On April 11 and 12, California Ballet Company put on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Civic Center Theater downtown. California Ballet Director Maxine Mahon has history with the classic, “A comedy of love, mischief and mayhem” as California Ballet referred to it. Mahon choreographed the ballet back in 1977. To accompany the ballet, she chose the music of Felix Mendelssohn.
On April 11 and 12, California Ballet Company put on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Civic Center Theater downtown. California Ballet Director Maxine Mahon has history with the classic, “A comedy of love, mischief and mayhem” as California Ballet referred to it. Mahon choreographed the ballet back in 1977. To accompany the ballet, she chose the music of Felix Mendelssohn.
The cast consisted of 71 dancers, from very young cast members—ladybugs and forest creatures—to older, more experienced “Company” dancers. There were guest dancers as well; Andrei Jouravlev (Theseus) and Violeta Angelova (Hippolyta) from New Jersey and New York.
California Ballet (known also as Cal Bal) was founded by Mahon 47 years ago. During that time, she has created a storied career in the States and internationally, received many individual honors, has remained active in the local arts community, but also trained her students to win medals and earn professional recognition of their own.
Cal Bal does four major productions a year, including three major ballets. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was their spring production. They try to do at least one production at the San Diego Repertory Theater, though the Civic Center is considered its home theater. “It presents ballets so beautifully,” according to Cal Bal Regisseur Denise Dabrowski.
The ballet, divided into three acts, was a triumph of artistry, from aesthetics to form. The set was a tall, dark forest that had to work for simultaneous story lines, a variety of mythical creatures plus humans, as well as the hypnotic movements of lines and circles of ballet dancers. The costumes for the fairies, a wedding party, maidens, butterflies and more were impossible to ignore, with more colors than a rainbow and evoking elements of the moon, so important to the story.
Mahon’s choreography was impressive in the fact that for even those who did not know the story line of Midsummer Nights’, it was not difficult to follow. Familiar themes—love, jealously, revenge, and magic were expressed through the fluid and smooth dancers. The physical exclamations of the fae, so necessary to tell the story as a ballet, were nimble and simply enjoyable to watch.
Dabrowski, a former Prima Ballerina who also danced with the Joffre Ballet, enjoys especially working with children.
“It’s so satisfying,” she said. Dabrowski teaches ballets school and rehearses Company dancers. “Paying back and passing on” what she has learned and done.
Dabrowski has been on stage since the age of 10, her life, like Mahon, devoted to ballet. Cal Bal starts teaching “Tiny Tots” at age three, and there is no age limit for anyone who wants to learn.
“Everybody can dance,” Dabrowski said. Participating in class or watching professional dancers reenact Shakespeare, California Ballet teaches and celebrates an art form, and art. Dabrowski believes all of this is tied to “being a good human.”
Learn more about the school at californiaballet.org, or call 858-560-5676.
