San Francisco Ballet has a new family series created especially for children ages 2 to 8, a concept Associate Artistic Director Antonio Castilla developed while he was a ballet master and répétiteur at English National Ballet.
“This idea of a ballet for children and their parents started in London, so it was done with ‘Swan Lake,’ ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ even with ‘Cinderella,’” recounts Castilla. “We wanted to bring this idea to the United States and specifically to San Francisco.”
Called Tiny Dances, the troupe’s new initiative offers young children the opportunity to experience the magic of ballet in a relaxed setting through performances by 21 pre-professional Trainee and Level 8 students from the San Francisco Ballet School. Castilla adapted “Swan Lake” into an uplifting version of the beloved story ballet for the inaugural Tiny Dances, which is staging Saturday and Sunday at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theatre.
“Swan Lake,” with its radiant score by Tchaikovsky that will be performed for Tiny Dances, features the same sets and costumes used in former San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson’s production. But Castilla’s shorter, smaller-scale version with a quicker turnaround between acts — Acts l and ll are 30 minutes and Acts lll and lV another 30 minutes — has practical modifications.
“We need to make the changes really smoothly and quickly,” Castilla says. “What I’ve done is that I use the lake, and then the lake is transformed into the garden of the palace. So the lake disappears and we bring in some trees and columns and make a garden.”
Castilla’s version of the ballet only has eight swans as opposed to the dozens of corps de ballet members who waltz as swans across the lake in the version for adults.
Castilla also notably omitted the original story’s tragic ending in which Prince Siegfried (Shun Matsui) and Odette (Mona Flora Kokuryu) realize the sorcerer Rothbart’s curse cannot be broken. Since they cannot be together, they decide to drown themselves in the lake.
Instead, Castilla’s version has Odette finding agency and breaking the spell Rothbart (Nicholas Chang) cast on her for an inspiring finale.
“We changed some elements that we found are not appropriate for that age,” Castilla says of the alteration. “The ballet is about giving the kids something they can take away, and in this case Odette empowers and finds herself. She finds her inner strength and asks, ‘Why am I waiting for Siegfried to break the spell when I am strong enough and have all the necessary love inside me to do it?’”
Another notable difference in Tiny Dances: “Swan Lake” is the presence of an onstage narrator, a role performed by stage actress Brenda Arellano, to judiciously guide the children through the story. The narration was written by Javier Galito-Cava, the founder and artistic director of the Barcelona-based acting conservatory Meisner.
In “Swan Lake” the roles of Odette and Odile, who is the Black Swan that Rothbart has tricked Siegfried into pleading his love for through the spell he cast, are performed by the same dancer. But in Castilla’s “Swan Lake” two dancers perform the roles, with Crystal Huang appearing as Odile.
Huang, who grew up in Fremont and started dancing as a 3-year-old, entered San Francisco Ballet School last year as a Level 8 student. Now a Trainee, she’s one of many students who auditioned for roles in Tiny Dances: “Swan Lake.”
“Everyone in my class and everyone who’s in Tiny Dances learned the Black Swan, and Antonio kind of just said that I would be Odile,” she recounts. “I was super ecstatic about it and it’s been one of my dream roles for so long. I’ve always been watching the iconic variation of Black Swan and it’s such a crazy moment for me to actually be able to embody and experience this character.”
Huang, who says she has also seen San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo perform Odile online, adds that she was very pleasantly surprised when Rojo came to work with the students on the production.
“She showed us all the movements, and I could really envision her doing that role,” Huang says. “It was the best rehearsal of my life. So that was really cool, especially because Black Swan is one of her best, most iconic roles.”
Odile famously spins off 32 dazzling fouetté turns during the coda of the Black Swan pas de deux in Act lll, which Huang performs. She says she and the other students have been working hard at such technical aspects of the ballet and also exploring the character side of the roles.
“Kids will immediately know if you are faking it and it’s hard to trick them,” she says. “Antonio has been telling us don’t act it, make it feel as real as possible like you’re the character and it just moves you. Emotions should come out of you naturally, so to make every move, transition and moment be as real as possible as we are dancing.”
Huang says that “Swan Lake” will be a very useful experience for the students because it will be their first full-length ballet. She adds that the Tiny Dances version is just the right length for children.
“Normally, it’s hard to make kids sit through a really long ballet because sometimes it’s a bit too long for their attention span,” she says. “But with the first two acts 30 minutes, an intermission and the the last two acts another 30 minutes, that’s perfect for children. Swan Lake is also the perfect ballet to bring because it’s so interesting and Antonio did great with re-imagining it on us.”
San Francisco Ballet presents Tiny Dances: “Swan Lake” 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon St., San Francisco. The 3 p.m. Saturday show is a sensory-friendly performance. Tickets are $65 to $149 at sfballet.org.
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