Juliet comes home

BANGKOK’S 15TH International Festival of Dance and Music commenced last Friday with the Imperial Ice Stars’ “Nutcracker on Ice”, five shows that have delighted and thrilled the whole family.
And there’s another very special treat coming up for local audiences: the festival’s closing performance on October 14, Le Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve’s “Romeo and Juliet” will feature Thai dancer Sarawanee “Pik” Tanatanit in the title role.
Back home last month on vacation, after having performed this role at Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre in the SAR and National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Centre in Taipei in July, Pik took time to sit down and chat with us.
Since this is the company’s first visit to Thailand, Pik started by introducing the troupe.
“We’re a company of 22 dancers – 11 male and 11 female. Before, the company was larger but for the past 10 years it has remained at 22 – I joined five years ago. It’s quite small but enough to be able to do a full-length ballet as well as small repertoire works. I think it’s quite smart because we can feed into many different markets depending on what they’re looking for.
“The dancers, mostly trained in classical ballet, are very versatile and are of many different nationalities. There are only two Swiss dancers, the others are Brazilian, French, Italian, Japanese and so on. Our director Philippe Cohen likes to see a mix of people. Coincidentally, he spent some time in Thailand and Vietnam and he always give me much support and is one of the biggest influences in my life.”
Pik explains that under the direction of Cohen, the company is working on a variety of pieces. “We’re doing neo-classical works, such as those by Benjamin Millepied, who will be the director of the Paris Opera Ballet next season. We’re also doing contemporary and experimental works. Cohen likes taking risks and he gives a lot of opportunities to young choreographers in whose talents he believes, inviting them to make full-length creations.”
Right now, the company is back home in Geneva working with French choreographer Michel Kelemenis on his new interpretation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Their season will open at the Geneva Opera House, before the company travels to Bangkok. Pik said that the company will also have another two seasons at a smaller venue in Geneva in February and April.
For the rest of the year, the company has an extensive tour schedule around Europe and all over the world. The trip to Bangkok will be their third trip to Asia this year, and after Thailand, they will continue to a few Chinese cities. “This year, we’re living out of suitcases,” says Pik with a smile.
After several years with the
 American Ballet Theatre, Pik joined Le Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve after she watched them perform in New York five years ago. It was a big change for her and coincided with the company’s work on a new production “Romeo and Juliet” by Swiss-born Paris-based choreographer Joelle Bouvier. Pik was cast as a member of the chorus.
Last year, Pik was cast in the title role in Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidburg’s new version of “Giselle”. Thanks to the kudos she has received for her “Giselle”, Pik made her debut as Juliet in Hong Kong in July this year. It was described by the South China Morning Post in a preview article as a “simple “version of the world’s most famous star-crossed lovers “performed to three orchestral suites taken from Prokofiev’s ballet score.”
“Gone are the parents, gone is the priest, gone even is the nurse. What remain are the two central stories, which give different takes on love and loyalty: the tragic story of the two teenage lovers from rival families at war, and the tragic battle between Juliet’s cousin Tybalt and Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio,” the preview states.
In the review, the SCMP critic wrote, “Bouvier is clearly a talented choreographer and produces some striking images – two that stand out are Juliet being carried into the ball seated astride Tybalt’s shoulder and her scrambling up Romeo’s body when she tries to prevent him leaving Verona. The company dances with energy and there is much demanding double work for all the dancers, not just the lovers.”
Her colleague at Taipei Times had this to say: “The leads, Nathanael Marie and Sarawanee Tanatanit, are very fine dancers, but there was little chemistry between them. It is hard to know if that was Bouvier’s intention, or yet another example of the inability of many dancers nowadays to act out a story because so much of the modern ballet repertoire is abstract, not narrative, so they do not get enough practice.”
Asked about this comment, Pik explains, “Lidburg and Bouvier have very different perspectives on how the characters should be acted out. Lidburg focused more on the realistic emotional expression while Bouvier wants the characters to be more reserved. The body, rather than the face, has to speak the story, especially at the beginning when the emotion is being developed from the inside. Of course, the character would not come out the first time you perform it.”
Having performed the popular three-hour version of “Romeo and Juliet” by Sir Kenneth MacMillan more than a hundred times, Pik says she prefers this “condensed” 75-minute version, because “it’s much more human and relevant to today’s audience.”
  BOOK NOW
 n Le Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve’s “Romeo and Juliet” is on October 14, 7:30pm, at the Thailand Cultural Centre.
n Tickets cost from Bt 700 to Bt 2,500 at www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.
n For more, www.GeneveOpera.ch (in English and French).
n Tonight, Moscow’s Helikon Opera Theatre will perform Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann”; tomorrow their symphony orchestra’s concert will feature Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 3” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” among others; and on Thursday, Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”. Tickets are from Bt700 to Bt4,500. Visit www.Helikon.ru for more details.
  WE HAVE
TICKETS!
- Here’s one question where you won’t find the answer in this article.
- Name an event in which Pik shared the stage with Sek Loso in New York City. They were in the same show and it’s not “Swan Lake” so Sek wasn’t in a tutu.
- Send your reply to [email protected] by noon on Wednesday making sure to put Romeo and Juliet in the subject box .
- The first two correct answers with will get a pair of tickets to “Romeo of Juliet” on October 14, courtesy of International Cultural Promotions.