THE CORPSE BRIDE adapted by Niki Landau, directed by Paul Lampert, with Sarah Orenstein, Richard Greenblatt, William Vickers, Evelyn Hart and others. Presented by Theatre PANIK at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill). Friday (June 4) at 8 pm, Saturday (June 5) at 2 and 8 pm. $25, stu/srs $20. theatrepanik.ca. See listing.
When you’re one of the country’s prima ballerinas and you leave the dance stage, what’s your next step? For Evelyn Hart, who left the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 2005 and danced her swan song a year later in London, Ontario, her latest move seems like a natural fit.[rssbreak]
This weekend, she takes part in The Corpse Bride, a movement-theatre piece based on a Yiddish folk tale about an unlikely marriage between a young bridegroom and a dead bride.
Tim Burton made a film of the same name a few years ago, but Hart points out that he didn’t draw on the story’s Jewish origins the way adapter Niki Landau has.
“It’s set in a shtetl and is very stylized, and we’ve been working on finding clarity in the movement,” says Hart on the phone from her home in Toronto, where she’s lived since leaving the Royal.
The piece is being compared to The Overcoat, but Hart says the latter is much more choreographed.
“Corpse Bride isn’t mime, but it’s also not particularly choreographed. It’s natural movement, just accentuated and heightened. It’s sort of like the experience you get watching a silent film.”
Hart’s involvement in the show (she plays the title character’s mother) came about via her association with director Paul Lampert, one of her acting teachers at the Players Academy when she was making the transition from her former career.
She currently coaches a few ballet students and performs and teaches with ProArte Danze. But is she interested in a future career as an actor?
“I was, until I realized you have to audition for the rest of your life,” she laughs. “I’m too chicken to do that.”
Still, she’s encouraged by dance-theatre hybrids that have cropped up recently, like the Irish troupe Fabulous Beast’s Giselle.
“In the early 1900s, most ballets were about story and theatre and personalities,” she says. “Only in the last 50 years or so did everything become about the steps.”
She’s come to terms with her departure from the Royal. Strangely for an artist of her stature, she wasn’t given a national tour with the company to say goodbye to her fans. She says that was partly because of miscommunication with the company, and an injury.
“Now, in hindsight, it was exactly right,” she says about the experience. “It’s what needed to happen. I’m resolved. It’s always going to be difficult for a dancer, especially if you’re a principal or soloist and if you’re 100 per cent absorbed in your career. But I’m grateful for having been able to dance for as long as I did. And with time I’ve been able to make the transition.”
Additional Interview Clips
On whether Hart thinks she could have danced more years at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet:
On whether it’s easier for dancers to leave the field now:
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