Fairy tales inspire ECU spring dance concert, opera

Fairy tales inspire ECU spring dance concert, opera

Many people know the story of "Cinderella" from the multiple text, stage and film productions, and audiences will have the chance to see two more versions in the coming weeks by East Carolina University students and faculty.

Opening tonight, the ECU Loessin Playhouse and School of Theatre and Dance (SOTD) spring concert "Once Upon a Dance" will feature a long-form ballet production of "Cinderella," among other dance styles and pieces inspired by fairy tales, myths and other stories. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. tonight (March 25) through Saturday, March 28, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 29 in McGinnis Auditorium on campus. Tickets are $10-$20. The Friday and Sunday performances also have live stream tickets available for the same prices, plus a small fee.

Coming soon, April 10-12, the School of Music's (SOM) ECU Opera Theater presents "Cendrillon," a 1904 chamber operetta version of "Cinderella" by Pauline Viardot. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 10-11, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 12 at the Paramount Theater in Farmville. Tickets are $5-$20.

Sharing Stories Through Movement

"Once Upon a Dance" is the second SOTD dance production created around an overarching theme, part of the effort to reach and attract audiences since the COVID-19 pandemic. That mission started last fall with "Dancing in the Streets: A Celebration of Motown," and has proved successful.

"We had the largest audiences that we've had since the pandemic," said John Dixon, associate professor of dance and concert coordinator for both 2025-2026 productions. "It was a real clear shift; people came out."

The cast and crew hope the same will hold true for the spring concert, featuring six productions inspired by different stories, including "Mary Poppins" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

Another, "the Kore of our womanhood: Persephone's Story" is a jazz piece by Alexis Goodwin, a senior dance performance and choreography student, and the "Once Upon a Dance" student choreographer. She said her piece about the goddess explores identity and internalizing others' perceptions.

"Navigating womanhood in your early 20s often feels like walking a tightrope," she said. "'Being too feminine to be taken seriously or not feminine enough to be desired' was a direct quote from my application for this project."

Goodwin also will perform as Cinderella in the ballet production, a unique piece in that it is a longer-form, 35-minute adaptation of the three-hour ballet performed by major companies. Associate professor Jessica Teague and her fellow ballet professors have worked over the years to strengthen and build the ballet program to allow for such a large production.

The piece features 22 undergraduate student dancers, and the ballet features dancers en pointe, a technique in which the dancers move on the tips of their toes. Teague said only a handful of dancers were trained in pointe work when she started at ECU, and now almost half of dance students are prepared for roles that require it. Teague herself has performed in several versions of "Cinderella" in her professional career.

"Returning to the ballet from the choreographic perspective has been very meaningful for me," she said, and allowed her to collaborate closely with the student dancers. "For today's audiences, especially children who love the magic of the story, that (three-hour) length can feel overwhelming. I wanted to create a ballet experience that is welcoming and engaging."

Goodwin said she believes telling familiar stories like "Cinderella" will attract audiences, but the way those stories are told in new, dynamic dance versions will keep them coming back for a well-rounded experience of ballet, jazz, modern, tap and theater.

"Every inch of what this program is about is represented through this eclectic show," she said. "I get the opportunity to perform en pointe, watch my dancers strut in their heels, then dance an athletic contemporary piece, all within the same hour and a half. For that range in training, I am incredibly grateful for the School of Theatre and Dance."

A Comedic "Cinderella" with New Characters

Cast and director agree that French composer Viardot's "Cendrillon" is fun and funny, offering a familiar "Cinderella" storyline with some new characters and surprises audiences will enjoy, including a bumbling stepfather instead of an evil stepmother.

Opera director and SOM assistant professor of vocal studies Dr. Daniel Shirley said he has had his eye on "Cendrillon" for years because of its fit to the college environment. Viardot wrote it for her own voice students and the piece premiered in her salon, a small intellectual gathering, in her living room. That made it a minimalist production, a great starting point for the ECU Opera Theater group, which is "dressing it up," Shirley said, with features like projected animations.

"Cendrillon" is all-ages friendly, and lasts about 90 minutes, including a short intermission. The text is a new English translation by Rachel M. Harris, and the SOM's Dr. William Staub will direct the music, which includes the ECU undergraduate Stratus String Quartet.

"It's the kind of comedy you wouldn't expect to see in most operas," Shirley said. "It's slapstick-type stuff. It's really just an attractive, approachable, fun, musically engaging presentation of this fairy tale. The music is beautiful and our students are singing it so well."

"Cendrillon" is the first full opera performance for students Rachael Lee and Josh Tripp, who both performed in last semester's opera scenes. Lee, a first-year vocal performance and pedagogy master's student, is sassy stepsister Maguelonne in one of the two casts, and stage manager for the other.

"What I love about this opera is everyone gets to be human, even though it's a fairy tale," Lee said. "You have true, genuine, human emotions that you see portrayed, and everyone gets to feel them and experience them, but then the entire cast comes together to work together to a better end.

"We need that today: Everyone works together to a better end."

Lee and Tripp, a vocal performance junior who plays Le Prince Charmant or Prince Charming, both said audiences should prepare to see a Cinderella whose family loves her. Tripp added that the support cast "is funny people, not funny animals," and compared his character to a famous local YouTuber.

"I've been saying this all semester, that the prince's motivations are almost exactly something that MrBeast would do," he said, describing the way the prince and his valet, Barigoule, swap places multiple times so the prince can meet women indirectly. "The people who don't fall for him are the ones that are meant for me. It's very MrBeast."

Emmalee Kennemore, a vocal performance major, is enjoying the development of her character in the ensemble, identified only as "young girl of marrying age."

"I get to play around with how I interact with my cast mates and how my attitude is toward the prince," she said. "I try to be more adult, but I have my moments when I'm just a teenager."

Kennemore and Camryn Insetta, a vocal performance sophomore, have appeared in multiple ECU operas. Insetta, who is the footman, said the fun part for him this time is that he's one of the few characters who knows which disguised characters are which. This is Insetta's fourth opera, an art form he first engaged with at ECU.

"I thought doing opera would be a way to find something new to do," he said. "I fell in love with it after my first."

More Stories