3:00 pm | $12/$10 members/$6 children
Always dazzlingly theatrical, British choreographer Matthew Bourne does it again with Sleeping Beauty. Captured live at the Hippodrome (Birmingham, England) in HD in 2013. Bourne’s haunting new scenario is a gothic fairy tale for all ages. Although the beloved Tschaikovsky score remains the same, the traditional tale of good vs. evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, across the decades. Running time is 105 minutes.
Petipa’s Beauty premiered in 1890—the year Bourne chose to begin his version of the story. It opens with the christening of the heroine Princess Aurora. It was the Fin-de-Siecle period when fairies, vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination. As Aurora grows into a young woman, we move forward in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical Downton Abbey golden age of long summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes. Years later, awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day, a world more mysterious and wonderful than any fairy story!
Bourne – dubbed “the most popular choreographer of theatrical dance in the Western World” by The New Yorker — works again with three of his regular collaborators: the Tony and Olivier award winning designers, Lez Brotherston (set and costumes), Paule Constable (lighting) and Paul Groothuis (sound).
Matthew Bourne’s production of Sleeping Beauty was honored with multiple nominations in various awards competitions, winning Best Dance Production at the Manchester Theater Awards in 2013 and the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at the National Dance Awards in 2012 (U.K.). When the ballet appeared in New York City The Wall Street Journal enthused, “Bourne’s vivid update is a prime example of the imagination and originality that have marked the choreographer’s dance productions,” while The New York Times declared, “This is Bourne at his best – a masterful storyteller.”
Dance Film Sundays, a series which started in June 2010 under the auspices of the Rosendale Theatre Collective, are held on the 2nd Sunday of every month at Rosendale Theatre.