American Ballet Theatre is known for its story ballets. But where do those stories come from? Many of the full-length works in the Company鈥檚 repertoire, ranging from The Sleeping Beauty to Manon to Jane Eyre鈥攁nd including this season鈥檚 Onegin and Romeo and Juliet鈥攁re based on literary source material. Christopher Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor are among the choreographers carrying on this tradition at ABT today. Wheeldon鈥檚 Like Water for Chocolate, which returns July 16-20 following last summer鈥檚 debut, is based on Laura Esquival鈥檚 1989 novel of the same name. And McGregor鈥檚 Woolf Works, which made its New York debut last month, is a triptych inspired by three of Virginia Woolf鈥檚 modernist novels: Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931).
When creating Woolf Works for The Royal Ballet in 2015, McGregor was clear that this ballet was not going to be a standard retelling of Woolf鈥檚 oeuvre, but something much more abstract. It includes elements of Woolf鈥檚 biography and distillations of her books鈥� themes, imagery, and literary devices. 鈥淭he three-act ballet format provided us with a chance, with Woolf as the instigator, to upend and interrogate ballet鈥檚 often conventional structure鈥攎uch in the same way Woolf challenged not only the conventions of writing, but also the process of reading,鈥� says McGregor. 鈥淲oolf鈥檚 biography too, like all artists鈥� lives, is intrinsically woven into her works鈥攁rt and life inseparable.鈥�
To get there, McGregor collaborated with dramaturg Uzma Hameed on extensive research. They read and re-read Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves and met with several Woolf scholars. They also went on a kind of Woolf pilgrimage, visiting Woolf鈥檚 home, Monks House, and her sister Vanessa Bell鈥檚 house and studio. They had the chance, says McGregor, to 鈥渢ouch the artifacts of her life and the context in which she lived, experience the garden she wrote in, the river she drowned in鈥攁 complete immersion."
Teuscher finds that the challenge of the ballet is portraying the character of Clarissa Dalloway/Virginia Woolf鈥檚 inner and exterior lives. 鈥淧eople describe Mrs. Dalloway as stream of consciousness writing, but I see it more as going in and out of worlds, in and out of the present and the past,鈥� she says. 鈥淥bviously, I can鈥檛 explain to the audience that suddenly this is a memory, or a thought that's happening in my mind."
For Wheeldon, adapting Like Water for Chocolate for the stage meant narrowing down the novel鈥檚 256 pages into two hours of dancing鈥攚hile still holding onto the legibility of the plot. 鈥淢aking ballets from existing novels means there is a lot of source material to draw from,鈥� says Wheeldon, adding, 鈥淟aura was our best source of dramaturgy.鈥� He still recalls with great fondness his trips to visit Esquival in her home in Mexico. 鈥淢y husband and I were enchanted by her warmth and her willingness to share her beautiful story with us,鈥� he says.
When Wheeldon brought Like Water for Chocolate to ABT in 2023 (it too was originally created for The Royal Ballet), he sat the Company down for a presentation by Esquival via Zoom.鈥� She explained how the three sisters represent the three different phases of how people reacted to the Mexican Revolution,鈥� remembers ABT Principal Dancer Herman Cornejo, who dances the role of Pedro. 鈥淲hen you do Giselle or Swan Lake, you don鈥檛 get this background from the creator.鈥�
Cornejo sees Like Water for Chocolate as part of 鈥渁 new era of classics.鈥� He relishes the chance to do away with mime and the classical ballet set up of pas de deux, solo, coda, to focus on stories and themes. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 feel yourself as a dancer anymore,鈥� he says of dancing Pedro.鈥淵ou鈥檙e an actor, portraying a story. It fulfills me.鈥� Similarly, Teuscher thinks of contemporary literary adaptations, includingWoolf Works, as a continuation of ballet鈥檚 story telling tradition. 鈥淚 personally love that people are continuing to make narrative-based work,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 think it is a really beautiful craft that has become uncommon.鈥�
