Lake Country Calendar: Ballet Kelowna’s Spring fuses fairy tale with comic heroes

By Sydney Morton

2 May 2019

Ballet Kelowna is closing its season with Spring.

A mixed program that features three re-imagined classics from Canadian female choreographers; Petrushka by Heather Dotto, Amber Funk Barton’s Firebird and Rite of Spring by Ballet Kelowna’s artistic director, Simone Orlando. Then it will conclude with Spring from one of Canada’s emerging talents, Alysa Pires.

When approaching her recreation of Firebird, Funk Barton deconstructed Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 piece by remaining the heroine.

“In my version instead of point shoes and being ethereal, my Firebird is grounded and athletic. It’s a totally different aesthetic,” said Funk Barton.

“It was inspired by an old Russian fairy tale and I was thinking about what are our fairy tales now. They are comic books and star wars and DC those are our fairy tales so how do I make it contemporary and still keep its classical essence… to me the Firebird is a combination of The Flash and Mystique. She is almost what is referred to as a meta-human.”

Funk Barton also changed the ending, in the original she said that the Firebird’s magic is taken from her however in this version she gives it up to help people.

Read the full article in the Lake Country Calendar.