Transcript
Speaker: I'm Chris Farenthold, Director of Outreach at Madison Ballet, and this is at the Bar, your behind-the-scenes look at the ideas, stories, and creative processes shaping Madison Ballet's work.
Speaker: Each episode brings our community a little closer to the dancers, choreographers, and collaborators who are making ballet in Madison right now. Whether you're a seasoned ballet domain, current or former dancer, or simply curious about how dance gets made, we warmly invite you into the room where it happens.
Speaker: Hello, and welcome back to At the Bar with Madison Ballet. I'm Chris Farenthold, Outreach Director at Madison Ballet, and today i am thrilled to be joined by the two people most responsible for what you see on stage, Artistic Executive Director Jamalik and rehearsal director and principal of the School of Madison Ballet, Richard Walters.
Speaker: Both are also choreographers, whose beautiful work you've seen here with the company, and both are at work on a collaboration for Madison Ballet's opening show of its 45th anniversary season, Jekyll and Hyde, which you can see at My Arts in Madison, Wisconsin this October.
Speaker: with a preview on Thursday, October 29th, and then performances continuing through Sunday, November 1st. Thank you both so much for joining me today on the podcast.
Speaker: Thank you. Great to be back for our 45th anniversary season. We're excited. Last year on our previous episode, Sha, you talked a little bit about your journey into dance and we've not yet met Richard Walters. So Richard, I'm just curious a couple things. First of all, how did you first start getting into both dance and then ballet? And then how did you find your way to Madison?
Speaker: Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm the youngest of four, and I do have an older sister. And so I feel like my story may be similar to others in the sense that me and my brother actually both playing sports about a year and a half apart. You know, we were doing the, you know, soccer and the baseball and the football and my sister danced at this local school.
Speaker: and started teaching. She's older than us and started teaching and wanted some boys in her class. And so sourced from home and then got us into it. And so I was about eight years old when I started.
Speaker: And this was just like a regular jazz kind of boys class. And from that point, you know, I wasn't sure I was really into sports. But then my mother was very adamant that, you know once we started something, we finished it. So all the way from September went all the way to June. And then as soon as I was on that stage and I saw those lights, I have a a vivid memory of of it just being like this incredible experience of like, wow, what is this? And so from that point, that really started my journey. I started at a local school doing a bunch different styles. Once I got to about 13, we had this new ballet teacher that joined our school. And from that point, I was just hooked. And I was like, if I could just do this forever. This would be the coolest job ever. And so I just really kind of dug into it. From there, you know, kept my training, went to conservatory for ballet, and then danced in classical and contemporary companies.
Speaker: And so I was dancing in Philadelphia at this time. And then I moved to New York to start kind of freelancing. This is towards my end of my career. And I was really exploring choreography and teaching. And I actually found through a a mutual friend in New York that there was a company looking for a rehearsal director. I was transitioning out of my performing and I was like, I want to you know explore this and I want to go into this. So we connected online. I applied for the role and then here I am in Madison. and of course, I came in and visited the company and taught some class during their spring show. And from there, became a member of the Madison Ballet.
Speaker: Wonderful. So today i have you both here to talk about our first show of the year. Our first main stage production is Jekyll and Hyde, and it is a new production choreographed by you two, Jamalik and Richard Walters.
Speaker: And it is to music that is not specifically Jekyll and Hyde. Ja, if you wouldn't mind first taking this on, could you explain what music we're going to be listening to and how it first came into your mind that this might be the kind of thing that a Jekyll and Hyde ballet might be born from?
Speaker: So the music is by Michael Nyman, who is a composer that I have been enamored by and kind of immersed into since I was a kid. Lots of choreographers have used his work for different ballets throughout my life, some that I've had the honor of being in, some that I've had the honor of seeing. So his music has always been a part of my life. In 2018, there was a movie called McQueen, which was about the life of Alexander McQueen, the famous fashion designer from the house of McQueen. and he composed the score for that movie.
Speaker: I am already a huge fan of Alexander McQueen. Such a tragic time when he passed away, and I thought this movie just captured his life brilliantly, his short life brilliantly. And Michael's music really set the scene, and the tone of the movie beyond following his life it really gave you a real way to get inside of the mind of alexander mcqueen and take you to london and take you to scotland and his heritage and his background so the music has always lived with me since 2018. i think i told you last season to have a book of music that i'm interested in creating things too and i never knew exactly what i wanted to create to it
Speaker: When you're planning a season or planning seasons ahead, you try to think about time, what month is the performance going to be in, and it just so happened that this performance was going to happen around Halloween. And so I had two choices. I said, we can either do Frankenstein, which I feel like has been done by many ballet companies across America, including Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, just did it recently. or we can delve into something brand new, which would be Jekyll and Hyde, a ballet that has not been done many times. to my knowledge, it's only been done by one choreographer in America. And so it was a subject and a ballet that hadn't really been explored to me because I've never seen a version of it. I've seen the musical many, many years ago with David Hasselhoff. and then later with Deborah Cox in it.
Speaker: And I still couldn't tell you much about the musical beyond Deborah Cox's great voice. But of course, this is ah a story that I've read in high school. It's been a part of my life for a long time. And so in creating the season, I came to Richard and I said, what do you think about Jekyll and Hyde? And Richard was on board for it.
Speaker: And so when I thought about the music, I immediately thought about the Michael Nyman score for the McQueen movie, because like I said, it gives you so much vibe of London and Scotland. And that's where this whole story is taking place. So it all kind of just started to come together from there. I agree. The Nyman score for the McQueen documentary almost suggests a Jekyll and Hyde, even if it's not been used before. That's kind of surprising to me. It's dynamic music and also what a beautiful mind that also had a dark side that eventually consumed him.
