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| Ervin Zagadullin (Dracula) and Ghosts |
Choreographed by Joel Burke – Composed by Toby Alexander
Set Designed by Eric Luchen – Lighting design by Dan Sharp
Canberra Theatre October 23rd and 24th, 2025
Opening Night performance on 23rd October,
reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
Co-founded in 2021, by Artistic Director, Joel Burke, and
Executive Director Khalid Tarabay, BIG Live has quickly established itself as a
viable competitor to the major subsidised companies for the presentation of classical
ballet.
With an aim of providing employment for talented local
dancers, the company began building its audience by presenting national tours
of International Ballet Gala’s, ostensibly featuring imported star guest
artists from major ballet companies from around the world, performing virtuoso solos
and pas de deux, but also including talented local dancers contracted for each tour.
Turning its focus to the presentation of narrative-driven presentations
with inventive productions of “The Nutcracker” and “Romeo and Juliet”, both choreographed
by Artistic Director, Joel Burke, BIG
Live claims to be the most attended ballet company in Australian and New
Zealand, and with this production of “Dracula”, also choreographed by Burke,
now employs a full-time company of 25 dancers.
This version of “Dracula” is a Joel Burke original. Having
taken his inspiration from the classic Bram Stoker novel, Burke has taken substantial
liberties with his storytelling, so that careful reading of the synopsis before
watching the ballet is recommended.
As well, freed from
any requirement to adhere to a classic ballet score for his inspiration, Burke
has set key sections of his production to well-known classical compositions,
augmented by original music composed by Toby Alexander.
Thus, the opening
prologue in which warrior, Vlad the Impaler, athletically danced by Ervin Zagidullin, upon hearing of his wife’s
death, renounces his faith, curses the Church ,sells his soul and slays
everyone in sight, in a flurry of dazzling leaps and spins, before transforming
into the ageless Dracula, all to the music of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”.
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| Joel Burke and Abbey Hansen as Jonathan and Mina in "Dracula" |
Midway through the ballet, Burke and ballerina, Abbey Hansen, as the young lovers Jonathan and Mina, celebrate their marriage in an ecstatic pas de deux, rich in gorgeous acrobatic lifts, to the music of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”.
The ballet ends with Mina, on realising that her husband
Jonathan has also become a vampire, and having repulsed Dracula’s lecherous
advances, takes a leaf from Vlad’s book and stabs Jonathan, Dracula and herself
with a stake, in a rousing finale performed to the music of Tchaikovsky’s “1812
Overture”.
While the use of familiar compositions from various
composers in a full-length work can be justified, it can also prove a
distraction for attentive listener’s jolted out of the story, by efforts to
identify the source of a particular piece of music.
Throughout the evening, the dancing by principals Zagidullin,
Burke and Hansen was exceptional. Zagidullin in particular, thrilling his
audience with his highly polished technique and showmanship.
Perfectly cast as the doomed young lovers, Joel Burke and
Abbey Hansen were a romantic pair, together having perfected an impressive
partnership, in which their confidence in each other’s technique, allowed them
to portray the joy and anguish of their relationship with impressive sincerity.
Similarly, the attractive, well drilled corps de ballet,
prettily costumed and perfectly in sync, delighted with their charmingly executed
dances, even if those costumes, although providing a contrast, tended to feel that
they belonged in a different ballet, due to the variance in the style and period,
to those in the darker, gothic sections of the ballet.
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| Erwin Zagidullin (Dracula) and the four ghosts. |
Outstanding too were the ghostly quartet, Giselle Osborne, Rose Maloney, Mia Zanardo and Bella Collishaw who moved as one when executing Burke’s elegant choreography and scaring the wits out of Jonathan and Mina.
And while Eric Luchen’s setting provided a suitably Gothic
atmosphere, a little less gloom in Dan Sharp’s lighting design, would not have
gone astray.
Nevertheless, although purists might quibble at some dramaturgical inconsistencies or some choreographic repetition in the storytelling, the cheering capacity audience at this performance could not have cared less, obviously thrilled to have experienced a full-blooded balletic interpretation of a favourite story.
Photos by Craig Ratcliffe
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
