Louisville audiences have a reputation for embracing the new while still valuing tradition. It is this dynamic that gives San Francisco Ballet veteran dancer/choreographer Val Caniparoli the room he needs to reinvent Louisville Ballet’s holiday classic, The
Nutcracker. Conventional wisdom might suggest that this is not the
time to mount a new production of The Nutcracker –
an expensive production with dazzling costumes and lavish sets. But with a generous grant from longtime supporter Brown-Forman, Louisville Ballet was able to harness the talent of one of the most important choreographers in America to fulfill its vision of a wholly new Nutcracker. Caniparoli has created new works for
audiences all over the world. Influenced by theatre and literature, his natural ability to tell a story is evident in every movement of his dancers. To borrow a term from music, his ballets are “through composed,” the action of each dancer influencing the movements of the others and moving the story forward.
SD: You have been with San Francisco ballet for about
thirty-five years.
VC: I’m still with them. It’s kind of weird
to think it has been that long. We celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary
last year and I realized that I have been there nearly half that time.
I came in a covered wagon.
SD: Are you still working with Tulsa Ballet?
VC: I am. I just did a new ballet for them last year.
They also have Ma Cong, so there are two resident choreographers now.
SD: What is your role at the San Francisco Ballet?
VC: I choreograph and still perform a little bit.
SD: Do you still enjoy performing?
VC: I do – once I’m on stage. I don’t
like the preparation time because I think about all of the other things
I have to do, or should be doing. It’s also hard having to stay in
shape.
SD: What kind of dancing do you prefer as a performer?
VC: My background is mostly in character roles. Even when
I was younger, those were the parts I preferred doing and those are the
parts I got most often – those or the contemporary modern roles.
I did not like the stress of the classical roles even though I did sometimes
land those roles. I’ve come full circle and am considered principal
character dancer now at San Francisco Ballet – but I’m doing
the same roles I used to do when I was twenty.
SD: That preference comes through in your choreography.
As I watched the pas de deux from Lady of the Camellias, I thought of La
Traviata. Was that a conscious decision?
VC:No, most of it came from the Dumas novel of the same
name. I also referenced the Garbo film Camille, and of course La
Traviata is from the same source, but I didn’t use the opera as much as a
point of departure. My background was in
theatre, literature and music. I didn’t
begin to study dance until I was nineteen or twenty, so I believe my choreography
comes from a different place.
SD: Nineteen is late even for men to begin dancing. How
did you get interested at that point in your life?
VC: I went to Washington State University in Eastern Washington.
A dance company came through and offered classes though the theatre department.
I took them and they asked if I had studied dance before. They encouraged
me to check it out, so I auditioned for the school at the San Francisco
Ballet and got the Ford Foundation Scholarship. A year later I was in the
company – it was like a whirlwind.
SD: Would you say your work then is more theatrical?
VC: Somewhat, and it comes in really handy with this Nutcracker.
I’m trying to tell the story in a way that makes more sense for the
audience. I am trying to develop a dramatic arc and accentuate the thread
line of the story.
SD: I love You Tube because it gives me a chance to watch
your work even if I can’t get to Tulsa, or San Francisco, or New
York. I also noticed you use a lot of mime. I sensed the dancer’s
interior dialogue – it seemed there was a great deal of chemistry
between them.
VC: Theatre is action and reaction; and by using that,
you can make the audience understand. You can’t react so quickly
that you’re on to the next statement before they’ve had a chance
to grasp it. Dancers don’t use words, so it’s important that
the gestures and body language act and react to tell the story effectively.
I think some of that comes from my background with Lew Christianson of
the San Francisco Ballet. The Christianson tradition goes back to Vaudeville,
and I am adapting a lot of the technique into what I am doing here with
The Nutcracker.
SD:This isn’t the first time you’ve
choreographed this story.
VC: No, Cincinnati ballet does another version of mine
that has been in production for about nine years.
SD: But this isn’t a restaging of that version?
VC: No. It’s a different design, a different concept;
there is some similarity in style because it’s me.
SD: The descriptions of the production from the front
office describe this production as “Unlike any Nutcracker you have
ever seen – full of surprises.”
VC: There are surprises…even I am surprised. I’m
surprised how well it’s going, number one.
SD: It’s a great company of dancers.
VC: They are willing to try anything. Even if it’s
a stupid request, they’ll try it; then we laugh and say, “Well,
that didn’t work.” But they give it a chance. They’ve
been a great group to work with.
SD: You also have a strong group of young dancers, an
important component you need to do The Nutcracker.
VC: Yes, yes. I am also making it challenging for them,
too, so they will get better and better each year. There are lots of different
rhythms and not just a “square” beat. At first, they thought
I was crazy; but now – all of a sudden – they’re getting
it.
SD: One of the benefits of The Nutcracker for young dancers
is that in the progression from mouse to rat to soldier, some of these
kids will go through the full cycle.
VC: They do and it gives me a chance to work with them
that way. I tell some of the girls, “You have to stay in line, because
when you do ‘snow’ or ‘flowers,’ you have to learn
to look and watch.” It is a learning experience and preparation for
the future.
SD: You have an interesting blend in many of your works
between modern dance and classical ballet
VC: In most of what I do, dancers need a classical technique.
In order to distort that or make it different to invent new things, you
have to have a strong classical base if you are going to take it any further.
SD: With The Nutcracker, maybe because it is performed
annually, you sometimes get the sense that the dancers are partnering rather
that truly reacting to each other. Is that something you are concerned
with?
VC: Going back to character study where we examine the
motivations of the characters and choreograph where you are looking, who
you’re looking at and why, it’s not a mystery. We ask questions
like, “Are the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier dancing together?
