You’ve likely seen the classic Disney cartoon—and maybe even the Magic Kingdom’s live action $270 million stinker from earlier this year. Now you can witness the beauty of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in ballet form when this family-friendly version arrives in town for a Sunday afternoon show.
The Grand Kyiv Ballet, which features some of the leading dancers from the National Opera and Ballet of Ukraine, stages a performance that V. Borkovsky and S. Petrovsky based on the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Though that may be true for the structure of the performance, the costuming and set design owe a huge debt to the 1937 Disney animated work—a decision welcomed by children and nostalgic adults alike.
The Snow White ballet, which debuted at the formerly named Kyiv Opera in 1975, tells the classic story of an unfortunate beauty on the run from an insanely jealous stepmother queen that turns comedic when she teams up with a tight gang of little people. This take will likely keep closer to the spectacle promoted by Hollywood bigwigs rather than spotlighting the story’s gruesome German origins—like the queen demanding the huntsman bring her Snow White’s lungs and liver as proof of death, so she can eat them. This version promises to be a zippy, concise edition, likely to eschew horror altogether in favor of graceful movement, glittering outfits, and physical comedy delivered by the dwarfs.
Built upon music by Polish composer Bogdan Pavlovsky, this U.S. tour stop presents one of the Grand Kyiv Ballet’s main works and invites an accessible entry point for an art form that can often come across as stuffy or belabored. Lighthearted despite the plot point of the main character fleeing from death, it should provide a digestible pre-dinner snack of culture that you won’t have to force feed to the children.
