Cascadia Composers Fearless

OBT’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ is a unique patchwork retelling of the tale

Review: The ballet company's season opener, first produced in New Zealand in 2019, digs deep into the story's long history, complete with demon rabbits and a delicious little cottage.

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Demon rabbits, a romantic duet, a moon with a face, and a delicious little cottage—this is what awaits the viewers of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Hansel and Gretel, which opened Oct. 5 and continues through Oct. 12 at Portland’s Keller Auditorium. The work premiered on Nov. 6, 2019, as a production of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, choreographed by Loughlan Prior, award-winning Australian and Kiwi choreographer, and set the lobby abuzz with anticipation just before opening night.

While many children are raised with the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, many are also unaware of its history. The story, sometimes also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister, is said to have originated in the Baltic region around 1315 CE and was recorded by the Brothers Grimm, whose 1812 published version is commonly noted in modern-day horror, fantasy, and folk and pop works. While the exact origins of its cultural legacy are tough to pin down, the most popular version of the pieced-together fairytale depicts siblings named Hansel and Gretel who are abandoned in the woods by their woodcutter father and cruel stepmother.

The children follow a trail of moonlit white pebbles home at the displeasure of their stepmother and are again returned to the woods. The second time they find their way home, the door is locked. They are then given bread and sent back into the forest for a third time. When the children, hungry and tired, follow a dove to a house made of sweets, they begin to eat it. They are then enticed inside by an evil witch who fattens them and intends to cook and consume them. Becoming aware of the plan, Gretel interferes and The Witch ends up in the oven. The children then fill their pockets with jewels and head for home, where their hard-working father awaits.

In addition to having anecdotal significance about the dangers of gluttony and the deep forest alike, the tale of Hansel and Gretel drew greatly on one actual event. After a huge European population increase between 1100 and 1300, the area experienced prolonged rain in 1314 and 1315, leading to drowned fields that could not be plowed and rotten seeds that could not be germinated. Soon after came famine, mimicked in art and culture through storytelling, art pieces, and even postage stamps. In OBT’s retelling, a loving couple—a broom seller and a housewife—with two mischievous and gluttonous children, struggle to put food on the table during such times of hunger. The adults’ quarrels about the difficulties they face in poverty are overheard by the children, who run off into the woods themselves.

A German Hansel and Gretel-themed stamp from a vintage stamp archive.
A German Hansel and Gretel-themed stamp from a vintage stamp archive.

After a brief audio recorded welcome, OBT’s performance began with a projected film countdown … 3, 2, 1 … and the music by Claire Cowan rang out. An imaginative street scene unfolded, depicting shoppers, businessmen, and playing children. A man pulled across the stage by his umbrella caught in the wind created a marvelous sense of movement. From there, decadent and expertly crafted props from artist Kate Hawley were introduced. A bicycle complete with swirling ice cream cones rode across the stage with a somewhat disguised witch on the back, dressed head to toe in red while the rest of the scene remained desaturated. The main characters — Hansel portrayed by Nicholas Sakai, and Gretel portrayed by Carly Wheaton — were introduced.

Hansel and Gretel’s father, danced by John-Paul Simoens, and mother, danced by Jessica Lind, later arrived in a frame-box set depicting a kitchen table in a small home. Simoens, whose character was earlier seen trying to sell brooms in the street scene, displayed a sense of embodiment, exemplifying his experience believably. His character’s dejection was refreshingly palpable, and he brought this same sense of honesty to all his dancing and character acting throughout the performance. Paired with Lind, the two stole the show. They performed a breathtakingly graceful duet—Simoens lifting Lind with relative ease and sailing her through braided choreography. There was a revitalizing sense of release and danger to their technically challenging duet, and Lind committed herself to fulfilling the movement without hesitation. The two were effortless and professional, adding a sense of maturity to the work that can so often be lacking in character-driven ballet performances.