Speaker: Yeah, to your point, I think that was the part that's like so fascinating was that these are two different artists from two different times, but Alex, the way his mind worked to create these beautiful fashions, but there was this dark undertone to his presentations and this, way to make you come to a fashion show and be put on edge. You're not just sitting there watching beautiful clothes, you're actually immersed into a whole experience. And so there's this juxtaposition between two sides, the light, the beauty that is fashion, and then the darkness that can be the fashion world or just the world in general. So I think him tapping into that side of his fashion through his music made me think immediately like, ooh, Jekyll and Hyde, that's perfect. Dual personality, two different points of view from one person.
Speaker: And the easy jump would be like, okay, you have a collaborator. So one of you is Jekyll and one is Hyde, but I've worked with both of you and i feel like I know you both pretty well. And I think you both have Jekyll and Hyde in you. So Richard, I'd like to hear what was your reception of the pitch like and what did you latch onto in terms of both the music and the story and as your point of departure for creating the piece?
Speaker: For this, I mean, like Joss said, you know, between the two ballets, there was that option of like Jekyll and Hyde, something new, something that maybe hasn't been seen as often. And that's just always exciting. And I feel like that's just been a lot of what we've been doing here is doing like a lot of new works and really pushing the envelope. I felt like with the story of Jekyll and Hyde, we can stretch it out, push the envelope of ballet and theater and story and characters. And so that's always exciting to me. He introduced me. to the score. He played like one track.
Speaker: I want to say it might have been time lapse or it might have even been like the very first track of the album. And I was like, yes, I listened to one song. It's like maybe 30 seconds. And I was like, I love it. And he's like, wait, I'll listen to the whole album and stuff. I'm like, I will. But sometimes you hear music and you're just like, that's it.
Speaker: I thought that was it, you know, and it's not always the case when you choreograph. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you're, you know, the story comes first or the music comes first. For me, at least I have, you know, my process can change sometimes. So When I heard it, was like, oh, this is great.
Speaker: There's this like drive in the music and so many of the tracks, even in the more slow and like beautiful tracks, there's still something underneath always that's like pushing us through. And I just feel like this is a great choice for Jekyll and Hyde. So I've really enjoyed listening to and starting to create to it because feel like this music just gives so much.
Speaker: It does feel very dynamic. I will say like the first time I'd listened to it, I think it was Jack the Ripper's Stocks' Victims was the track that I just like, I heard and I couldn't unhear. And I think that's the sign of a good piece of choreographical music.
Speaker: If we can get a little bit bare bones, what is the structure of the ballet that we will be seeing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Speaker: There are many arcs one could take. Is this a story of a man turning on himself? Is it the story of a society turning on itself? Is it a story of man and woman? What are we going to be seeing? And and what was the originating impulse for you?
Speaker: The thing that I came to Richard and I was saying was, even though it's during Halloween, I didn't want a bloody, gory, murdery tale. And I also didn't want the classic depiction that Jekyll is this doctor, this scientist, this person, and then Hyde is this gruesome, altered, mythical being kind of character that creates like a mutant almost.
Speaker: i didn't want that. So I definitely wanted it to be more of a psychological thriller. in that it's really delving into the mind of Jekyll in his quest to create this serum to almost like go outside of yourself, to become something that you've only dreamed about. And who knows what that will be once you take the serum? It could be sinister. It could be joyful. It could be Introvert versus the extrovert is all of that. So it's dealing with more of the like psychological side of it. i think all of us inherently have a Jekyll and Hyde in us at times, you know, I think there's times that we can be extremely brilliant, passionate and come across as one of the most amazing people in the world. And then there's times when we're at our lowest and we can just be downright correct.
Speaker: crude, rude, abusive, not to other people, but even to ourselves, you know, in thoughts and processes. So I wanted all of that to play into this story that we're creating. How does that affect the community that you live in, the community that you're around?
Speaker: Dealing with a view on the world of celebrity as well, pop culture celebrity. People are obsessed these days. with celebrities and turning them into what they want them to be as opposed as to who they are.
Speaker: We idolize these people that we don't know personally. We love their work as artists. We love their voices. We love their acting. We love their drawings, their paintings, their choreography. We love their dancing. but we don't really always know the person, but we've created this fantasy that there are these wonderful, amazing people that can do no wrong. And then the minute that they have their downfall, society is after them. Like, well, how could you? And I'm interested in that aspect of it as well, like including that thought process around celebrity.
Speaker: I think we really grabbed onto the characters and like the idea of the duality, right? The duality of life. There's so much there and what Jekyll and Hyde is either as people or as an idea. Like what I love about the psychological thriller aspect is that it creates like layers to this. And so you can look at it, you know, literally like this idea of like how we search for like this perfection or like success of this scientist or celebrity and what that can, you know, lead to. But the other side of that is, you know, the sacrifices and the turmoil and the struggle that you go through. and then there's a little bit of that like sci-fi aspect to it, right? Of this like serum that creates like this monster, this monster of like within. We're trying to pull from both aspects. There's people involved and there's a story and there's characters, but then it also kind of stretches into like the little bit of that fantasy realm of this serum that pulls this other side of you out and then how you interact with that. What happens when you come to terms with that other side, right?
Speaker: We do have both the forward-facing person, but also you know the worst version of that is you know violence or the anonymous online person. That lends itself very well to ballet, which is we might think of as a you know beautiful, and it is, art form.
Speaker: But it is an art form that even you know with Giselle requires life and death. you know There's death. So how does Jekyll and Hyde necessarily feel to you both as a ballet story?
