Ballet Spokane performs ‘Alice’

Join Ballet Spokane this weekend at the Valley Performing Arts Center for a romp through the fantasy favorite “Alice in Wonderland.”

On a sun-drenched afternoon, Alice, danced by Jaimi McGuire, follows a White Rabbit, danced by Patrick DesRosiers, to a nearby rabbit hole and tumbles into a burrow where she enters a merry, topsy-turvy world.

As in Lewis Carroll’s novel, the White Rabbit has an air of deposed aristocracy; the madcap Queen of Hearts, danced by guest artist Amanda Lochmiller, orders executions for her own enjoyment; and the Mad Hatter, danced by Ryan Callan, exists in a never-ending tea party.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, danced by Marcy Ray and Callan, make an appearance along with the Cheshire Cat, performed by Ray.

The ballet, choreographed by the company’s artistic director Janet Wilder to a series of musical pieces by Scott Killian, grew out of a project for Page Ahead, an organization that promotes literacy for young children.

Wilder’s poetic license with the choreography during the Mad Hatter’s tea party adds some amusing touches.

The Rabbit and Dormouse perform a stylized Spanish dance. The teapot hoofs an Irish hard-shoe number. The Mad Hatter and Alice race through a manic waltz. Finally, the entire company breezes through a hoedown.

“I wanted it to be fun and wacky and whimsical,” Wilder said in a recent interview.

Performances are Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the theater on the Central Valley High School campus. A “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” sponsored by Rocket Bakery will follow the Saturday and Sunday matinees.

The program also includes “Elements,” a three-part neo-classical ballet choreographed by Wilder to portions of “The Moldau” by Bedrich Smetana.

The ensemble ballet opens with “Water,” with the company clad in mottled blues and greens. “It’s an abstract number built from images of water as it flows, splashes, swirls, waves and creates whirlpools,” Wilder said.

“Wind” features Lochmiller in a lyrical, flowing chiffon dress. The final movement, “Fire,” is an ensemble work that features Phaedra Jarrett, Ballet Spokane’s newly named associate artistic director. It is costumed in unitards hand-dyed and hand-painted by costumer Marty Ray.

Highlighting the program is a ballet by one of the Bay Area’s most innovative choreographers, Amy Seiwert. Her works are characterized by innovative modern dance movements, improvisation and phrase manipulation incorporated into the classical ballet vocabulary.

Seiwert’s “Lithium Dreams,” staged for Ballet Spokane by Jarrett, is danced by the entire company to music specifically composed for the ballet.

The final offering is “Artificial Flowers,” a five-part dance choreographed by company member Marcy Ray. It features DeRosiers and McGuire and is accompanied by contemporary pop music drawn from the 1950s onward.

“The ballet loosely weaves a story and incorporates the unexpected,” Wilder said. “It’s a delightfully quirky ensemble number.”