Teague Talks

Guest writer: Soloist Sharon Teague
(Read Ms. Teague’s bio…)

Right now I’m in my dressing room located on the basement level of the Wortham Theater, thinking about what’s been going on the past couple of weeks.  I performed in The Merry Widow last weekend as a can-can girl in the 3rd act.  I loved being a can-can girl, who wouldn’t?  I got to wear a wig, garter belt, and frillies that I flashed to the audience when I kicked my legs up.

In the other cast I played Valencienne—one of the lead characters in Widow.  She is by far one of the best roles I’ve gotten to dance onstage.  As the story goes, she is a retired can-can dancer who is married to the old Baron, but is having an affair with a young French man named Camille.  Ian Casady was my Camille.  It was awesome to work with Ian because we got into the company around the same time so we have a sweet rapport.  He’s an excellent partner, and he’s handsome!  As Valencienne I got to wear a red wig (I’m naturally blonde), and my first scene was danced in a pink negligee with Camille.  The rest of the ballet I wore beautiful dresses—one pink, one purple, and one gold—all with sparkling jewels and matching tiaras.  And in the end my husband accepts my affair, and I get both men.  I love it!

I’ve been rehearsing a lot on the triple bill titled The Four Seasons.  Stanton has chosen me to dance the “Spring Girl” in the 2nd cast of his new ballet.  I’m totally psyched.  I’m supposed to portray a teenage girl who finds her first love and loses her virginity.  Stanton’s choreography is always challenging to me, but now I must act—really act—not mechanical acting that is used a lot in ballet that is loaded with gestures and highly animated facial expressions.  It’s a totally different approach.  To help me with my interpretation of the role I go back in time to my own experience; I try to remember how I felt.  I was vulnerable, nervous, curious, awkward, innocent and timid, but I also was filled with passion and desire.  I was overwhelmed with the whole physicality of the moment.  Luckily, I’m paired with Jonathan Davidsson who I’m completely comfortable with.  We have a great connection, and I think we look good together.  I hope we’ll be dancing more together in the future.  He’s totally one to watch this season.

Petite Mort rehearsals started out rough for me.  This is the first ballet in my career I’ve danced barefoot, and the first Jiří Kylián ballet I’ve performed.  I had some confidence issues, but ballet mistress Dawn Scannell has been patient with me and helped me become confident with it.  We had our first stage rehearsal the other day and it went smoothly.  I actually felt like God was dancing through me as I rehearsed that night.  Petite Mort has stretched me as an artist and has raised my creative ceiling higher.  Meanwhile, the works I’m more accustomed to are becoming more colorful and natural to me because of this experience.  These are some of the most exciting and happiest moments of my life!

-Sharon

Image below: Sharon Teague in Petite Mort.  Photo by Amitava Sarkar.

Rehearsals…in Technicolor!

Guest writer:  Katherine Burkwall-Ciscon, principal pianist of the Houston Ballet Orchestra

What does a pianist do during rehearsals?  Sometimes we just watch the amazing process of dancers learning and refining their movements.  Imagine having to learn the entire part of Maria from West Side Story from a recording.  No written music, no script, no paper or pencils to take notes, only the recording.  How long would it take?  This month I’ve watched the entire company learn their roles in The Merry Widow in a matter of hours—bit by bit, step by step, with no written aids, only the artistic staff and a video.  This is the third time I’ve played rehearsals for The Merry Widow, and I never grow tired of watching the characters develop, or of playing that wonderful music.  Each time I also find there is a higher level of detail I somehow missed writing into my musical score the last time! 

There are two layers of details I jot down in my music.  The first layer is the choreographic signposts that the dancers use to block out each section.  The more I know about how the choreography meshes with the music, the more common reference points I have with the dancers.  I definitely do not have a dancer’s memory, so I write the steps of the corps and each character in my music.  I’ve found that different colors are sometimes the only way to visually separate out the formations of the corps from the simultaneous actions of the principal characters.  My music is covered in colored writing!  Often, the dancers use nicknames to differentiate the sections (which I also write in the music).   Some of my favorite nicknames for The Merry Widow sequences:  “Ladies Choice”, “Pickey Dickey”, “Down the Avenue”, “Madame Butterfly”, “Explosions”, and Annette Page’s favorite: “Magic Moment.” (Annette Page is choreographer Ronald Hynd’s wife, and she joined her husband in setting The Merry Widow on the company).

The sheer number of waltz and polka themes, and their inevitable repetitions, brings out the second layer of details I need to add to the piano score.  When John Lanchbery first wrote the piano reduction of his arrangement of Franz Lehár’s music, he gave the pianists the basic black and white version of the music that he would later orchestrate in glorious Technicolor.  In the orchestration, whenever a major theme was repeated, Lanchbery used different mixes of instruments to change the color of the music, or he added counter-melodies (like the famous piccolo solo in Stars and Stripes Forever) to make the theme sound very different.   My challenge as a pianist this time around was to try to put more of those counter-melodies into my music—and then figure out how to play it all with only ten fingers!  Sometimes it just isn’t possible—the last triumphant waltz of The Merry Widow has a fantastic counter-melody in the strings that I just couldn’t squeeze in.  But then, there is the glory of listening to the orchestra play it all in the dress rehearsals! 

-Katherine