Speaker: Well, that's great the way you brought that up, because that is the other thought in my mind is that ballet is looked at, especially when it's on point and it's presented in, you know, its classic form of Swan Lakes and Giselles, all white, ethereal, virginal, this almost like pristine thing that you can't touch. And that is one side of ballet that it it is asking us as dancers to be these amazing artists that have no feelings of pain or sorrow and everything looks effortless. But the truth is, the dark side of that is that you have bloody toes, you have broken ligaments and bones and sore backs and sore necks and black eyes and you get hit, you fall and you you know you're exhausted. You dance hours a week. You get three hours of sleep on a weekend. You know, it's exhausting and and we don't talk about that. And it's almost like shunned upon to talk about that. So that, you know, there's the duality there that we present this beauty on stage, but the process to get there is quite grueling. Even for us as choreographers, it's a lot of consideration. You know, you have to consider your dancers and consider casting and consider, will this feel good on this person? Will it not feel good on this person? Will it look good on this person? So even for us, there's not a way to just create in pure harmony. There's turmoil within that too, within the creation of beauty.
Speaker: But I do think that this material allows us to play more. It allows us the freedom to utilize our basement floor of technique, our basement floor of tradition, which is the classical ballet, not basement floor, but you know, like our base.
Speaker: Yeah, a given that everyone ah comes in with. Yeah, to use that, but then explore how can it be shown in a brand new way that's modern and contemporary. And people get so shy and so turned away when you say modern and contemporary. And it's like, it's okay, but that's the world that we live in. And I do think that there's a place to see your classical beauty. And there's a place to see that classical beauty transformed to an audience today. I want this to speak to someone who is a true ballet aficiado that loves the technique and loves everything about it. to be just as inspired as somebody who's never seen ballet before and has walked away and found something beautiful and amazing within what we're doing and that relates to them.
Speaker: And I think Jekyll and Hyde is a really great vehicle to bring and merge those two worlds together. yeah Richard, how did it inspire you to create movement from this subject matter? Because like we've been saying, we do all have this forward facing and dark side, but like how did you particularly climb onto that?
Speaker: Everything that John said is what tracks me to like ballet. We have this foundation and then we live in a contemporary world. How do we take that and then apply it here? And I think it's really about stretching that and finding that range of, you know, the technique or the shapes, the lines, all of those things. I use them in choreography all the time when I'm creating. It just depends on how much I want to bend the line. How much do I want to like stretch this out? And Jekyll and Hyde is perfect for that.
Speaker: You can think of Jekyll maybe the classicism and Hyde is like this contemporary modern if you wanted to. I'm actually kind of exploring that, you know, in the movement. And we've talked about that and like, how do we use the technique in the ballet to help push the character development? It feels right in line with what I try to do in all my works and like whatever it is that I create, how can I keep stretching it and pushing it? Because it's trying to still be able to show that this is ballet, this is point shoes, and this is how we stand and this is how we move, but it's evolved, right? What's the next level? It's so much more.
Speaker: Right. It's exciting. Every year as dance grows and evolves, it actually allows us to communicate through dance even better. You know, we can tell more intricate stories, more dynamic stories. And different perspectives.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Because if you think about it, the majority, i would say 80% of our story ballets are based on who? The ballerina. Mm-hmm. This story is actually based off of the male dancer. So this gives a great opportunity to not only present a new story, but it also gives us a great opportunity to explore the male voice as the lead protagonist, as the lead character, as opposed to Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, Don Quixote, even though the word is Don Quixote, but the story is all about Ketri. How do we start giving other people chances, telling their stories and showing different sides of stories? That's another reason that I was really attracted to both Frankenstein and Jekyll. And of course, Jekyll won over because I was also interested in how do we get the men dancing more? How do we get to share one of their stories? How do you create a synthesis of the two of you in a full length ballet that is a collaboration
Speaker: That specifically has as its subject a dark side, light side, duality of man type thing. So I guess I'll just ask you both. First of all, what's your process? How did y'all work together? And then I think the more interesting question of what did you learn from We have different creative processes and it's it's always really fun during the past seasons when you know he's choreographing, I'm choreographing, we're both choreographing at the same time. Always when we check in, you know we both can you know leave the studios at the same time and be in completely different places in our own process. And it's always really interesting to have those conversations because it sometimes fluctuates. To me, I feel like in my process, there's always like the birth,
Speaker: the death and then the rebirth of it. There's always a point I get to where I'm like, I got to scrap everything I'm doing. And then I'm always like stressed. It's always really nice. Sometimes when that that cycle is like we're an opposite, because then, you know, he'll kind of pick me up be like, no, just keep doing this or doing that, you know, and vice versa. And I feel like with this, it started with the music and then actually had like a bit of an outline. He kind of was like, hey, i'm I have this story. And then I kind of just jumped in. I was like, this is great. Like, I want to like dig into the story and in each scene and like characters and like what is like the essence of it. And so I feel like the moment where we started together is kind of there, like in that outline, in that story. From there, it's been taking its own journey. And i think it's a process of its own. There's the process of choreographing the story and there's also the process of collaborating and that's still ongoing and that's evolving and I think it's still kind of like changing.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree. And this is like my first time working on a ballet collaboratively with another choreographer. So it's been working out really well and really smooth. Because like Richard said, I know this music very well. like I mean, that first year of 2018, I think I listened to the soundtrack like every day on repeat because I was just so obsessed with it. So I know the music extremely well.
Speaker: I kind of had some ideas around it and came in with like a very scattered script and plot and plan and We kind of went back and forth and started adding stuff and taking away stuff and adding stuff. And the beauty of it and creation is that it's still doing that. It's still doing that live in the moment where we're creating. Because the thing that I discovered when I created my first story ballet, which was Midsummer a couple years ago, that one act beautiful ballet of Midsummer Night Dream.
