Ballet Jörgen draws on the age-old and the contemporary for its fresh take on Cinderella
Canadian dance icon Bengt Jörgen has devoted his company to making the art form accessible
Ballet Jörgen presents Cinderella at the Massey Theatre on February 18 at 7:30 pm
CANADIAN DANCE ICON Bengt Jörgen wants you to know something very important about his company’s latest touring ballet version of Cinderella: “We have no pumpkins. I want to say that right away!”
“When you get rid of the pumpkins you get a really beautiful story,” he adds in a phone interview before the show’s tour stop here at the Massey Theatre.
So instead of drawing from a certain vintage Disney cartoon with its magical winter-squash carriage, Jörgen was inspired by the ancient Chinese version of the fairy tale (called "Ye Xian"), finding rich magical tree imagery. (Even the sets suggest old-growth forests.)
He also brings the story, set to Sergei Prokofiev’s mesmerizing orchestral score, into the contemporary world with a more assertive Cinderella.
“Cinderella is not a sweet, little girl that is a push over,” Jörgen says. “She’s definitely a strong woman—she can give as good as she gets, so you can have much more fun with the relationships.
“It has a different type of humanity to it, and the funny moments become more funny because you have something to contrast that with,” Jörgen adds. “It has been hard for some companies to reconcile that in the past; some thought it was a sweet and shallow story—and it is not.”
Jörgen first created his version of Cinderella back in 2006, the more than three-decade-old company remounting it with fresh eyes for 2023.
“Every time we revive it, we don’t bring it back the same,” explains the Order of Canada-winning choreographer and artistic director. “The reality today is dancers are much stronger than they were 15 years ago. Dances also live in the time they were created in.”
That approach of constantly pushing classic works forward has been important to one of the most tirelessly touring professional dance companies in the country—one devoted to making ballet, and dance in general, accessible to all Canadians. Grounding its work in classical rigour, Ballet Jörgen is the only professional dance company that hits every province every year, its cofounder points out.
“Dance, in my opinion, is a very important aspect of life, and it’s important that it’s accessible to everybody,” he stresses.
Born in Stockholm and trained at the prestigious Royal Swedish Ballet, Jörgen first came here to dance for the National Ballet of Canada. Over the next decades, via his company, he has devoted his working life to taking professional dance beyond its anchors in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. “Some of the most underserved regions are the suburbs,” he points out.
Whether it’s Cinderella, or the company’s fresh versions of other classics—including an Algonquin Park-set Nutcracker and a Fortress of Louisburg-set Swan Lake—Jörgen is committed to bringing the language of ballet, and the stories it tells, to the masses of all ages.
“Even if people have physical access they don't have financial access—it’s been made inaccessible physically, financially, and even culturally,” he laments. "There are so many different barriers we put up. So our focus is to bring down the barriers. People should be able to enjoy dance.”
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