Love and Rapture: A Cinderella Fairytale of A Night With the SF Ballet

The San Francisco Ballet’s production of Cinderella takes a modern twist on the classic fairytale, where in place of magic, mice, and wands that go bippity-bobbity-boop, there are Four Fates, colorful spirits, and forest dwellers alike that come together in an explosion of color and vivacity in this timeless happily-ever-after.

Act 1 introduces the production’s recurring motifs and mystical allegories. In Christopher Wheeldon’s rendition, Cinderella is not whisked away in a pumpkin-turned-carriage by a certain Fairy Godmother, but rather, is guided through her plight with the help of the Four Fates— gold-masked fellows in blue. Spawning from the gravesite of her mother, this quartet brings Cinderella the solace and support she desperately needs in order to persevere through the mistreatment and abuse of her stepmother Hortensia and her two daughters Clementine and Edwina. With the help of the fates, Cinderella takes her destiny into her own hands; rather than waiting to be saved from her plight of domestic servitude and subservience to her evil stepmother and sisters, Cinderella asserts her independence and resourcefulness in a culmination of color and fluidity the night of the ball; she emanates with beauty and lightness, attracting the attention of Prince Charming as the young lovers connect in a sympathetic yet playful number.

Misa Kuranaga and Isaac Hernández in Wheeldon’s Cinderella© // © Lindsay Thomas

Sprouting from the burial grounds of her recently departed mother, the mother-tree is Cinderella’s gateway to maternal guidance and comfort in her times of trouble and implored domesticity. With no Fairy Godmother to wave her wand and transform Cinderella from rags to riches, a series of different colored spirits emerge from the mother-tree. They come in groups of four, bordering on the nature of four seasons, yet instead represent Lightness, Fluidity, Generosity, and Mystery. Under the spectacular projection design of Daniel Brodie, artist Basil Twist’s mother-tree is a creation-come-to-life, swaying and shifting throughout critical moments in the choreography. Altogether this makes for some level of overstimulation, however, Cinderella’s reemergence from the branches of her late mother’s arms is spell-binding and grounding all at once.

In lieu of traditional Disney devices, our ballet-slippered princess-to-be rides to the ball like a badass—on the backs of the four fates, with the wind in her hair and her golden gown billowing around her. Against the background of conductor Martin West’s beautiful thundering, and triumphant score, the climactic performance of Act 1 carried with it an air of anticipation and excitement that was palpable during intermission.

Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella transcends the boundaries of traditional ballet, imbuing life and color into the stage with its depth of field lighting and effervescent set design. Through visual embellishments galore, the War Memorial Opera House comes to be an otherworldly realm of fantasy and make-believe, prompting me to pause, blink twice, and rub my eyes a little bit each time the lights went on and the curtains closed for intermission. Needless to say, this performance was a feat in theatrics with its technicality and use of modern technology.

Peeling back the layers of the production’s extravagant costumes, impressive use of lighting, exuberant stage theatrics, and otherworldly set design, Cinderella is a tale best told through movement, as the heart of the performance lies in its choreography. The choreography truly took on character-driven moments of despair, hope, rage, and rapture; the dancers’ bodies became vesicles for expression, where they held dialogue without words, conversing feelings of reverence by sashay and exhaling whispers of despair through pirouette.

San Francisco Ballet in Wheeldon’s Cinderella© // © Lindsay Thomas

Misa Kuranaga in Wheeldon's Cinderella© // © Lindsay Thomas

As newly christened ballet-goers, Nico and I cannot understate how transformative of an experience it was for us to attend Cinderella. Equally emotionally salient as it was comical and light-hearted, the performance moved us from start to finish. Each act was punctuated with such superfluidity and complex choreography that we could not help but “ooh” and “ahh” in between the surgically delivered yet buoyant and fluid moves of these dancers. As the curtains closed, we felt awe-inspired and full of respite for the talent, tenacity, and hard work that went into this performance.

Another tale of love and despair, Romeo and Juliet takes the stage at the War Memorial Opera House through April 30th and we at B-side highly encourage you to partake in the wonder and specularity that is SF Ballet– guaranteeing a night that is more than happily-ever-after.

Article by Nico Chodor and Dorothy Eck