Ballet Students Prepare For Beijing

By Carla M. Collado
Staff Writer

Utah native Hannah Wright, 18, has been in Long Beach a little more than three weeks rehearsing with the Long Beach Ballet — six hours a day, six days a week — and she’s definitely feeling the effects.

“It’s pretty rigorous … my feet are pretty hashed, I have blisters everywhere,” Wright said. “But I guess it’s just part of the package.”

What she’s referring to is the 16-day trip to China she’s about to take with the Long Beach Ballet to perform in four cities and to visit Beijing during the Olympics. Wright will be one of 44 advanced-level ballet students who auditioned in cities across the country (including New York, Miami, San Francisco, Houston and Chicago) for the chance to be part of the “Ballet Ambassadors to China” tour.

“I feel very honored and … really excited to be representing the U.S. for this,” said Wright, who’s been dancing since she was 9 years old and said this will be her first trip outside the country. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Before leaving for China on Sunday (July 27), the group will stage a preview performance of its show, “Ballet American Style,” at 7 p.m. Saturday (July 26) at Lakewood High School.

“Ballet American Style,” a multimedia production showcasing American culture and history, is the brainchild of Long Beach Ballet Artistic Director David Wilcox, who first brought the show to Guangzhou, China, two years ago as a gift to Chinese audiences. Wilcox has been staging shows in China for almost a decade, including three full-length ballets with Chinese companies and six ballet tours there with American dancers. Partly due to his ties with the Chinese ballet world and partly due to how quickly word spread about “Ballet American Style,” agents asked him to bring the show back, he explained.

The two-hour-long production is narrated in Chinese and starts off with the second act from “Swan Lake,” a show that Chinese audiences love, according to Wilcox. The rest of the show features dance numbers based on different American themes.

There’s a Native American number, a Western/pioneer movement, a cowboy ballet and a Swing-era piece complete with dancers in sailor outfits. Throughout the show, three large screens onstage provide a backdrop of images including Native American people, prairies, clouds, pioneers, churches, cowboy scenes and more, Wilcox said. Accompanying music ranges from “Down to the River to Pray” to Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.”

Finally, the show will end with a special tribute to honor the thousands of people who died in the recent China earthquakes. The ballet is choreographed by Wilcox’s son-in-law, Johnny Zhong, a former soloist with the National Ballet of China in Guangzhou, and is tentatively titled “American Dancers Learning Ancient Peking Opera,” Wilcox said. All 44 dancers will take the stage for this number, and dance to traditional Chinese percussion music, he added.

“We’re doing our best job to imitate the ancient tradition of Chinese dance and doing it in a way to honor them,” Wilcox said.

The Long Beach Ballet group will perform in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai and Rizhao. The group of 87 people — including dancers, crew, artistic personnel and relatives — also will spend five days in Beijing sightseeing and attending festivities at the 2008 Olympics. All of the dancers, most of whom are 15 to 18 years old, will have their airfare paid for by the Chinese ballet agents, Wilcox said.

The Long Beach Ballet has about 450 students enrolled in classical ballet classes.

To buy tickets ($20 per person) for the Lakewood High School production of “Ballet American Style,” or for more information, call 426-4112.