Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 26

B2 SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 14. 2015 CALGARY HERALD in Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Director's at the Jubilee Auditorium through Feb. Cut. is the Alberta Ballet production that's inspired by the music and lyrics 14.

crystal schickcalgary herald. Alberta Ballet delivers a Kurios aspires to tap Cirque du Soleil's origins as street artists little ecstasy Beauty musical has grossed BROADWAY FROM Bl That connection was enough to transform Beauty and the Beast into one of the highest-grossing musicals of all-time. While the animated film has grossed around $200 million since its release in 1991, the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1994, has been seen by over 35 million people in 22 different countries, in nine different languages. It has grossed more than $1.4 billion. Since then, Woolverton has written the screenplays for films such as Alice, the adaptation of Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp that grossed over $1 billion and is the fifth highest grossing film of all time a statistic that Woolverton still can't quite grasp.

"It just makes me laugh," she says. "It's hysterical. "Honestly," she says, "I'm the only sole-credited woman (screenwriter) to break the billion dollar barrier. I think." (It was just announced that Emma Watson will star in a new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon. Woolverton didn't write that one.) She followed that up by writing Malificent, the most recent Angelina Jolie film, and is currently writing a television adaptation of Clan of the Cave Bear, which shoots in the spring of 2015.

But Woolverton never feels far removed from Beauty, which was the first real mountain she climbed as a screenwriter. "I never forget Beauty," she says, "because the show has been in my life ever since it premiered, it is never far in the past for me because of the production, because of the theatre. It's not like the movie I wrote 20 years ago. Because of the show, it's an ever present part of my life." There's also little doubt that Disney creating musicals out of its beloved animated characters was a For the kids it's not a love story so much it's about these two outsiders who find something together. LINDA WOOLVERTON game-changer for Broadway, too.

The Lion King, which has grossed around $6 billion, is the single largest grossing pop culture property ever. Shows such as that one and Beauty and the Beast have helped create a new generation of theatregoers, a fact that wasn't lost on Woolverton the first time she had to do press for Beauty and the Beast over two decades ago. "There was a little bit of snobbishness about Broadway (then)," she says, "and how dare we and all that? "That was one of my points," she says. "How do you create a new generation (of theatregoers)? If you make something for them, and make them learn to love the theatre, then they can watch Ibsen or Shakespeare, or Sondheim." shuntcalgaryherald.com Twitter: halfstep of Sarah McLachlan. It will be on stage SPOTLIGHT Kurios Cabinet of Curiosities opens April 9 at Stampede Park in Calgary Tickets: cirquedusoleil.comkurios or 1-800-450-1480 "All of that was about connecting people," he says, "bringing them together and making art circulate." The esthetic of the show may be pulled from the late 19th century, but it also embraces a sensibility steampunk pulled from right now, which Laprise says fits perfectly with a Cirque du Soleil production.

"Steampunk is a nice metaphor of what a circus show (actually) is," Laprise says, "because you have an element coming in with it's own proper story. "They all (each act) bring their own story," he says, "and an amalgam of all (those different stories) that tells another story that wouldn't be possible otherwise. "So that's how we bu ild the show." And while the look and feel of Kurios might hearken back to an earlier, grittier era of circus acts and live entertainment, there remains what Laprise believes to be the core of any great Cirque show. "I have a tremendous respect for acrobats," he says. "I love to work with singers and dancers, but for me, acrobats is the ultimate (Cirque) thing, because it's a complete vocation." shuntcalgaryherald.com Twitter: halfstep STEPHEN HUNT CALGARY HERALD Michel Laprise wanted to create a new show fuelled by the spirit of the early days of Cirque du Soleil.

The really, really early days of the mid-1980s, when the legendary company consisted of a few enterprising Montreal street performers. "Street performance is full of teachings," says Laprise, in town for a brief visit ahead of Cirque's new show Kurios Cabinet of Curiosities, which opens April 9 in Calgary. "It's the only form of performance," he says, "where the audience pays after they have seen the show. "You have to adapt (to the audience)," he says, "and it has to be super-interesting and relevant. "It is also an act of disobedience, performing on the street," he adds, "which I really like.

It's an act of courage." The inspiration for Kurios doesn't reach back only to 1980s Montreal, either, says Laprise. The company draws from a whole other era. "The second half of 19th century was incredible in terms of invention," he says. "They had the gramophone. For the first time, music was able to travel.

