"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" | A Letter from Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute
Welcome to our brand-new Family Classics Series ballet, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
I first introduced our Family Classics Series in 2012 as a way to introduce children and young families to the magic of a live ballet performance. In just over one hour with one 20-minute intermission, a great fairy tale or story is presented through dance and music with a narration explaining the action as it unfolds on the stage. The whole performance is designed to be fun and funny as it immerses younger audiences in this beautiful and fascinating art form without taxing their patience.
The Family Classic Series also gives our training company Ballet West II, our top-level Academy students, and even our younger children performers an opportunity to do leading roles on the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre stage.
I also love what a collaborative experience the creation of this series is. Since its inception, the visionary behind each ballet is our Rehearsal Director Pamela Robinson-Harris. I suggest the story and overall ideas, sometimes some of the music, and Pam runs with it. She is endlessly creative as she researches every detail of the stories, selects the bulk of the music, writes the libretto, and envisions the choreography. Together she and I work out the narration and with our Production Director Michael Andrew Currey and our Direction of Costume Production, Jason Hadley, they come up with the fanciful designs for the costumes and sets.
For this new endeavor, I selected Washington Irving’s short story from 1820 – The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I wanted Pam to try her hand at something other than a fairy tale and we both thought it should be a comedy but also just spooky and scary enough for little kids.
Washington Irvings’ creation of his original story is actually quite fascinating as it is a mix of true historical facts and fantasy. Taking place in a Dutch settlement in the late 18th Century of Tarrytown, New York. The legend of the ghost - The Headless Horseman - was actual folklore from the region about a soldier who had lost his head in the Battle of White Plains – part of the Revolutionary War. Irving’s lead character, the persnickety schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, was named after a real life army captain of that time, but the actual character was based on a school teacher friend of Irving’s and the lead townspeople Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and many others were developed from names that Irving found on the gravestones in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown.
What brought extra challenges to creating the ballet version of this story is that so much of action is told in flashbacks and tales told by the characters. Additionally, the actual ending remains a mystery. What actually did happen to Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow? Pam has brilliantly woven a tapestry of real-time events and tableaux to represent the internal storytelling. The characters are “painted” broadly to ensure our young audiences’ maximum enjoyment and the action moves along at a clipped pace, almost as if it is an animated cartoon.
One interesting fun fact about our cast. During the early rehearsal process, we found out that one of our intermediate students Mallory Ostmark is an actual descendant of Katrina Van Tassel. So, there is a real family connection to this production for Ballet West as well. When she found out this news, Pam ingeniously created a character especially for her.
My philosophy of the art form of ballet in dance is ultimately quite simple. It is here for everyone and should be accessible for all. Our family classic series was created to build an interest in this art form from a very young age and to nurture and develop our future artists, giving them an opportunity to grow in their dancing and narrative abilities. By presenting the Family Classics Series with the narration both in English and in Spanish for some performances, we also endeavor to serve our entire community.
We hope you enjoy the world premiere run of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,
Thank you for your patronage,
Adam Sklute
Ballet West Artistic Director