How could Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, be improved? It’s a question I’ve only rarely pondered, but one that the Imperial Ice Stars answered anyway – STAGE IT ON ICE.
I’m not sure if I will have an enjoyable evening when dry ice and people in velour leotards and goth/rave face paint flood onto the stage for the prologue. My seat is in the front row of Brighton’s intimate Theatre Royal, which results in me being sprayed with ice as soon as the show starts. There’s also a heart-stopping moment when a member of the company is swung by her partner and her bladed feet come too near to my face for comfort. I move to a vacant seat near the back of the venue as soon as possible.
The show is more child-friendly than traditional, non-ice versions of the ballet that I have seen. It’s reduced to two acts and lasts only two hours including a twenty-minute interval (in which a man in a baseball cap came onto the stage to mop up, somewhat spoiling the fairytale atmosphere – couldn’t they have put the curtain down for that?). And there’s a narrator who tells us what will happen in each seen before we see it, very helpful for those not practiced at following a story through only music and dance.
Velour leotards aside, the level of talent on display is absolutely outstanding. My knowledge of ice dancing doesn’t go much further than watching the Figure Skating Championships on TV every Easter. But in a 2 hour show with 29 performers there was only one unintentional fall – the maths speak for themselves. The choreography is incredibly beautiful and tells the story well. As the show goes on and I get drawn in, I realise that the ice is not a camp marketing ploy to distinguish this from every other production of the ballet; it really adds to the grace and elegance of the piece.
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