As up to date Angelenos, seeing the immersive “Little Ladies Ballet” may be as shut as we’ll ever get to stepping right into a time machine.
The collection of dance works about Louisa Might Alcott’s beloved nineteenth century novel are staged contained in the stately Victorian houses of Northeast L.A.’s Heritage Sq. Museum. Dancers and actors are wearing period-inspired costumes, from cap-sleeve pioneer clothes to Steampunk-style fashions. Earlier than every efficiency, the scene is ready by a narrator who speaks in a prim, puritanical accent harking back to a bygone period. And the manufacturing calls for the viewers’s full participation: as company, we’re invited to do all the pieces from go to the houses of the novel’s March sisters to step in to play roles to advance the plot.
We start by splitting off into small teams and following alongside as a personality — in my group’s case, the ladies’ rich Aunt March — leads us into the assorted homes the place the ballet can be staged. The present is intimate — dancers will not be even two toes away from viewers members, who’re granted restricted seating and house to face within the small rooms. They’re so shut you can hear the muffled sounds of their ballet sneakers on the carpet and might make eye contact, which feels each intimate and mildly discomfiting.
Directed and choreographed by Emma Andres, the expertise kicked off in Might with a spring iteration earlier than bowing its autumn manufacturing final month. In late November, the collection will conclude with a winter immersive earlier than staging a full-length model of the story on the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in December.
The trilogy emerged organically. “We wished to take this venture in steps to see the way it was going to develop and be obtained by audiences,” Andres mentioned. “Once I initially created the spring immersive, I didn’t know that I might be creating autumn and winter as effectively.”
Andres created the work with the intention of creating house in ballet for extra tales specializing in ladies. “The story of ‘Little Ladies’ is difficult, however I felt that it will be nice for narrative ballet,” she mentioned. “I see myself in all 4 of the sisters and I felt that they had been a gaggle of younger girls who may very well be inspiring for younger audiences to observe and take affect from. Regardless that they arrive from a time that’s 100 or so years earlier than our personal, they nonetheless have very relatable traits to us in 2024.”
Ellen Relac and Alberto Hernandez, as Meg March and John Brooke, carry out in a room of the L.A. Heritage Museum.
Constructed throughout the Victorian period, the Heritage Sq. Museum is in some ways the proper backdrop for this manufacturing.
“We don’t have the privilege of being in Harmony, Mass., the place Louisa Might Alcott grew up, however I really feel like Heritage Sq. actually exhibits the place we developed our efficiency, which was California,” Andres mentioned.
Dancing within the vintage houses required cautious planning. Fortunately, it turned out that pointe sneakers moved simply throughout the carpet-covered flooring. “[The carpet] type of acts like rosin so it offers this friction that’s really very nice and by no means slippery,” Andres defined.
Nevertheless, there have been different design challenges, significantly the low-hanging chandeliers. To forestall a disaster, the group measured all the rooms and taped down the scale of their house studio of Pasadena Civic Ballet. The dancers additionally walked the house and famous every bit of furnishings and potential pitfall throughout a costume rehearsal.
Denise Moses as Aunt March introduces a scene earlier than a gaggle of company.
Andres grew up dancing with the Pasadena Civic Ballet, which she attended from the age of 4 by 18. “It’s a really distinctive studio, as a result of they create all their very own ballets,” she mentioned, together with interpretations of Disney titles like “Peter Pan,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Snow White” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
The corporate has been directed by Diane De Franco Browne, Tania Grafos and Zoe Vidalakis since 2000. Browne served as manufacturing advisor on this venture. “I watched these three actually inventive ladies come collectively and create a really inspiring and inventive setting rising up,” Andres mentioned. “I feel that quite a lot of my ardour for the humanities got here from watching them as I grew up.”
Friends congregate outdoors of one of many Victorian buildings that comprise L.A.’s Heritage Sq. Museum.
The Pasadena native graduated from UC Irvine in 2020 with a BFA bachelor of nice arts diploma in choreography and a minor in literary journalism. After the pandemic hit, Andres moved again to Pasadena and have become supervisor of Pasadena Civic Ballet, serving to it construct a number of out of doors dance studios to maintain dance going reside. “Regardless that I used to be actually completely satisfied to be coming again, it was very tough having all of our college students on Zoom. However fortunately we transitioned again to reside fairly shortly,” mentioned Andres.
It was throughout that point that she first conceived of the concept for a “Little Ladies”-themed ballet. Cooped up inside, she watched Greta Gerwig’s 2019 tackle the traditional work and shortly after screened all three earlier feature-length movie diversifications (from 1933, 1949 and 1994) and browse the e-book.
“I’m glad I [first] learn it after I was older as a result of I really feel like I associated to it far more than I might have as a toddler,” Andres mentioned. “I really feel like translating it right into a ballet is a approach that youthful audiences can actually relate to it and the feelings of the characters and their personalities.”
She started by crafting a six-minute summation of the e-book for Pasadena Civic Ballet in 2021, that includes college students on the college. “I attempted to focus on key factors of their lives,” she mentioned. “I went immediately into Jo assembly Laurie after which immediately from there, the connection between John and Meg. As a result of when Meg begins to fall in love, that’s the primary time that Jo actually sees that their household may come aside when individuals begin rising up.”
From left, Chris Flores, Evan Hernandez, Ross Clark, Jacob Robleto and Alberto Hernandez carry out within the immersive “Little Ladies Ballet.”
She established every character’s character visually by creating recognizable dance motifs for every of the sisters, which reside on within the present manufacturing. “Every of the sisters has a pose that they do this symbolizes their pursuits and character,” Andres mentioned. “Jo holds her palms up like she’s studying a e-book, Amy like she’s portray a canvas with a paintbrush, Beth’s on a piano after which Meg’s are up by her face to represent an appearing masks.”
Dance sequences had been created as an instance scenes within the ladies’ lives together with Amy and Laurie’s courtship in Paris, Beth’s remaining days with Jo and Jo’s romance with professor Fredrick Bhaer.
‘Little Ladies Ballet’ returns for 2 performances this winter
The winter immersive runs Nov. 22-24 at Heritage Sq. Museum. Tickets are $60. The total-length ballet can be held Dec. 7 at Wilshire Ebell Theatre. Tickets begin at $28. For extra data, go to littlewomenballet.com
Andres made a deliberate selection for all of the sisters to bounce on pointe — apart from Jo, a personality who is unconventional in her tomboyishness. Jo dances with flexed toes.
“A few of our dancers will not be pointe dancers, however they’re glorious ballet dancers,” she mentioned. “If I really feel that somebody will play the character rather well, that’s extra vital to me than them doing pointe. However my hope for the full-length is that it’s going to simply be Jo not sporting them, to emphasise the concept that she’s not solely breaking societal norms as a girl of the time, however she’s additionally breaking ballet norms.”
The present itself is doing the identical.
Madison Marsh performs as Amy March. Dance sequences had been created as an instance scenes within the sisters’ lives.
