The Interlochen Center for the Arts is getting ready to perform their ballet Cinderella and this show has an international connection.
The costumes for Cinderella come from the war-torn Ukraine.
“There is so much going into this from there’s so much going into this from a production standpoint, probably the most spectacular offering we have done in the ballet offered just in terms of the set and the costume. I think there’s about 91 different roles in each performance. So as you can imagine backstage, there’s always is a beauty to chaos, but it’s all coming together,” Joseph Morrissey, the show director from Interlochen Center for the Arts, says.
A key part of the ballet performance other than the dancing, is the costumes.
“This is a brand new production featuring all new choreography, sets and costumes coming from all around the world, including places such as London, Hong Kong and most recently, even kiev, Ukraine,” he says.
These costumes are made specifically for each character and help tell the story.
He goes on to say “the costumes are very important to the to the ballet, because when the dancers put the costume on, they really do become the character.”
And these costumes were made while Ukraine was at war, so these costumes mean a lot to the dancers who are wearing them.
“Brand new costumes that you really it’s a moving story were made in Kiev, Ukraine, in the past two months. And as you can imagine, with the circumstances there, no electricity. Sometimes there’s air raids going on to have something so beautiful come out of something so awful,” Morrissey says. “When Cinderella wears her ball dress, she’s not just wearing a fabulously tailor made couture in a dress that is tailor made for her. It also means so much more when she walks down those stairs.”