Speaker: was when you start creating, other questions come up. Other things come up from the dancers, other things come up from me as a choreographer, even things come up from the rehearsal director asking why did this go here or this go there? So that's happening live in the process for both of us. So we can actually be in the room. And what's great is that we've divided it in certain ways where He's working on a certain scene, I'm working on a certain scene, then there's scenes that we're working on together. But for the scenes that we're not collaboratively creating together, it's great that both of us are in and out of the room to look and ask questions and say, well, what about this? And how about this? And try things and take away things. And then other beauty that we normally don't have is that we actually gave ourselves enough time. We gave ourselves around six weeks to create this because you need it when you're creating. I mean, we probably use eight weeks, but we got at least six to create a new story ballet. Because story ballets take a lot of time.
Speaker: It's almost like putting on a musical. You want to make sure that your through line is making sense from the beginning to the end. And you didn't just jump off into a brand new story out of nowhere and the audience is completely lost. And then we're dealing with the elements of adding Brand new costumes that we've never seen that we will see, adding beautiful projections and lighting and stage scenery that is all being created at the same time. So all of this will fully come into fruition and we'll see what it looks like when it all comes together the week that we move into the theater. But we're trying to emulate certain things in the studio, like we're trying to find a way to have tables and set pieces and props in the room so we can start to get an idea of what is actually going to
Speaker: happen here. It's been really fun. I'm really enjoying it. As I was telling Richard, like last week, we only have about a hundred steps in the ballet vocabulary. There's not a lot of steps that we have, but the thing that we have to figure out is how to take those steps that we've had for over 300 years. How do we take these hundred steps and transform them into new combinations for each and every piece? Also thinking about that you're usually in the vicinity of a rectangle.
Speaker: You know, you can move right and left, up and down. You can diagonal it and all that kind of stuff, but the basis of it is 100 steps, up, down, right, left. How do you make new combinations and new stories out of that? So that's the challenge for any choreographer, any creative that is working with movement. So the beauty of is that when we get, as choreographers, which we all get, i don't believe a single choreographer will tell you differently, that they don't get to a point where they have like, I don't have a single idea left. I don't know what to do. But the beauty of working with a collaborator in a collaborative environment is that when that moment happens, I'm so grateful that he's there. Like there was one day we started last week and we kind of tag teamed like we were WWF fighters. I created a little something that was basically like smack hands, tag, you're in now. yeah And that was great because I was like, I was going, I was on a roll and all of a sudden I was like, inspiration is gone. What do you got?
Speaker: And he has something in his head. So it's great that sometimes you get to sit back and watch and then get inspired, then start creating and do the same, you know, vice versa. So. Yeah. And to jump off of that, there was a moment I was working on ah a scene and I just kind of getting stuck, going a little bit, getting stuck, going a little bit, of getting stuck. And then Ja came in and was like, you said one thing, you were just like, i think you can be there longer. I think we can develop that. i was like, yes, I was like, that's just like that one thing. And then from that moment created this other moment that I was just like, oh, that's right. You just know when a moment is right when it happens in the studio and you're like, yes, that's where we need to be. To me, it's like I'm uncovering, you know, archaeology. You're like brushing the the dirt away from the fossils and the bones. That's to me is like choreographing and sometimes you need to step back. right and having another person there to come in from the outside like even at the end of the rehearsal coming in with the fresh eyes and going oh this or this or you know what be there longer that looks great but you just left it and you're like absolutely going back to like the steps thing it's so true and and for me there being a narrative it's really exciting because you know i've been able to kind of come in and then like utilize his phrases but then use in a different way i love the idea of that It's like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing, right? Like I can take this step, but I'm going to twist it. So there's like trying to also create consistency, right? We have two choreographic voices. And so we want to tell, you know, a cohesive story. I have found that there's actually like a lot of material there. And now it's like pushing the paint around.
Speaker: It's all there. And so it's either you're uncovering it or I'm like pushing the pain around. And it's been really nice. I think even at times feeling like there's moments of like some abundance, which is always good because you you can take away. I've definitely been in a process where it's like, I didn't feel like there was enough there. And then that's scary. But for this, it feels like it's all there and it's just, you know, moving it around.
Speaker: What you both have been trying to tackle is the collaborative exercise of do you pick up on something that someone else is doing or do you introduce your own thing?
Speaker: And the thing is, it's both, it seems. How would you describe the movement that we will see in Jekyll and Hyde? What will they be looking at and how much will it look like you?
Speaker: How much will it look like Madison Ballet? It'll look like Madison Ballet because it is Madison Ballet. The thing that I, for me as a choreographer that I've always really tried to reach for is I definitely have ideas and concepts and choreography in my head and I definitely put it out on the dancers, but I've always told them every dance i've worked with since I started choreographing, I don't want you to look like me.
Speaker: I want you to take the steps. I want you to show me yourself. I want to see what you can bring to it because I don't think any two dancers, I don't care who they are, whether they're twins or not, dance the same. i don't want to see all dancers on stage looking the same. I will be... the first one to fall asleep. I want to see personalities. I want to see where you come from, different trainings, different body types, different abilities, and how do you interpret movement into that form.
Speaker: What really was getting fascinating and is still becoming even more fascinating is that I think that particular rehearsal that you watched, the idea that I came up with was actually for one of the male characters, which was for Hyde.
Speaker: And then I thought to myself, these women are just as strong, not stronger than the men. I had the women learn it, and I ended up actually having them do it.
Speaker: And I have the opposite of that. There was a a solo that Richard created. I think he created it for everyone. and it was a very softer, like, lyrically, you know, kind of movement. I immediately thought, oh, this would be beautiful on the woman. And then, because I had that concept of, oh, let's see what it looks like on the guy. So the guys I had doing that, and somehow it worked out that these two characters...
