A new ballet adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" takes on a steampunk vibe and a contemporary bent.
Ballet Co.Laboratory's version is created by choreographer Christian Warner, who began dancing and teaching with the St. Paul company during the off-season of TU Dance, where he was a dancer until 2019. Originally from Houston and now based in New York City, Warner got his professional start in the performing arts at age 9 with a touring production of the musical "Oliver!" in 2003. He also played Young Simba on Broadway in Disney's "The Lion King" beginning in 2007.
Warner keeps the essence of the Bard's text alive in "Midsummer," but gives it a steamy and dangerous edge. His choreography switches up gender roles, heightens the disorientation of dreams, and uses the classic story to prod questions about justice, social structures and humans' relationship to nature.
He talks about the process in this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What went through your mind when you first started adapting "A Midsummer Night's Dream?"
A: [Artistic director] Zoe [Henrot] had expressed interest in having me craft on the company at some point, and we kept cycling through various titles or ideas. She stumbled across this book called "Shakespeare and the Stars: The Hidden Astrological Keys to Understanding the World's Greatest Playwright." When I read the text, I initially was rather upset. I felt like there was a lot of injustice within the text in terms of the way the gendered characters were moving. I felt it was exposing the depths of a heavily patriarchal religious system.
Q: What were some of the ways you were trying to deconstruct or push back against those patriarchal elements?
A: I think what "A Midsummer Night's Dream" does beautifully is show the contrast of many things. For instance, the women are put in these impossible circumstances that go against what their very desires are. Contrary to the Fae Queen, who is an example of divine feminism — untouched power in its purest form. All of these characters, in some way or another, are either tricked or fooled into desires that are not their own. So there's this heavy element of theft. In my rendition, I just wanted to really highlight in a nuanced way the polarizing energies.
Q: You frame the dance's beginning with Bottom's dream soliloquy. In what way is Bottom centered in your adaptation?
A: Using Bottom as a frame is very much within the text of Shakespeare itself. That text is an invitation to say, "We have a story to tell. We are the players of the story." It's an invitation to come with us to explore something in a different way.
Q: The way we think about identity and how identity plays out on stage has changed so much in recent years. What was your casting process like when taking into account the identities of the performers?
A: To me, it was very important to acknowledge who was in the room. Something that I have always questioned in ballet specifically is that need to uphold the gender of particular roles for period pieces. In this day and age, I question if that's necessary when I'm looking at a room of people who don't fit these identities perfectly. Shakespeare has already given us the landscape to undo the binary a bit. I think there are definite queer undertones in the original text of the story. Having the opportunity to alter or change the gender of who's articulating wasn't necessarily the biggest issue for me. I felt confident that we'd be able to justify it, because under the spell, gender does not matter. It's about desire and innateness that's within us.
Q: Early in the piece, sound designer Andrew Bocher layers urban sounds, like cars driving by, into the score. How do sounds of the city figure into a story set in the woods?
A: Andrew and I share an affinity and admiration of nature. I took a walk one day and I said, you know, let me just put my phone in my pocket and just capture the sound of what we're doing. I live in Washington Heights, so I try to go to this little park every day. On my walk there, I'm seeing construction, I'm seeing smoke, I'm seeing all of these things, and then when I get into the greenery, I'm at peace. So the sound was this examination of our encroachment upon what's already there.
'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
When: 7 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., Luminary Arts Center, 700 N. 1st. St., Mpls.
Tickets: $40. 612-333-6669, luminaryartcenter.com
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