A Real Life Glimpse Into Snow White's Revenge

From Camille Rose Garcia's Snow White

Warning:

This post is NOT for everyone.

It discusses historical torture methods.

Skip this if you have a sensitive stomach.

At first she did not want to go to the wedding, but she found no peace. She had to go and see the young queen. When she arrived she recognized Snow-White, and terrorized, she could only stand there without moving.Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead. (Grimms Household Tales 1857)

Although I've yet to finish this (and am late in getting it done), I'm working on putting together a slideshow retelling of Snow White for one of the tech challenges in the fairy tale MOOC. Since I'm focusing on how the Queen and Snow White affect each other, I did a little digging into history to see if I could make a little more sense of the "red hot iron shoes" the Queen was forced to dance in at Snow's wedding.

Dance to death - Kelly Mccracken
✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ (click the "Read more" link below this line) ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ 

Maria Tatar Answered Questions on Schonwerth, Grimms & Fairy Tales at iO9 This Week (& it Was Awesome)

I'm sorry I didn't see this until about half an hour after the opportunity was over, and I didn't want to just add this to the round-up list, but yes: Maria Tatar was on the pop culture 'n' more news site iO9, answering every question, no matter how strange, with tact, aplomb and a solid dose of good humor.

Here's the announcement from Thursday:

Maria Tatar is the translator of the newly discovered trove of fairytales, lost for over a century, but just recently uncovered. Ask her all your questions about The Turnip Princess, the history of fairytales and folklore, and anything else you want to know!Tatar will be joining us today from noon - 1:00 p.m. (Pacific time), so start asking her all your questions now about the history of fairytales, where these new fairytales fit in with the tradition, and what these stories mean to us today.

Although I don't really have too many questions on Schonwerth yet as I have yet to do more than skim the book, I'm sure I would have thought of something! But it's great to be there live as regular people are asking questions on fairy tales. That doesn't happen too often!

Here are a few exchanges that I thought you guys might find interesting:

Isabelle Arsenault

Ria Misra: Also, one of the things that stood out to me when reading The Turnip Princess was the darkness of many of the stories that were told. Obviously, the original Grimm brothers tales had their own dark elements as well, but those have been considerably softened through the years. Do you suspect that a similar softening process will eventually happen with these new fairytales, or are they more likely to retain their darker threads?Tatar: I've touched on some of the differences between Grimm and Schönwerth already, so I'll focus on the question of the "softening process." When the Grimms published their collection, they came under much critical fire for publishing stories that were "crude" and "vulgar." One reviewer was outraged by the story of Hans Dumm, who makes women pregnant by looking at them. The Grimms quickly dropped that story from their collection in part because they found that by making the volume more appealing to parents, they sold more books. Schönwerth never refashioned his stories, and he gives us a story in which a fellow eats dumplings and then makes a mess outdoors. Then there is the king's bodyguard, who gets the king's daughter pregnant. I imagine that these stories will expand the folkloric canon, and in some cases they will be watered down, in other cases intensified and made even more explosive. Neil Gaiman once said that a fairy tale is like a "loaded gun"—and that's why I use the term "explosive." You can always blow up a fairy tale, blow it up in both senses of the term. 

Sketchnotes for "The Great Cauldron of Story" with Maria Tatar by On Being

The Homework Ogre: In terms of original fairy tales, the one thing that everybody seems to know is that they were once much more violent — wicked stepmother dances to death in red-hot iron shoes, kids waste away and die together under a tree, stepsisters mutilate themselves to fit the slipper, etc. etc. — and have since been "sanitized" for the consumption of kids. I'm sure the stories in this collection are no less grim (har har); how do you feel about the bowlderization of folk tales?Tatar: I'm completely irreverent when it comes to fairy tales. There's nothing sacred about these stories. No one really owns them, and we should be able make them our own in mash-ups, remixes, and adaptations. It's important to preserve the historical record, and that's why I am so deeply invested in the work of the Grimms, Charles Perrault, and Schönwerth. But why should we read stories from the early nineteenth-century to our children today? Especially when women dance to death in red-hot iron shoes? Or a stepmother decapitates her stepson in "The Juniper Tree"? There's no reason not to create our own zany versions, and, if you look at picture books about Little Red Riding Hood, you see that we do that all the time. We are constantly recycling "Cinderella," "Snow White," and "Sleeping Beauty" for adults—in ways obvious and not so obvious. I don't necessarily like every new version, but I do love to talk about it. What did the writer or filmmaker get right? Where did they go wrong? 