Speaker: are doing opposite what was created, but it worked. I feel like there's going to be even more moments like that. i don't know what it's going to look like yet, but I do know it's going to look very new and individual. And that's one of the things that I wanted is that I wanted Madison to have something that was specifically created here that really represents and shows our dancers in the absolute best light for a story ballet.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, for me, it's like the collaboration is what is exciting as you know a creator, because I'm excited to see like what voice vocabulary comes out from us working together and like merging. Every time that I've collaborated with other choreographers, I felt like there's a piece that's like leftover from them that they share and that I get to now have.
Speaker: And then I hope, you know, the same vice versa, right? Like you grow and you develop and I've been really enjoying taking phrases of his and then putting my stuff into it and seeing the phrase that I made that he used and how he used it when we're creating separately, that doesn't really happen. You know, in any company, when you're working with a bunch of dancers, there's always like this osmosis of like creativity and energy that gets shared. This is like that to the max. And so Yeah, I'm really excited too to see what, you know, when we finish it, like what that image is and what that story is Because I feel like it's really interesting when any two people kind of come together, creatives and artists putting our paints together, or blending the colors and things. Yeah. Before we leave the actual process to get into the production itself, how much is trust important?
Speaker: I think it's huge. I think trust is super important. Yeah. I mean, you're... going into it already, you know, willingly. So there there is a level of trust. There's like a range of it, right? Because you do want to let the idea kind of develop and you want to share ideas. I will say that, you know, Zha, you know the music, you've listened to the music for years and I listened to it the first time. And so, and I'm also the creative where I like to just like stream of consciousness, like I will throw everything out. and It will be like,
Speaker: underdeveloped ideas, I just want to get it out. You know, whether it's writing down or saying it out loud and not everybody is like that, but that's for me, it's like, I want to throw it out there because I have no idea where the seed is going to land and maybe what type of tree or plant is going to grow in either somebody else's mind or maybe even mine. For me, it's like, I just try to to be like an empty and open container so I can receive as much info as possible and also just throw out as much as possible, knowing that a lot of it could just go right into the trash. That's very trusting and very beautiful.
Speaker: ja Is that also your posture? Not so much. No, I think yes, in a lot of ways, Jess. As far as trust goes, this is year five for us. The minute he decided to come on board and join me here at Madison Ballet, there was already, I was like, I trust him.
Speaker: I literally met him through a mutual friend. I don't even know if it was a mutual friend, but a mutual Facebook friend. Yeah. Because I had put out a ad that I needed a rehearsal director and if anybody had any recommendations. And he was one of the first people I met and I, I really dug him. I thought we had very similar backgrounds as far as our ballet training and our ballet careers that we both danced primarily ballet companies. But we also had moved on to contemporary sides of it. And we actually danced in the same company at different times at one point as well. We've created a lot of ballets here so far. He's staged a few of mine that had not been created here. But we're done here. So when he first staged one of my works and he didn't know who I was, I was impressed. I was like, this is a person who understands dance, who understands visuals. There was already a major trust for me. So I had no issues with delving into this collaboration.
Speaker: And I already knew how Richard worked and our brains work in such different ways that I think it helps because like I told Richard months ago, I love the way that his ballets, not just the dance, I love his visuals, like the way he used the mylar in one thing. And He had a contraption made for one of his ballets. And I enjoy that stuff. You know, I come from a very old school, balancing, blue scrim kind of way that once I started working at contemporary world, that turned into a black scrim. And I love black. I like just...
Speaker: clean stage, nothing on it, minimalist. But I knew in Delvin with a story ballet, I was like, there's a great opportunity for me to expand my point of view as an artist visually and lean into Richard's natural aesthetic of creating visual you know on stage. And I just thought the two of those work really well.
Speaker: With his movement vocabulary and my movement vocabulary, I just felt and I knew that there would be a way to combine these to make something that is really new and fresh and exciting. And that's what I'm seeing in the studio in this week and a half that we've been creating.
Speaker: Well, to say right first too, because like I said, I will throw all kinds of things out there and Jha's really good at like honing in. He's always been really good with all of his work of being like, we're going to focus on this and this is going to be the idea. And this is what we're exploring. It's good. Like sometimes for me, like I need to put the blinders on and go that way because it'll just go everywhere. mean, that's kind of how I am in general, like creatively, like let's dump all the pain out and then see what happens. And I'm not like that at all. But I have been trying that and I'm actually enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah, right. No, and same. And that's why like using your movement and your aesthetic and stuff of being like, okay, how can, you know, I adapt that there's a dynamics to Ja's choreography, a bravado to a lot of the steps and stuff. And so taking that on is really great because a agreed with Ja's that in a ballet, a two hour show, you need both. Right. And so i felt like it needs to come together and we're just figuring out the right spots for the puzzle pieces. I think ah bravado to some of the steps is something that you know your dancers may hear is
Speaker: Very difficult stuff to do. It's giving so much to the audience, too, as a spectator. There's a lot to watch. There's a lot to really investigate and get into and explore mentally about what's happening on stage. Whereas opposed to just when you're seeing our works on an individual basis, you're just there for that 10, 15, 20 minutes watching our idea.
Speaker: and you can kind of like settle into that. But this will go from my idea to his idea to our idea to our idea to his idea to my idea and and, you know, all in between. So I feel like the audience, you're not going to feel like you're ping pong and like, oh, my God, where are we? But you're going to feel like, oh, wow, that's interesting. So you felt that way about that because he felt, oh, I see. OK, I get it.
Speaker: Well, that's my hope for the audience. I think that's one of the interesting aspects of coming to watch dance is to see what are the ideas behind the choreography that you see.
Speaker: And that, of course, you know, requires that, you know, you come see a lot of choreography. So please come out and watch lots of Madison Ballet. I will say this is probably a good time to pivot into what does a setting look like? What does set design? How do costumes come into it?
Speaker: How did you both go from movement from these characters to setting? What we see, what will we see and how did you get there?