In addition to their gorgeous lines, technical strength, physical attention to detail, and devotion to execution, they displayed the necessary chemistry needed to portray a romantic couple. When they consoled each other, their interaction appeared genuine, and when they embraced, the emotion of love was palpable—effectively immersing the viewer in their storyline. When they returned to the stage in search of Hansel and Gretel in the forest, they were a fresh breath of air, reinjecting a sense of trustworthiness to the narrative that was sometimes overshadowed by the showing of camp and exhibition throughout.

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OBT dancers in Hansel and Gretel below the moon with a face. Photograph by Jingzi Zhao.
OBT dancers in Hansel and Gretel below the moon with a face. Photograph by Jingzi Zhao.

As Hansel and Gretel ran away from home, a projection of large spinning forks, meant to signify trees, decorated the stage. They were followed with a curtain drawn by Nicholas Kosanovich-Ware, who danced The Sandman seamlessly, dotted with cut-out stars and a large moon with an ice-cream cone splattered across one eye. This image, in addition to some music and costuming choices, sets the story in a decidedly early 20th-century, silent film and jazz-age era.

Apart from folk tales from across the globe that personify the moon, the idea of the moon as a face or a man is often attributed to Galileo Galilei, who used a telescope in the early 1600s to document the moon’s cratered surface, its valleys resembling facial features. In film, the image of “moon with man face” was made popular in 1902 with French filmmaker Georges Méliès’s short movie A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune), where a space capsule crashes into the moon’s eye—a theme directly referenced by the ice cream cone in the eye. Other instances of similar imagery include Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt’s more recent comedy sketch show The Mighty Boosh, in which Fielding plays a sleepy and rambunctious full moon.

Once the sky curtain was drawn onstage, a group section of bedazzled Dew Fairies took place. It was here, along with some other moments throughout, that the floor appeared somewhat slippery and precarious for dancers in pointe shoes. Formations and choreographed unison appeared slightly out of sync, minimizing the impact of the classical big-ballet style exhibit. In a later kickline section underneath a sign referencing Alice in Wonderland’s quintessential “EAT ME,” some further attention to uniformity and unison may have aided in producing the intended excitement and climax of a wild and debaucherous party scene. Though without any traditional forest imagery incorporating the greenery, trees, or looming shadows typically associated with the Hansel and Gretel story, it was a sweetly magical moment when the siblings woke to see The Witch’s gumdrop and biscuit cottage standing daintily before them. They crawled inside and intermission began, featuring a fun moving portrait of The Witch that read, “Hungry? Eat gingerbread.”

OBT dancers in The Witch's gingerbread house. Photograph by Jingzi Zhao.
OBT dancers in The Witch’s gingerbread house. Photograph by Jingzi Zhao.

Act two commenced with a sensualized version of The Witch in her red tutu disguise, shaking her hips, posturing, and commanding the cabaret-like scene to the upbeat music—all occurring around a long dining table where Hansel and Gretel ate cakes to their hearts’ delight. While narratively very different, the scene was, at times, tonally similar to some of the festive happenings in Artistic Director Dani Rowe’s Wooden Dimes, which premiered as part of OBT’s last season. The Witch, surrounded by ostentatious pink melted-ice-cream characters with only the eyes and mouths cut out of their full body garb, brought to mind the relationship between Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen and playing card minions.

From start to finish, it is clear that choreographer Prior is not timid about assigning a technical challenge, building a little chaos, or incorporating a collage of reference and imagery. From its creative stylistic choices to the unique and raucous ending, OBT’s Hansel and Gretel is an overall quirky rollick through a fairytale story.

OBT dancers in the final scene of Hansel and Gretel. Photograph by Jingi Zhao.
OBT dancers in the final scene of Hansel and Gretel. Photograph by Jingi Zhao.

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Tickets to OBT’s Hansel and Gretel are available for the second weekend of performances, Oct. 11-12 at Keller Auditorium, on the company’s official website.

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Amy Leona Havin is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and is a staff writer with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her work has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. Havin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts and is the Artistic Director of Portland-based dance performance company, The Holding Project.

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Photo Joe Cantrell

Amy Leona Havin is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and is a staff writer with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her work has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. Havin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts and is the Artistic Director of Portland-based dance performance company, The Holding Project.

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