Six male Boston Ballet performers spoke to about 75 members of the Boston University community last night at the Tsai Performance Center, discussing a variety of topics, from the specific physical difficulties of the ballet to the mental challenges of being in the field, while promoting their upcoming performance of Don Quixote.
The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center sponsored the free event to “give [students] a chance to see behind-the-scenes of an art form,” Gotlieb Center Director Vita Paladino said.
Paladino said the Gotlieb Center will sponsor 12 similar events throughout the year, each focused on different aspects of the arts. While the Gotlieb Center usually deals with documents, Paladino said the center chose to sponsor the event to help bring the arts to life for students.
“We have dances in our collection,” Paladino said. “We wanted to bring to the university the arts.”
The event was also meant to promote the Boston Ballet itself. Paladino said she wanted to support the company’s first performance of the year, which will cost $20 for students.
“There will be sex on stage,” she said. “You will see sparks.”
Although the free event drew many students, not all were drawn in by the ballet dancers.
“I had to go the bathroom, so I came in here and saw this and saw it was free, so I decided to stick around,” College of Communication senior Jaimee Baker said. “I’ve always wanted to see the Boston Ballet, so this works out well.”
The dancers spent most of the evening answering questions from Boston Ballet Public Relations Associate Director Sheryl Flatow about their upcoming performance. Two dancers performed an excerpt from the performance. The audience had an opportunity to ask the dancers questions, but because of time constraints, the dancers only had time to answer three public questions.
The beginning of the discussion focused mostly on the technical difficulties of the male roles in Don Quixote. One of the roles, performed by Boston Ballet member Sabi Varga, a dancer for 19 years, will require him to wear a cape tied around his waist, which he described as being “trapped in a spider web. You can’t move your arms. It’s very uncomfortable.”
Fellow dancer James Whiteside described some of the technically difficult dance moves in the ballet.
“You’re in a straight jacket, and you’re bolting down a hallway and then you have to jump backwards,” he said. “Not fun.”
Despite the difficulty of Don Quixote, “in the end, if it comes together, and we hope it will, it will look that much better,” 16-year dancer Gabor Kapin said.
In the middle of the event, dancers Nelson Madrigal and Erica Cornejo performed a duet from the ballet. The performance was Cornejo’s first public appearance as part of the Boston Ballet.
Despite most of the audience being female, some of the male dancers, including Varga, said they hoped the event would “make [the audience] see dancing in a different way.”
A former male dancer, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Khizer Syed said he chose to attend the free event because “I haven’t been in ballet for about 10 years, so I want[ed] to see how it’s evolved.”
The dancers addressed topics including the specific mental challenges of ballet and how male dancers deal with their weight and diet. Whiteside said because they practice in front of a mirror, some dancers tend to over-criticize their technique because they look at themselves for such a long period of time.
The dancers also used the event to promote their Oct. 19 performance of Don Quixote.
“I’m going to see the dance,” College of General Studies sophomore Shama Thathi said. “I was very appalled by what they had to say. I didn’t think it was as intense.”