It's all about Alice
By JAMES D. WATTS JR., 07/26/2009
Dancers from the Monica Huggins Dance Theatre in a scene from "Project Alice" are Viviane Wolfe, CrystalRose Stewart, Lauren Weiner, Blakley Alden, Valeria Cordero, Jennifer Alden, Hillary Pane, Livia Nina-Gosnell. Courtesy
Contemporary dance group creates a story ballet
One of Jennifer Alden's ambitions for the Monica Huggins Dance Theatre was to create something not usually associated with a contemporary dance group: a full-length story ballet.
"But we had some definite ideas about the kind of story ballet we wanted to do," Alden said. "We wanted something that would appeal to adults without being inappropriate for children, that would allow us to play a bit with the form and break through the 'fourth wall' between the audience and the stage."
What they came up with is "Project Alice," a show that mixes pop music by acts ranging from the Doors and Jefferson Airplane to The Chemical Brothers, original choreography, narration and video projections to create a distinctive re-telling of the stories in Lewis Carroll's novels "Alice's Adventures in Wonderful" and "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There."
The work, titled "Project Alice," will have its debut this weekend at the Nightingale Theatre.
Alden adapted Carroll's two novels into two acts and choreographed the majority of the dance segments. She collaborated with fellow dancer Valeria Cordero on one segment, and Cordero choreographed three pieces herself. MHDT founder Katherine Feiock created the movement for one section.
An actor will serve as narrator, setting up each scene with quotations from the novels.
"I really love the poetry that's in the books, and this was a way to incorporate it into the show," Alden said.
And while there is a little girl dressed up in the traditional garb of the storybook Alice, at various points in the course of the production, the audience itself becomes "Alice."
"It's not that we're going to make people in the crowd get up and dance," Alden said, laughing. "But some people may be handed props, or be addressed directly. We wanted to give the audience the chance to experience what it's like to be Alice in this dream-like world."
Even so, Alden said, there is a serious theme underlying the playful story. Each of the characters Alice encounters in her adventures embodies a particular psychological condition. The Mock Turtle, for example, stands in for depression, while the matched set of Tweedledee and Tweedledum represent bi-polar disorder, and the Cheshire Cat is the embodiment of schizophrenia.
"Sometimes the things we see in our dreams represent things in our lives," Alden said. "And the characters in 'Alice' represent these certain parts of ourselves."
Alden has been a part of the Monica Huggins company since 2007, moving here from Oregon. Soon after she joined the company, founder and artistic director Feiock moved to Austin, Texas, and Alden took on the responsibilities of company manager.
The company has eight dancers, and Alden has hopes "Project Alice" will represent the first step into a new future for the company.
"I would like to see us get to the point where this is a professional company," she said. "I'd like to be able to take a show like 'Project Alice' on tour, into schools, and the like. And I think it's something that possible, because I think the company has really come along well in the last few years."
"Project Alice"
When: 8 p.m. July 31 and Aug. 1, 7 and 8; 2 p.m. Aug. 2 and 9
Where: Nightingale Theatre, 1416 E. Fourth St.
Tickets: $18 adults, $12 students, $10 children. Call 269-8304.