It was tremendous. "And (also) the development of the railway system," he adds, "and all that was happening at the same time. FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY Fumbling Towards Ecstasy at the Jubilee Auditorium through Feb.14 albertaballet.com Sarah (Nicole Caron) during The Sound That Love Makes. The showstopper for me comes right after intermission, during Illusions of Bliss 1 and 2, a duet between Serena Sandford and Kel-ley McKinlay that is where Grand-Maitre's sensual choreography, Paul Hardy's sensual costumes and McLachlan's melodies come together to create a searing duet. The chemistry between the dancers here, set against a backdrop of a cityscape that's a little bit West Side Story, is tremendous, and I loved having the intimacy of a duet fill up the huge stage at the Jubilee.

While Fumbling Towards Ecstasy isn't a so-called story ballet in the way past Alberta Ballet shows such as Madame Butterfly or Othello were, the arc of McLachlan's songbook actually generates a more engaging narrative than those old-school shows ever did forme. The evening's showcase moment comes with the arrival of older Sarah (Beverly Bagg), in Mary. The act of putting a mature woman centre stage in what has for so long been a young girl's racket feels inspired and Bragg brings the journey full circle, convening upstage with young Sarah who discovers her older, wiser self. It's theatrical and audacious and lovely to watch. Grand-Maitre, working with a design team that includes Calgary fashion star Paul Hardy (costumes), and projection designer Adam Larsen, set designer Scott Reid and sound designer Claude Lemelin, have devised a visual language for McLachlan's melodies that is engaging and sensual, electric and OK once in a while a little over the top.

McLachlan's songbook doesn't top k.d. lang, Elton or Joni Mitchell's in my greatest hits of past Alberta Ballet pop productions, but I'll be damned if her willowy, breathless vocalizations and female empowerment pop tunes don't complement Grand-Mai-tre's neo-classical choreography perfectly. If I just landed in the Jubilee from another planet and someone told me that her songs were written explicitly for a classical ballet created by a fellow true Canadian original, it would have made perfect sense. shuntcalgaryherald.com Twitter: halfstep STEPHEN HUNT CALGARY HERALD They could have called it This Girl's Life. That's the theme running through every gossamer strand of the Alberta Ballet's revised but still elegiac and beautiful edition of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Director's Cut, a ballet inspired by the music and lyrics of Sarah McLachlan, back in town for performances this week at the Jubilee Auditorium.

And why not create a dance piece that traces the trajectory of a woman's life, through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, through sexual awakening, love, loss, all the way to sexual betrayal, and on into old age out of Sarah McLachlan songs? Fumbling Towards Ecstasy choreographer and co-creator Jean Grand-Maitre practically had the narrative to this pop ballet handed to him on circular piece of 12-inch vinyl. At a time when a film called Boyhood is snapping up a bunch of film awards, McLachlan and Grand-Maitre have devised an inspired, kinetic, beautiful dance counterpoint. Following a moving introduction from Alberta Ballet executive director Martin Bragg, who dedicated the ballet to the late Michael Green and Sarah McLachlan (she's on tour in Australia), the show launched into an overture featuring a young girl young Sarah wearing a white dress, sitting upstage, leafing through an oversized, illuminated book, while beyond her, the stage fills with the Alberta Ballet company, dancing against a backdrop of billowing blue waves. As the first act unfolds, with Hold On 1, we enter a world drenched in the imagery of the sea. Projected images of whales, jellyfish and a whole underwater culture bathe over the company as the dancers slowly build to a crescendo onstage.

Young Sarah gives way to teenage Sarah in Drawn to the Rhythm and a tableau dominated by ballerinas eventually gives way, in Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, to a celebration of sexual awakening when the projected images transition cheekily from serene landscapes to something closer to one of those racy Calvin Klein underwear billboards Marky Mark used to pose for. While McLachlan's melodies feed effortlessly into Grand-Mai-tre's neo-classical stylings, there are a few lighter moments too, particularly toward the end of Act 1, when love erupts, in the Chap-linesque form of Yukichi Hattori, wearing a fedora, sporting a pencil thin moustache and a rose, who comes brandishing happiness for hp rr Kurios was inspired by the early days of Cirque du Soleil in the mid-1980s and it also embraces steampunk. martin girardcirque du soleil IPs! Everett Wood and Jilhan Butterfield in Beauty and the Beast, for the CALGARY HERALD.