Par Phyicia Leavitt
Stitching the steps of Cinderella
Step past unmarked doors and the backdrop of the workday falls away; you see the public from inside a sort of inverted aquarium of one-way windows. A ticket in hand for the ballet, Cinderella, you're ushered single-file onto an escalator, lifted floor by floor past a tetris of distorted blocks. Your last passage, a dark red artery into the heart of the Royal Opera House of Mascate. Breathless, you're suspended in a black shell protected from the vibrations of train cars, high speed signals, the time ticking. You want to know the clockwork behind the magic.
From a distance you hear the pattering of pas de bourré, the ballet coming together a step at a time. "Badidaduh, two, three four. Un, deux, trois hop. Chee-ca-tee, step, step ferme, " goes the rhythm of a pas de trois between cinderella and two mice. The rehearsal director guides the dancers to refine each flick of wrist or slipper. "Soyez plus significative avec vos gestes." She details the spirit of the choreography, created in 1985 by Maguy Marin, while still allowing for the dancers' idiosyncrasy. "Ca peut-être ton petit personnage, " she says as she leads the three circling back to stage right, the mice having shuffled their feet a bit off beat. She signals them to start from the beginning, propping her hands like paws below her chin and giving a wink.
The trio move in unison, the turns and leaps so classical in form yet playful and quirky in nature. Marin transforms the original fairy tale of Cinderella into a toy story, combining movements of loosely screwed limbs and bouncing tumbles. The dancers toss and turn in masks with the piercing gaze of a china doll forgotten atop an armoire. They bobble about in controlled imbalance, as if the weight of their disproportioned head were propped up by a string. Spinning figurines brought off their axles, joggled and jerked in each direction as if the object of a tug-a-war.
You wonder how they stay on the tip of a toe, how they manage not to spin out of control. The timelessness of Cinderella, just as any performance at the opera, isn't constructed with the flick of a godmother's wand one might imagine after a Disney film. This finesse is achieved by the tedious stitching of mice tucked away in rehearsal, perfecting every inch of movement before opening day.
