New York choreographer Marilyn Klaus stages ballets, but for her latest project she’s also part mixologist.
By combining the essence and spirit of ballet with characteristics of classic cocktails and old Hollywood glamour, her performing company Ballets With A Twist serves up the glitz and excitement of big, classic dance numbers.
Mint Julep And Other Spirited Dances premiers this weekend at Spruce Peak Performing Arts in Stowe and Klaus joined VPR to talk about the show.
On the inspiration for Mint Julep And Other Spirited Dances
“I’m originally from Hollywood, and I grew up in a home that was just steeped in music and dancing. My parents were also extremely active social dancers. Our home was a place where on Saturday evenings they would have their friends come over … and the ladies would wear dancing dresses, the men would wear suits, and I would just peek at them. I would sit on the staircase and look through the spindles and look at them dance.
“I think the flavor of that period that I grew up in, with my parents dancing and then actually studying dance with my father, I think the light bulb went off when I was 5 or 6. I had been choreographing and I had decided to make a Mai Tai. The Mai Tai was about the theme restaurants that I would go to with my parents, where they would serve these Polynesian recipes. It really catches a kid’s imagination, so I said ‘Well I’m going to make this dance, I’m going to make a Mai Tai.’ And I had studied sacred Hula as a child, being from the West Coast, and I was shocked at how the Hawaiian hand gestures had so much similarity with the classical ballet port de bras. So the dance is very, very classical, it just happens to be worn with a velvet, leopard tutu and with the Hawaiian feeling, just like the little cocktail umbrella you would find in the glass."
On capturing an audience
“We’ve performed in different night clubs in New York, as well as in large, 1,000-person houses and they don’t feel like they are coming to something off-putting or un-relatable. I adore ballet but I’m just lucky that I have a feeling about it that it has sort of a pop appeal; I’m very serious about it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpDAQaDIzsc
On the influence of Hollywood glitz and glamour
“When I came to New York to dance, I was 18, and I didn’t realize that the Busby Berkeley environments in those films – I didn’t realize those never existed. I thought that’s where I was coming. I didn’t realize that was his dream, and that he was trying to take people’s minds off the Depression and all the financial suffering people were undergoing. I must have been 40 by the time I went, ‘You know what? That never existed at all, so I’m going to make it myself.’
"The romance and the wholesomeness of the feminine and masculine imagery of that time I felt was really missing. I thought, that’s something that’s really inspiring to have something to look up to … and the beauty of the music and the costuming, that you can get really carried away, that you can let your imagination flow up onto the stage and really get carried away … I’ve gradually been edging into this, I think we have about 23 or 24 'cocktails of culture' now; 24 pieces now that I can come back to a town or a venue and do another round. And it's so exciting to do a premier at Stowe.”
Mint Julep And Other Spirited Dances premiers at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center in Stowe on Saturday, Sept. 19.
