Queensland Ballet: Little Red Riding Hood
Playhouse, QPAC, 23 June
As part of its ‘My First Ballet’ series Queensland Ballet (QB) has created Little Red Riding Hood, a ballet for children under 8 years, in partnership with QPAC and the 2016 Out of the Box Festival. Choreographed by Lucas Jervies, this production used four dancers drawn from outside the company in a very fresh and innovative take on the fairy tale.
Staged here in a traditional proscenium setting, but able to transfer easily to other platforms, the work has a very clever, but simple design by Thomas Boyd that suggests rather than recreates the woods and interior of both Red Riding Hood’s and the Grandmother’s house. A specially commissioned score from Tristan Parr beautifully supports the narrative, which has been skillfully shaped under the eye of dramaturge Sandra Gattenhof.
Jervies tells the simple story with clarity and finesse exclusively through movement, with an extraordinary attention to detail that also develops the character of each of the protagonists. Indya Gardner was a delightfully modern and rather feisty Little Red, tormented by her naughty little brother, danced with dramatic and technical skill by Joseph Simons.
Simons also played the Wolf’s tail, in an inspired dichotomous creation of the beast, which has a second dancer (Charles Ball) simultaneously manipulating the Wolf’s almost lascivious tongue-lolling head. It makes for some witty choreographic exchanges between the two halves, and between them and Little Red.
Add to this mix a loving Mother and rather zany Grandmother, both deliciously crafted by Lonii Garnons-Williams, and you have a perfectly constructed children’s ballet of 40 minutes that captivates from beginning to end.
This work is scheduled to tour, and along with QB’s recently launched Junior Friends program is part of the company’s determined plan to capture an audience from the cradle to grave. It has to be a winning formula.
– Denise Richardson