive kind of disarray – an undeveloped version of their domineering and assertive mother (Eve Musto). The trio are truly abhorrent villains who, rather than cutting their noses off to spite their face, cut their toes and heels off in the hope of squeezing into Cinderella’s slipper.
One can’t help but be overawed at the dancers’ physical strength, technicality and muscular slenderness. But the truly exciting thing is that Scottish Ballet are heading in a brave direction, pushing themselves towards experimentation and progression whilst still keeping their traditionalist audiences happy. They are definitely ones to watch.
Now, where did I tie up my pumpkin?