Lewis Carroll’s immortal children’s story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has long fascinated not just generations of children and readers, but artists in other disciplines. Its irresistible blend of whimsical, fantastical characters and wildly outrageous narrative along with the slyly knowing, subversive strain in its makeup has always attracted the interest of everyone from filmmakers to philosophers. Choreographers are no exception. And in Christopher Wheeldon, the Carroll classic has undoubtedly found its ideal choreographic interpreter.
Wheeldon’s version of the story is an unforgettable fantasia in dance, with the familiar figures from the book coming to startling, brilliant, hilarious and even frightening life and the consummate choreography merging with the visionary sets and costumes by Bob Crowley and a brilliantly evocative score by Joby Talbot. Taken as a whole, the work is not just a sublime re-iteration of one of our culture’s great and formative texts, it is a celebration of imagination itself, an evening of childhood wonder brought to exhilarating life.
Purchase tickets for the National Ballet of Canada's event here.