Dream of a performance

As bloodlines are revered in horse racing, as past owners of a painting are charted by collectors, so, too, is the idea of provenance cherished in ballet circles.

Who trained you and that person's link to past luminaries is a matter of conferred authority.

The art of ballet is passed down through a laying-on of hands, the older dancer nudging a younger one into the right position, adjusting her chin, her elbow, even her thoughts.

These days, when adding an unfamiliar ballet to its repertoire, a company could resort to copying the choreography from videotapes and DVDs but much of the artistry of dancing is lost that way.

Ballet conveys its meaning and emotional power not only through the steps but also through myriad little intangibles of human expression.

As we get further away in time from the creators of the great ballets of the 19th century, staging a ballet production that has any provenance to speak of is harder to do.

This is why what happened recently at the Washington Ballet is so astonishing.

One of the hottest male dancers in the country and two members of the Royal Danish Ballet teamed up in a production of the enchanting but seldom-seen 1836 ballet, La Sylphide, by Danish choreographer August Bournonville.

His name may not be that familiar to many audiences nowadays but Bournonville was the Lord Byron of romantic-era ballet and a master of telling stories in dance.

Since he was a dancer and a choreographer, he created great bouncy, juicy roles for himself in his works, for which male dancers have been grateful ever since.

Preparing for a revival

The Washington Ballet had never danced the two-act, hour-long work before, so artistic director Septime Webre appealed directly to the Royal Danish Ballet, safekeeper of Bournonville's creations and a powerhouse of male dancers.

Webre hired Sorella Englund, a retired ballerina, now a Royal Danish Ballet instructor, and Thomas Lund, a leading dancer, to stage La Sylphide.

They taught it to the dancers for several weeks. Webre also asked David Hallberg, the tall, blond 26-year-old principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT), to guest-star in several of the performances in the role of James, the dreamy Scottish laird and doomed hero.

Why did Hallberg, a busy man, agree to moonlight with a small regional troupe? Like much in ballet, it all comes down to emotional connections.

His boyhood teacher, Kee-Juan Han, became director of the Washington School of Ballet, the company's training arm, two years ago. And you don't say no to the person who taught you your first plie.

Also, Hallberg was keen to work with Lund, who can trace his artistic lineage all the way back to the great Bournonville himself.

Just three generations get you there, in fact: Lund's ballet teacher was the onetime assistant director of the Royal Danish Ballet and Bournonville expert Kirsten Ralov, whose teacher had been Hans Beck, who was chosen by Bournonville at the end of his life to carry on his style.

In other words, all that separates Hallberg from Bournonville is a series of rehearsals, such as the one that took place recently and concerned a nap.

Of all the feats you might ask a professional dancer to do, acting out a nap has got to be one of the easiest. Who among us couldn't pull that off?

But in the ballet world there are right ways and wrong ways to doze onstage, as Hallberg found out.

James's nap starts the story. La Sylphide tells of a man who chooses the wrong woman and pays for it in blood. But it begins in utter innocence, with a dream.

A sylph — a winged woodland fairy — is hovering over James while he is dreaming by the fire in a chair.

He wakes to her kiss, falls in love with her, leaves his mortal bride at the altar (this all takes place on his wedding day) and chases after the sylph into the wild heath.

But the happiness he thinks they will have in the mist is not to be: A witch who bears a grudge against James tricks him into capturing his elusive love with a poisoned scarf.

The sylph, once caught, perishes in his arms, and James dies in despair.

It is a piercing little corker of a ballet, tender and cruel, swift-paced and full of airborne dancing.

But for a ballet as steeped in emotion as this one, the steps are one thing, the feeling is another, and equally important.

This is where Lund comes in. “Now, be careful not to make it like you're Aurora, going to sleep for a hundred years,'' he says to Hallberg, referring to the princess heroine of The Sleeping Beauty.

Lund is a boyish 34, dark-haired and compactly built.

He is wearing a fleece jacket and track pants that drape loosely over the thighs of a sprinter. He speaks in a charming, lightly accented singsong.

Hallberg, wearing a T-shirt and sweats rolled up to his knees, is sitting in a chair, assuming his initial pose, leaning back, eyes closed.

Lund tweaks his position, making him look more upright and less collapsed, pulling his legs in a bit.

Then, as the two listen to Herman Severin Lovenskiold's yearning, lilting music, Lund points out a beat when Hallberg, if he wishes, might draw a breath and visibly sigh in his sleep, signalling a change in his subconscious, “like it's the opening of a book'', Lund says.

Then there is the point when he turns his head — this is the restless sleep of an artistic soul.

Lund takes a turn in the chair as Hallberg watches and the two switch off, repeating the moment — just a few measures of music — over and over.

Next, Hallberg's response to the sylph: He shouldn't immediately turn in her direction but blink out to the audience, disoriented.

“You know how it is when you wake up and you don't know where you are? It takes a while before he realises what has happened,'' Lund says.

Lund takes Hallberg's place in the chair, shows him how, when James catches sight of the sylph, he should jump to his feet and spread his arms wide.

“Then she's gone and you're very confused,'' Lund says. “It's like, what I saw is all the dreams that I ever thought I'd want to see, and then it's gone in a second.''

Lund returns to the chair, showing how James should somewhat hesitantly resettle himself, processing what he just saw to resume the nap.

“Here, it's good if your eyes lose focus a bit, like you've dropped into your thoughts,'' Lund tells Hallberg, who watches intently.

Not even five minutes of the ballet have transpired and Hallberg's character has hardly danced a step, and yet it has taken around 30 minutes of rehearsal.

It would, no doubt, be easier if the rehearsal were all about glissades and jetes, rather than about the mime and how to fill these non-dancing moments with drama, but this is what he signed on for.

For the next half hour, Hallberg says little, watching Lund with his arms tightly crossed and brow furrowed, occasionally voicing his uncertainties. “I just feel it's hard to convince ... ,'' he murmurs. And: “The pantomime is a little cloudy for me.''
Lund is patient and encouraging.

He shows Hallberg options to try. “James consists of doubts,'' he says in an interview the next day.

Should he marry Effy and do what everybody is expecting him to do, or should he follow his dream?

Hallberg's hesitancy, Lund says, is an excellent starting point for building a convincing character.