Wizard of Oz Ballet by the Grand Rapids Ballet School Junior Company: Review

(Theater--Land of Oz)

My wife got the ballet tickets from the neighbor.  (The neighbor had 4 tickets to the ballet, but was too busy to go herself.)

"Do you want to take the kids to the ballet?" my wife asked me.

"I don't need to see the ballet," I responded.

I do have as a long term goal to try to culture myself (see, for example, my Blogging the Canon project), but I haven't yet worked my way up to the age of classical ballet.  And at the moment, I lack all appreciation for it. I enjoy a good stage play, but 90 minutes of dancing with no dialogue?  That didn't sound fun to me at all.

"We should go, it will be fun for the kids," my wife said.

So, we went.

This was done by the Grand Rapids Ballet.  More info on this production is on their website HERE.

The ballet started with a short introduction by the choreographer.  Based on his introduction, it sounded like he had also been responsible for writing and creating this ballet, but it wasn't entirely clear.  Is this ballet entirely locally created.

On interesting tidbit I got from the introduction was that Frank L. Baum had spent time in West Michigan, and that portions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were apparently written while Frank L. Baum was staying in Holland, Michigan.  I had no idea.

The choreographer also said that the ballet was based more on the book than the movie.  Although in my opinion, the ballet seemed to be also heavily influenced by the movie. The music was often just riffs on the songs from movie, and the ending implied the whole thing was just a dream--something that was in the movie, but not the book.

Nor was the violence from the book reproduced in this ballet.  I suppose that's for the best.  But I kept waiting for the Tin Woodman to use his ax (as he often did in the book), but it never happened.  

Occasionally this produced gaps.  For example, in the ballet, the characters are saved from the poppy flowers by the mice (as was true in the book--in the movie they were saved by Glinda).  However, the ballet omitted the scene where the Tin Woodman saved the queen of the mice from the wild cat.  So it doesn't make any sense for the mice to save them in the ballet version.

But then, is a ballet supposed to make sense?  My wife, being Vietnamese, actually did not know the story of The Wizard of Oz, and only had a vague idea of what was supposed to be going on from watching the ballet.  Because the ballet was told only in dancing, and with no dialogue, the ballet kind of assumed that you know the general story of The Wizard of Oz, and didn't work too hard to make the story completely comprehensible to the uninitiated.  (e.g. When the Scarecrow gestured to his head, I knew that he was indicating that he wanted a brain, because I was already familiar with the story, but this wasn't at all clear to my wife.)  Perhaps that's true of all ballet adaptations?  I don't know.  This was the first full length ballet I ever saw.  (Not counting televised versions of The Nutcracker.)

From a technical standpoint, the ballet was excellent.  I mean, take my opinion with a grain of salt, because this was the first and only full ballet I ever saw.  The dancers were all incredibly talented and coordinated, they did all their leaps and jumps well.  It was impressive to behold.

Impressive, but... well, if you're not a ballet fan, then watching 90 minutes of just dancing can be a bit tiresome.

And, as someone who never really got into ballet, I've got to say: what's with all the dancing on the toes?  Who decided that ballet dancers always have to be dancing on their tip-toes?  Doesn't that cause all sorts of joint damage?  Can't they just dance like normal?

But, that's not to say there weren't highlights.  There were a few upbeat jazzy numbers that were fun.  The Wicked Witch did an excellent job, and final confrontation with her was suitably intense, both in terms of the music that accompanied it, and in terms of the acting.

When everyone returned to the Emerald City, there was then a really upbeat number that (in my humble opinion) should have closed out the performance.  But after this, we got a couple slower numbers as Dorothy makes her way back home.  (Or slowly awakens from a dream.  It's a little bit unclear what is happening at the end.)  My kids got very restless during these last couple of numbers.

Still, all in all, not a bad afternoon.  It's nice to see that there's some culture going on in the city.  Sometimes I get so caught up with my own daily grind (wake up, go to work, go to sleep), that I forget there are places right here in this city were people are taking time out of their busy lives to make art.  This ballet may not be my cup of tea exactly, but I'm glad people are doing it.