Made in 1998 and revived in 2000, choreographer Chrissie Parrott’s version of Coppelia is being performed again this month by the West Australian Ballet.
‘The traditional Coppelia was made in 1817… I’ve bought it up to date by looking at contemporary dolls – the maison plastique that they live in is very two dimensional and cartoony.
‘I have my own angle [from] which I always take on things. I was very fortunately brought up in a household with my father who was a stand up comedian. I see the funny side of ballet, so I’m a bit irreverent sometimes. I try not to be too irreverent when I’m working with the ballet company, but I find a lot of it a bit too sweet sometimes. So what I’ve done with Coppelia is taken that sweetness to the extreme and made it sugar sweet.
‘I’ve tried to build around the more contemporary idea of cloning, but the fact that he [Dr. Coppelius] is such a weirdo – he’s locked himself away and is trying to find the perfect companion he’s quite strange. I tried to push his character towards a little more bent – although because it’s a family ballet I couldn’t push his ballet as far as I would have liked to. There might be another opportunity for me to do that in some other way later, like in film or something….
‘I allow them [the dancers] to develop sub scripts and characters and then video them while they’re doing the vocal aspect of it and then videoing them while they’re dancing and showing them the two. What we do with studio is like a sub text to the script, all the characters actually have their own subtext going on and I encourage them to talk to each other, out loud, which is very unusual in a ballet studio because everyone’s usually mute and very well behaved usually. So, we have a bit of fun over there.
‘This time I’ve really pulled the characters back up to the surface, so they all have to try and draw focus to themselves, whereas in traditional ballet you usually try to fade away in the background and become a lifescape of people.
‘The whole production is very camp, very pink, very fluffy and hysterical really. People end up generally rolling in the aisles – it’s very, very funny. And I think it’s funnier because the people who are in the company this time around have really picked up on my sense of humour and taken it away a bit. I really love that.
‘Its very lighthearted, the ballet equivalent of an Operetta. I guess that means it’s a ‘Balleretta’ ….’
