A girl as white as snow

I mentioned Blanche-Neige, Angelin Preljocaj's ballet (2008) in another post, promising I would discuss it at some point. I thought I could elaborate on it in today's post.
 I did not see  Blanche-Neige (Snow White), based on the famous brothers Grimm's fairy tale, when it was shown at Sadler's Wells a couple of years ago.  But I have watched it on DVD, the film rendition that Preljocaj directed in 2010. The more I watch it, the more intrigued I am by it. This is an attempt at gathering some of my thoughts around it.
We all know the story: the beautiful but wicked stepmother plots to kill her young, beautiful daughter several times, including an attempt with a poisoned apple. Miraculously, Snow White does not die but falls into deep slumber and is reawakened by a handsome Prince, whom, in this ballet, she had already met at court. This twist on the original fairy tale  provides continuity to the balletic narrative.
Blanche-Neige is a ballet but not on pointe, it is contemporary choreography. Yet Preljocaj calls his company Ballet Preljocaj and explicitly refers to Blanche-Neige as a ballet. His dance vocabulary owes a lot to that of ballet. Does this mean that the divide between ballet and contemporary dance is not as clearly defined as some would have it?

Photographer: Michel Cavalca, Ballet Preljocaj  (Google images)

Then there are the costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. I love this partnership between haute couture and dance. In a stroke of genius, Gaultier chooses to dress the wicked queen as a dominatrix, and Preljocaj gives her strong and lascivious moves. She is the older woman whose sexual power is threatened by the young, blossoming sexuality of her stepdaughter and she  comes across as a tragic character.The music Preljocaj chose for the ballet is by Gustav Mahler, a nod to Romanticism. The seven dwarves are miners and they display their aerial skills by climbing up and down walls made of rocks.

Model: Alex B

The tale of Snow White has never been used for a ballet before and the treatment given to it by Preljocaj is outstanding -  when the ballet toured internationally it was received with acclaim, barring a few scathing critiques, some in his own country - "les montagnes hypes n'accoucheraient-elles pas de temps en temps, au passage, de nains chorégraphiques?" asked Azulynn in Dansomanie (roughly translated "will mountains of hype not give birth, from time to time, to choreographic dwarves?")
The central theme of the story remains the relationship of the Queen with the mirror. Originally, the Queen was Snow-White's own mother rather than stepmother, she was turned into a stepmother when the brothers Grimm wrote down the story - the idea of a mother killing her own daughter seemed inadmissible at the time. The crucial moment is when the mirror returns to the older woman the image of her daughter/stepdaughter, in a shift from imaginary identification to symbolic identification (the daughter as other): from this point on the tragedy unfolds.
The erotic element in the ballet is very strong: you can see it in the couple dancing throughout and in the several pas de deux of Snow White with her Prince - the joyous first one at court and the final, dramatic one in the forest when she is found  by the Prince who believes her dead and forever lost. The fetish clothing of the Queen also underpins a strong erotic charge. The dancer shows a range of strong facial expressions and this adds to her performance.

Model: Alex B

It is also a very violent ballet: the apple scene is reminiscent of a rape, even more frightening when you realise this is a woman raping another woman, and in the pas de deux between Snow White and the prince she is often thrown about in ways which would hardly be described as gentle. This is particularly evident in the pas de deux ensuing the moment he finds her lying on a glass sheet : there is a strong element of necrophilia in the scenes which unfold.
It is a stunningly visual production and definitely worth watching. And I would not mind wearing that fabulous gown Snow White dons in the final scene: am I being too flippant here?
(Oh, about my own pictures: I obviously have nothing to do with the Blanche-Neige production, but in this blog I try to showcase my work as a model as well as share my thoughts.)


(All photos of Alex B by Natalia Lipchanskaya)