With the colder weather and upcoming holidays, people might be looking for something to do indoors other than going to the usual old movie. With the holidays coming, there are many ballet performances, but most of them are of the same tired ballet, “The Nutcracker.”
Eastern Michigan University has decided to put a fresh spin on the December ballet performance by performing the more unique, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream Ballet.”
“It has such a wonderful story,” said Emma Fitzhugh, a dance major at EMU who plays a fairy in the upcoming production.
The ballet is based on George Balanchine’s dance choreography of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with music composed by Felix Mendelssohn that will be played by EMU’s symphony orchestra. The director of dancers is Sherry Jerome and the leader of the symphony is Kevin Miller.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a play written by William Shakespeare in the mid 1590s. It is about four jealous lovers who find themselves in an enchanted wood as part of a plan to foil a wedding. When one of the lovers falls in love with a fairy from the wood, things start getting more complicated. The fairies decide the best course of action is to erase all of the people’s memories by touching a flower to the people’s eyelids.
Throughout the main plot, there are smaller complications due to a group of actors putting on a holiday show, in spite of how bad they are at acting.
“I am excited about doing this performance,” Miller said. “It is like observing a conversation between two geniuses: Shakespeare and Mendelssohn.”
When conducting a ballet, the timing between the music and the dancers must be just right since the dancers are used to a certain speed or tempo. Miller admits to some challenges with the performance space in Pease Auditorium.
“Because we don’t have a pit at Pease Auditorium, the orchestra is on stage behind the dancers,” Miller said. “This means I’m conducting with my back to them, so I frequently have to turn one way or the other to see the dancers.”
The conductor of the orchestra is not the only one facing challenges during the ballet. There are 4 to 5 different rehearsals for the dancers a week, a schedule that varies for the different parts.
“It’s a very physical ballet,” said Bobby Woodruff, an anthropology major, who has been dancing for twenty years and plays Lysander in the production. “But people are going to have to come and find out what that means.”
Kyla Parks, an electronic media and film studies major, plans to see the show as an assignment for her Jazz 101 class.
“I am not familiar with Shakespeare’s play, but it looks interesting,” said Parks. “Hopefully, this play will make me want to see future shows the dancers will be in.”
The performance will take place on Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in Pease Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students and $6 for seniors and children. Pease Auditorium is located at the corner of West Cross and College Place.
“Anyone can do the Nutcracker,” Woodruff said. “But only EMU students can pull off the fantastic, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
