Philadelphia Ballet’s Cinderella returns to the Academy of Music

Stepping up Cinderella

I wanted to know what children would find to love in the ballet, and Askegard pointed to the familiar story. The ballet tells it extraordinarily well, he said, so “they can follow along with the ballet, and they know where they are in the story.” Kids will laugh at the silly stepsisters and the jester, and there will be dancing in those glittery tutus not only by Cinderella, but also the fairies Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, along with the handsome prince. Children from the company’s school will perform as angels and as the horses that pull Cinderella’s carriage.

For the grown-ups in the audience, Askegard pointed to the next-level dancing of the corps. And, he said, the two pas de deux are gorgeous. “In the second act, the pas de deux is full of love and hope and that new energy of finding somebody. And then the third act is much more of a realized kind of love just before their marriage.” The second act gives us rapturous dancing supported on Prokofiev’s glorious music, he said. When the pas de deux in the third act begins, the couple match arm movements and continue moving as one throughout. To Askegard, “it’s a beautiful way to put physically what is happening emotionally.”

Cinderella would not be complete without its busy kitchen scenes—controlled chaos played for fun. Askegard drew my attention particularly to the first act: “You have the two stepsisters, the stepmother, the father, Cinderella, the dressmaker, the wigmaker, the dance master, the assistants.”

The company last performed Cinderella in 2016. At a Zoom webinar with the choreographer and stager Dawn Scannell, dancer Sterling Baca said that the prince was his first role when he joined the company that year, and that he brings growth and experience to his interpretation on opening night with Sydney Dolan as Cinderella. (There will be six casts over the run.) Askegard himself danced as a stepsister in 2016, but this year, he’s working with the company dancers to hone their character roles, getting the stepsisters’ moves right. “One is bossy and one is shy—what is that physicality?”

The ballet presents a real challenge to dancers. They have to get their complicated steps right on a stage that is often crowded with the coming and going of comic scenes while they perform in character. When it all comes together, though, it draws us right into a magical world.