Speaker: I mean, we started with like a place, right? I mean, technically we we knew like, okay, London. And then we had conversations about a time setting. Well, at the same time, we also knew projection. Projection was an early conversation. That was like last, right?
Speaker: I mean, we talked to Julia about that really early on and she was like right on board right away. Yeah. Like towards the end of our last show at MyArts, we started talking about projections and what can be accomplished in that theater.
Speaker: Then we got like some images. I mean, everything is it's been such a step by step that it's yeah I don't know how you feel, but it feels like the world is kind of coming to life as we go. I think you I mean, there's two ways to go about it, right? Is saying, OK, this is the story. This is where it takes place. This is when it takes place. This is what it is. We live in these confined limitations as where it was like.
Speaker: This has been like an ongoing conversation of like, okay, it's maybe defined or undisclosed time period. And maybe there's a little bit of we've used the words, you know, Edwardian or Victorian. We've used words like steampunk.
Speaker: We wanted to create room to breathe so that as we created develop that we could. develop that at the same time part of what i'm curious about is if the space that you create is more or less important to the creative impulse than the timer character like do you want to create i think so a reason why the stage would be open kind of thing It's definitely important. Yeah. We purposely left ourselves open to saying a specific time. Like it's not the nineteen twenty s It's not 2026. It is an undisclosed time because the thing that we're dealing with is the human emotion, which has been around since the beginning of time. And we'll be here until the end of time. Whether we're we're talking on iPhones or we're talking on the next new thing that they come out with. The thing that will remain is the human being interaction in some way, shape or form. So I love to take time out of everything that I'm creating because i just think time just limits you unless you are creating something specifically for a time period. But that wouldn't be my thing that I'm doing because I have no interest in that unless they're paying me a lot of money, then I'll do it. lot of Money wants me to do a musical or something like that I'll do it.
Speaker: but But for the most part, I like to work in a nondescript place. Yeah, and I think visually, if you're looking for like a visual image, the costumes, it's ballet aesthetic. It is ballet costume aesthetic, but with these elements of like Edwardian, Victorian kind of like accents, there's also longer pieces. Like maybe, you know, you'll have like a long dress, but it'll just be a part of that long dress or like a modern accent to that. And the same for like the projection. I feel like it's definitely going to feel like otherworldly, but recognizable, say London or something. So what are the kinds of words that you gave to Julie or the other artisans who worked on the production? Like, what did you tell them to create? The thing that I kept, and I still, i just had a conversation with Julie the other day, as well as Janessa, who was doing the costume. And when they send me ideas and stuff back, I'm like, I like that idea. I just think it needs to be a little more... sexy or it needs to be a little more elegant or it needs to be a little more vibrant or it needs to be a little more tortured.
Speaker: So those are the things that I'm kind of telling them. It's definitely still in London. We didn't take that away. We're still in London. So there's certain things that come from that area that we have incorporated. Visually, I think that's what's always drawn me to theater in general is like, this is why I love theater more than anything else, because you can create worlds of imagination. Whereas i feel like movies and TVs, they try very hard to create a specific thing that is familiar to an audience so they can cling on to Whereas for me, I love theater because you're in a place and you're creating, like, let's say if it's is a forest, if you're doing... a ballet in a forest. You're creating a forest within a place. That's already weird and crazy. Like we're not outside, but you're transporting us into a forest. So that's the thing that is always fascinated me most with theater and the reason I really got into it because of the imagination.
Speaker: I throw a lot of words out to Julie and I throw a lot of words out to Janessa. But the main thing I say is at the end of every email or every call, everything, I trust you, get creative and go crazy. Like, take me there. Let's see where we can go. Because I have no answers. That's the beauty of the creation of this whole thing. I have no answers. It's all exploration for me. It's all play. It's all figuring it out.
Speaker: So I had like... basic ideas about the costumes and then i gave janessa as many words as i could think of red sexy elegant beautiful tortured same thing for julie like i was like it's a london scape you know it can be a city it can be a night it can be day but let's see where that can go in a world that has no limits What does it look like if it's transformed into something? Because the thing that we're also dealing with with this story is the mind. Everybody's beautiful mind is different. So how do we show this particular individual's beautiful mind on stage visually?
Speaker: You know, there will be an element in which you can grab a hold of and know where you are, and then we're going to bend it with projection, with lighting. I think the world that we're looking at is...
Speaker: As Ja's saying, it's like it's not just going to be in the steps and in in the character that's there, but it's going to be in the lighting and where they're standing in the theater and how the lighting is focused and what they're wearing. There's an abstraction, but there's always going to be an element that you're going to grab onto, that you're going to be able to grab onto, whether it's this character or whether it's this prop. There's going to be something there that you're going to know that the world in which you're in. Yeah, but also challenging the audience to use the imagination to get involved, get in it i Like I said, love theater, but I don't love to come to see shows where it's overly, everything is there for me to see.
Speaker: Force me to think a little bit, force me to do a little bit of work. I want to sit there and enjoy a dance and enjoy an opera and a theater and a and a musical and all that stuff. But I also want you to challenge me a little bit. I want you to make me think like, oh this is interesting.
Speaker: oh, why did they, or I get that, or yeah I don't get that, and I'm interested as to why i don't get that. So I don't want to have the audience fed every single thing. So it's not like you're going to see ah a huge set, you know, because the other thing for me as the artist's director that I have to think about is like, that theater is not our forever space. This is a space that we're renting. I'm thinking bigger than that. I'm thinking like, this will hopefully be a production that the audiences of Madison love and want to see again and we can do on a bigger s scale at the Capitol Theater or one day at the Overture Center. And then where can we go from there? You know, I wanted to start small. I want this first story ballet for us to start small and be able to grow into something that is like Swan Lake is today, like Giselle is today, like all those classes that we go see time and time again. I want that to be what this is. There's the real life limitations, but there's no limitations to us being able to create an atmosphere that's immersive for an audience. And so I think that's pulling us forward and we're really trying to like drive forward in that direction, you know, between music, lighting, even minimalist props or sets and like, how do we create the tone?
