In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale Alice in Wonderland, a tardy white rabbit wearing a watch is the first clue that young Alice has slipped into a world of fascination and strangeness.
The White Rabbit also appears in Ballet San Antonio’s new production of Alice in Wonderland, running March 3-5 at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, along with a cast of familiar characters including the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.
Carroll’s story was first adapted for ballet by British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon in 2011 as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Since then, many choreographers have taken turns telling Alice’s tale through movement and gesture in their own styles.
Returning after a successful 2019 production of Alice with Ballet San Antonio, California choreographer Brian Enos brings new spins to the ballet, with energetic solo and ensemble pieces that challenge dancers in positioning and comic timing, contained in movement not normally associated with the ballet stage.
“It’s an interesting full-length ballet because the vocabulary of the movement is not completely classical,” Enos said. Drawing on his own history with multiple styles of dance, Enos said he incorporated “elements of jazz dance, and elements of contemporary stuff, and modern, and all of that intertwined with ballet to help deepen character development.”
And in keeping with Carroll’s indelible cast of surrealistic creatures, “each character has their own movement vocabulary that defines them,” Enos said.
Real-world characters such as Alice, played by Brenna Mulligan and Sofie Bertolini, dance in a more classical style, while Wonderland creatures like the White Rabbit, played by Andrea Huynh, adopt contemporary movements to heighten their panic and anxiety.
Enos’ choreography is joined by digitally projected backdrops by visual artist Louis Grané, whose animated images create a lively, psychedelic set for dancers to interact with as Alice’s story unfolds.
Other Alice productions do not incorporate video animation to such an immersive degree, Enos said, which makes this production unique. The collaboration with Grané has been artistically fruitful, Enos said, given that the animator had never before worked in live theater and brought new perspective to the staging.
“He thought about things in ways that those of us that work in live theater regularly might not ever have thought about,” Enos said. In particular, transitions between scenes are normally framed by stagehands moving physical objects on and off stage. “[Grané] was able to really imaginatively rethink transitional moments between scenes, and also how it interacted with the dancers on stage,” Enos said.
Having no physical set on stage also freed up his approach to choreography, he said. “I didn’t have to worry about set pieces encroaching on the danceable usable space, so it allowed me to just kind of go crazy with the choreography in a way that if I had a smaller canvas to work with, I wouldn’t be able to.”
Enos said he loved the 1951 Disney movie version of Alice in Wonderland growing up, and respects the iconic elements that audiences have grown to expect. Those key characters and elements remain essential parts of his production, which he said is deliberately family-friendly to appeal to both children and adults.
“But then there are little easter eggs thrown in for a more adult audience, little moments that people might pick up on” such as a slightly drunken reverie erupting out of the Mad Hatter’s famous tea party, Enos said. “But it really is a family show. It was designed to be for everyone.”
Ballet San Antonio’s Alice in Wonderland runs Friday through Sunday, with tickets available for four performances including weekend matinees.