Are they dancing for Marie and the audience?” Why they look at Drosselmeier
here is all spelled out. But it has to be fresh at every performance, like
it’s being done for the first time – that has to be stressed.
SD: This is a significant source of revenue for most companies – including
Louisville.
VC: I have been performing The Nutcracker straight
for thirty-five years; I am in my third version with the San Francisco
Ballet. I get angry myself with some of the younger dancers there and I
will step in and say the same thing: “This is important for the
audience. For some, this is their first time seeing ballet and this is
where you want to grab them and get them interested, especially as children,
to see the other performances. You cannot let your guard down; you’re
doing a lot of performances, but it still has to be high energy.”
SD: So you feel it’s a gateway ballet.
VC: Yes. It’s very important.
SD: You can see that in the audience. Every year there
are rows of little girls in tutus and tiaras.
VC: And we want those families to come back over and over
and make it a tradition so that those children eventually want to bring
their children.
SD:Tell me about the look of your Nutcracker.
Peter Cazalet is doing the
costume design.
VC: Overall, we’re taking a very traditional approach,
although the second act does veer from the traditional a little. It is
still a Victorian period piece, and in North America you don’t want
to make things so psychological and contemporary because of the traditions.
In Europe you can get away with it, but they don’t do the ballet
every year. So we have to keep it within the context of tradition. As you
said, we are putting in some surprises though. Period doesn’t mean
run-of-the-mill, and there are surprises I hope people will enjoy.
SD: You have choreographed all over the world. What are
some of the differences when you are working in another country?
VC: Dancers are the same everywhere, but audiences in
different countries like different things, depending on their traditions.
You have to know what to do where and when.
SD: How do you gain that sense of appropriateness?
VC: I ask the directors who invite me what they would
like. I ask if they want abstract, story, short, long; what kind of music
will help the audience appreciate the ballet? I really do my homework.
I follow the lead of the director as to how far they want to take something.
SD: That is an unusual characteristic of your choreography.
You are able to do so many of those different styles.
VC: I started my career as a choreographer with Pacific
Northwest Ballet (PNB). When Kent Stowell and Francia Russsell (co-directors
of PNB) left, I thought that was all over. But the new artistic director,
Peter Boal, has continued to use my work and he gave me such a compliment
when he said, “I want to continue working with you because I never
know what I’m going to get. With a lot of other choreographers, I
know exactly what I’m going to get musically, stylistically.” He
likes that surprise. I like doing that and my choice of music is all over
the map.
SD: You’ve used everything from Bach to Django Reinhardt.
VC: Which is great. I love that. Again, that might stem
from my music background.
SD: Do you sing? Play an instrument? Study theory?
VC: I can’t sing, but I played saxophone and clarinet.
I studied music all my life and got to music theory in college; but to
me, that was like math and I couldn’t take it. Math was my worst
subject, so I decided I would do something else.
SD: Music theory is absolutely a form of mathematics.
So – not so much math in dance?
VC: There is in terms of the patterns and the rhythms,
but I can’t do it on paper. I have to do it in the room with the
dancers. I tried to sit and do it with the paper and it just doesn’t
work for me.
SD: In terms of multiple intelligences, then, you would
be a kinetic learner.
VC: Yes, yes. Thank you.
SD: You have used the term “square” beat several
times. For non-dancers like me, what do you mean?
VC: It’s related to the rhythm and just means that
if, say, there are four beats in the measure moving on the beat, 1—2—3—4
would be “square” on as opposed to moving in the space between
the beats or maybe moving on 1—2—and 3 with a pause on four.
Not moving to the music, sometimes moving against it, helps you and makes
it more interesting for the
audience. Another way of eliminating the “square” is to choreograph
to the music going on beneath the melody. What happens is that we bring
out something in the music people haven’t noticed before.
SD: You’re actually scoring another line of harmony – but
it’s a visual harmony.
VC: Yes, to the point at which we are enhancing something
you were previously unaware of in the score itself. Stravinsky in particular
has very interesting things going on beneath the surface.
SD: When you have the opportunity to work with a live
orchestra and a conductor in the pit, how do you prefer to collaborate?
VC: The conductor has to know where I am coming from.
If you listen to fifteen different recordings of The Nutcracker, you will
hear fifteen different interpretations. So the conductor needs to be involved
in the rehearsal process as early as possible to understand the tempos
we need and tailor the music to the choreography.
SD: Does that make it very difficult for you to choreograph
to a recording?
VC: It does many times. Particularly when the recording,
for whatever reason,
deviates from the score.
SD: But it’s a fiscal reality that choreographers
today are faced with.
VC: It’s live theatre, so the dancers keep going
and ninety-nine percent of them are totally capable of getting back on
track. You would never know.
SD: You work all over the place. What is your general
impression of the state of ballet today?
VC: It’s having problems. Funding is a challenge
across the board because of the economy and also what’s going on
politically. I hope all these companies are, like any other corporation,
reexamining the books and developing ways of staying afloat until things
improve. In the meantime, it is difficult to produce new work because those
are expensive.
SD: And risky.
VC: Yes, it’s risky. Even this production has its
risks; but you have to keep that in mind and keep moving forward. There
is less experimentation these days; everything has to be more prepared
and thought out in advance. This company has been so well prepared for
this new Nutcracker, it’s amazing.
SD: Even with all of those additional
considerations, audiences should expect to have an outstanding experience.
SD: I think so. It’s going to be beautiful. I’m
keeping a couple of Louisville
traditions in place, but there will be a fresh approach with lots to see.
People will see something new every time
they see it.
Tickets are on sale now for the new Brown-Forman Nutcracker.
For more information, go to louisvilleballet.org.