Speaker: You need to feel a way in the seat. are you scared of this character coming out or are you in love with the character that's out there? We're looking at that in a lot of ways between costume, between the lighting, between our steps and movement and character development.
Speaker: Also without it being overwhelming, because the thing that we still are at the end of the day as a ballet company, you came to see dance. We want to make sure that you can see dance and you don't just see a bunch of beautiful sets and costumes and you barely see any dance. There's a lot to balance out here. I do think that you guys suggest in ballet a lot without having to do it because you want floor to be clear to dance across.
Speaker: So this is a good time to ask. When we come to this production, what kind of dance will you say that we saw? I've never lived in those boxes. I've never lived in a box of classical ballet, contemporary ballet, modern ballet, modern dance, and all that stuff. I'm like, movement is movement. Whether you put on a pointe shoe, a tennis shoe, a jazz shoe, a tap shoe.
Speaker: It's movement. That's what I'm interested in. I mean, we go under the auspice of Madison Ballet, but it's dance. It is dance at the end of the day. It is movement. And that's what speaks. We're still not on stage talking. We're not using verbal language. We're using movement as our language. That is what ballet, modern, contemporary, that's what it all is to me. It's movement. What the audience is coming to see is beautiful artists expressing themselves in the most amazing way possible doing things that the mind did not think about doing originally when it was created, you know, in extraordinary ways. Because the thing I always tell people to do, like, well I don't know anything about dance and I never i don't dance. I said, in all honesty, no disrespect to the vocals and to the verbiage that we use. The first thing we all do is dance in the womb.
Speaker: That's the first thing anything does. Because you're not talking in the womb. You're hearing things. Maybe you're not talking. You're moving. What does every mom say? Oh, my God. Feel the kick. Come here. Come here. Touch Feel the kick. Right, right. The babies are in there moving. So it's the first thing we all do. But somewhere along the line between the conception to birth and growing up, we slowly start to lose where we came from.
Speaker: Once we started talking, they were like, oh this is it. that We got to talk. And then, oh, you put an instrument. oh I'm a musician. And this is this is life. But it's like, no, you started moving. And just somewhere along the line, you just started to think, I don't move. And it's like, no, you do move. Everybody moves. you know, in some way, shape or form.
Speaker: Mentally, physically, emotionally, we we're moving. So that's what I want on stage. I want people to come and experience things that they possibly have never seen before, things that they have seen that they thought they've seen, that they're going to see something new. Because like I said, we take those 100, just and within ballet, now that's where it differentiates. Within ballet, we take those 100 steps and we transform those and make new combinations of that. But at the end of the day, what you're coming to see is movement.
Speaker: my goodness john that was beautiful and it almost obviates you know my final question which i do want to ask you both john maybe you already gave it your answer but like what is it about ballet that you love that you wish other people loved oh i mean ah wish i could get everybody to love ballet the way i love ballet yeah I wish could get other dancers to love ballet the way I love ballet. yeah For me, I just, like, i think I may have said this on your podcast last year, is that what I loved about ballet and still love about ballet and dance in general is that we're speaking without words. That's what I love.
Speaker: Because I feel like words can get in the way. Like doing this podcast is torture for me. I'm enjoying it, Chris. Thank you. I'm enjoying myself.
Speaker: I remember I was being interviewed five years ago and then you started going, like where are you from? And I was like, oh, do we really have to talk about this? And then I remember William Forsythe said it brilliantly. He was like, I'd rather just talk about dance. And I was like... Me too. And what he meant was like, not verbally, but physically. Like, I'd rather you just come see the dance. But for me, I think it's just opening your mind up to the possibilities of the unknown.
Speaker: That is what really draws me to come in here every day and create, to teach. It's the possibilities of the unknown. Because I see things still to this day, and I've been doing this for over 30 years. I still see things today in rehearsal, in class, that amaze me that I never thought of.
Speaker: from the basic 100 steps that we have. I'm like, wow, I never thought about that. That's interesting. That's brand new. And didn't have to say a word. And even in rehearsal, i have a lot of very analytical dancers in my company, which is amazing. I have great thinkers. They are brilliant, brilliant people. But sometimes they're just talking to me and I have no idea what they're saying. I'm like, can I see it? And they show it to me and i'm like, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. But like, you try to talk to me about dance, I don't know what to tell you. But when you show me, even Richard, I say that him sometimes, I'm just listening it because he's analytical also and I love it. I'm just like, yeah, that sounds great. Can I see That's what's always like for me exciting. is I think I told you this last year as well.
Speaker: There's so many things that I go and see that I have no idea what I'm watching. the u.s open just ended which i told you i love tennis still don't know anything about tennis i refuse to learn anything because i just love to go and watch it i love the athleticism of it i love the mind that's thinking quickly in an instant i just find it so fascinating and like i said i couldn't tell you a backhand from a forward hand to all the things that they be talking about on espn I have no idea. I'm like, just be quiet. Let me watch.
Speaker: I love it because I just enjoy watching it. I'm fascinated by what they can do. And so I think if you have an interest in the amazement of the human body of people doing things that are extraordinary, then this is the perfect vehicle for you.
Speaker: you know, to come and witness. A curiosity. That's what makes me think of jumping off of what you're saying. Like, I've always had a curiosity. I think that's what drove me to go deep into choreography and creative. I was always fascinated as how and why did you do that or make that? Where did that come from? And then, you know, through the process of being around dance and watching dance, you start to develop your own vision of dance and definition of that. And I think that's what the audience should do, too. It's like you can have your own experience and your own vision and thought about it. So go see dance, go see it more than once. And it's OK what you're thinking and how you're feeling about something while you're watching it is it.
Speaker: is exactly it. That's it. That's what I tell people all the time that are like, oh, well, I don't really know much about dance. So what? No one's judging you. It's okay. Yeah. But come and experience it and see what you think. There's so many people that have come that have never been to dance and have walked away like, wow, that was really good. I'm like, yeah.
Speaker: It is. When you go to a museum or something and you look at the paintings, you know, depending on how your day went, maybe your morning was rough, but you know, you had the, you're scheduled to go to the museum, you go to the museum and you connect with certain paintings, but then you go back in the next day and you connect with a few different artists or a sculpture that day or something, because you know, you're bringing yourself into it. And so having the curiosity and just the openness to dance and to ballet, I think is what I would like everybody to have when they come to it. And also I think we often, steer away from the term entertaining.
Speaker: And I say that in a sense of I find going to theater plays or even, you know, museums entertaining, i find learning more about artists entertaining, not everybody is, but you can go and enjoy it and it can be entertaining and it's still art. I feel like whenever I create, I want to be able to create for everybody, for those who want to understand, oh, what are these characters? Or what is this piece trying to say? Or what am I, you know, those who want to connect, I'm there for you. But also for those who want to go and like Ja was saying and just enjoy and maybe be entertained by some really talented, creative people. Great.
Speaker: There's no judgment. Yeah. You can literally come up to me and say, I didn't get a thing that was going on. That's totally fine. Because sometimes I go see things that I love and I have no idea what's going on, but I loved it. I don't know. yeah I think that's the point, that we're watching kinetic art and it's just art that moves. And the beauty of performing arts is every single performance is a world premiere.
Speaker: I know we say the world premieres on the first show, but it's every performance because no performance will ever be the same. yeah No performance will ever be the same. I find that fascinating. The point is, it's entertaining people with the amazing artistry that athleticism coupled with music can provide on stage.
Speaker: And that is what ballet is. Yeah. Entertainment with intent. We're making something intentional. I always tell my cast of dancers whenever i choreographed, you know, this is normally show week. I'll normally say this, but like the audience is watching you experience something and there's something fascinating. I mean, we watch movies, we watch you know documentaries, we will will watch nature and birds and stuff. We we find it fascinating. And so but that's what it is. Like, as long as the you know the dancers are giving themselves to it, they're experiencing something and the audience is observing that. whether it's a story or just movement, that's the connection. For me in life, I just, I want to constantly, until my last breath, I want to be fascinated and challenged. So I will see dance until the last breath because I find it constantly fascinating and challenging. There's very few dances that I don't like. i might have objections about certain things, but
Speaker: I can find a value and a challenge within everything I'm watching. And I love that keeps my mind going, keeps my mind sharp. And then the fascination with it is just how in the hell did all this come together every single time, no matter what it is, even music. I mean, that's why i go see the symphony and and the chamber orchestra. I go listen to music all the time because I'm fascinated how the composer, they have even less than we do. We have a hundred steps. I think they have, how many notes? Eight? I think they have eight notes or something like that that they have to put in. Well, we we found out there are 12. Yeah. 12, 12 notes. Yeah. 12 notes. Quincy Jones always said that, yeah you know, there's 12 notes and we have to create an hour long frustration and all this stuff. And I'm just when I go and listen to music, i'm I'm blown away. I'm like. I know. I was just listening to like Brian Wilson pre Beach Boys and thought he'd sort of solved it all. My goodness. I love that. Fascinated and challenged. I think that's a good posture to confront anything with because yeah you're both curious, but also you're ready to not move beyond, but have what you think is true, challenged and solidified if anything, but like, I think that is a creatively healthy posture. Yeah. So I love that.
Speaker: And that's the beauty also of Juggling High within that two hours, this evening length work. There are moments in there where it won't be challenging. It's simply just to watch and be stunned by how beautiful it is. And we have a plethora of ballets in our repertoire that's like that. This art form offers so much, you know, so much to so many people. i mean, when I was going to school, arts and education was...
Speaker: highly popular at that time because it was on a roll in the 80s. But we all went to go see, you know, it was it was like a mission of every school when I was growing up to take kids to go see performing arts. PBS had a huge role in my life in influencing the arts and doing things like that. So I feel like we're missing out on that. So I'm hoping people understand that they no longer have that immediate access point anymore in that way. But there are ways for you to access the point. Right, right. Challenge yourself to try something new. Jekyll and Hyde is a particularly wonderful entry point for anyone who's been ballet, if not suspicious, just agnostic. Thank you both again for joining us today. And I can't wait for the public and myself
Speaker: To see this full-length collaboration, Jekyll and Hyde will open Thursday, October 29th at the My Arts Center in Madison, Wisconsin, with a preview performance open to the public, and then with four additional performances that will continue Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the 1st.
Speaker: Tickets can be purchased at madisonballet.org. And we look forward to seeing you this month and throughout the rest of our 2026 and 27 season. Thank you all so much. And I really appreciate your time, John Richard. And I will see you in the studio before too long.
Speaker: Yes. Thank you so much. This was an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Yes. It was great. Thank you, Chris. And thank you, Richard.
Speaker: Thank you for tuning in to at the Bar with Madison Ballet. If you enjoyed this episode, we invite you to experience Madison Ballet in person by joining us at one of our upcoming performances or community events.
Speaker: From accessible, innovative productions to in-depth conversations with artists, our goal is to create welcoming spaces where everyone can experience ballet in a meaningful way.
Speaker: You can find performance dates, event details, and ticket information on our website and social media platforms. Whether it's your first time attending or you're a long-time supporter, we'd love to see you in the audience and share the experience with you live.
Speaker: Thanks again for listening. We hope to see you at the ballet soon.