Silver Marmoset: In a class I'm currently taking on fairy tales, we've discussed where the Grimms' fairy tales came from geographically (apparently Italy). But have you any idea where the fairy tale motifs themselves came from? As in, what ideas or time periods gave rise to the idea of ogres, talking animals, and magic as story fodder?Thank you!Tatar: Great question, and I'd start with Vladimir Nabokov who tells us that fiction began on the day when a boy came home crying "Wolf Wolf" and there was no wolf. I love the idea of fairy tales as lies—true lies that exaggerate and bend reality in ways that enable us to flex our intellectual muscles and "think more." Where did these stories come from? I don't have much faith in the view put forth that the tales had literary origins in Italy. In fact, the Schönwerth collection has few literary fingerprints on it at all. His stories are not urban and urbane confections, but narratives rooted in popular culture—with all the rough edges, surreal qualities, and lack of closure you might expect from oral storytelling traditions. The more I study folklore, the more I realize that the tropes (lost slipper, cannibalistic ogre, predatory wolf) circulate globally. The stories are primal and take up cultural contradictions that are found everywhere—human vs. animal, predator vs. prey, bestiality vs. compassion, hostility and hospitality—and help us try to make sense of them. 

LucilleBallBuster: what do you think the modern equivalent of fairy tales are? do you think any of the stories current society creates have taken the place or fairytale? or do we still form these types of stories and pass them around?Tatar: Fairy tales have not gone away. They have just been re-mediated, and today we find them on screen, at the opera, on stage, in advertisements, even in paintings. Take Little Red Riding Hood: She's refashioned in films like Hanna, Hard Candy, Freeway, and The Company of Wolves. We see her in a Chanel ad, in a Pepsi commercial (where she becomes the wolf—I think it's Kim Cattrall howling in the soundtrack), or in a Volvo ad (with a red-hooded car driving through the woods and a kid in the back seat). Then suddenly Vogue has a fairy-tale fashion shoot, and presto she reappears. Visual culture loves the girl in red, and Kiki Smith has an eye-popping series of Little Red Riding Hood images (one in the series famously appeared as a perverse wedding gift in Gilmore Girls—could not stop myself on that one).

As you can see, there's a lot to chew on here! (I had to stop myself from adding more.) You can read the whole Q&A HERE, though you might want to make yourself a very large cup of tea. Once you start, it's hard to stop reading.

Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen!

In honor of Andersen's birthday on April 2nd I got involved in 'Fairy Tale Facts Day' on Twitter and offered little known story details from the earlier, grittier version in 140 characters.

Please note: RT means 'retweet' and means I'm re-posting what someone else wrote. @ is used to reply to people for conversations.

Here's the 'transcript' of fairy tale related tweets from the day:

• Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen! (b. 1805) And now some Fairy Tale facts for you in the next few tweets...
• Before 'Disney-fication' fairy tales were often brutal & happy endings weren't guaranteed. They were legends, lessons, warnings & much more.
• Figuring out Red Riding Hood wasn't originally a 'kiddie' story doesn't take a big leap. Originally Gran eaten-Red eaten-The End. No hunter.
• In an early Frog Prince he returns to human form, not after a kiss but after being thrown at a wall by a horrible,spoiled & selfish princess
• RT @JoshDrescher In original "Rapunzel" the Prince only comes back for Rapunzel at the end because he's gotten her pregnant & feels guilty.
• The earliest known version of Cinderella (actual name Rhodopis) comes from Egypt in the 1st century BC. (thanks @JoshDrescher )
• RT @JoshDrescher Original Sleeping Beauty: she's not woken with a kiss, but is actually impregnated by a prince/king who then abandons her.
• RT @JoshDrescher She gives birth & only wakes when 1 of starving newborns sucks on her finger, removing flax that caused her to fall asleep.
• RT @JoshDrescher There is an awesome Albanian version of Snow White where she lives with 40 dragons instead of 7 Dwarfs
• Remember the zombie Snow White I mentioned earlier? In an early Snow White, she is not woken with a kiss. The Prince steals her corpse..!
• RT @JoshDrescher While transporting coffin, the Prince's servants trip & drop it. This dislodges poisoned apple chunk & Snow White wakes up.
• RT @JoshDrescher Assume necrophiliac Prince was disappointed to find he suddenly had live girl on his hands, thus ruining his weekend plans.
• @PiaVeleno Cinderella 1 stepsister cuts off toes Yes. The other cuts off heels. And now women have surgery to fit into their Mahnolos..!
• Yay for Twitter Search! Lots of people talking about fairy tales today - the REAL ones, not the happily-ever-after type. Gritty goodness!
• @ChrisTomalty Do you have an online link for the Pinocchio was a Psychopath discussion? Interested. :)
• RT @ireadkidsbooks Little Red Riding Hood by Beni Montresor- an extremely dark version of fairy tale. Not for kids! twitpic.com/2omho
• RT @ireadkidsbooks The final three wordless pages where Little Red Riding Hood floats inside wolf's swollen stomach are disturbing to me.
• (Need I say that Little Red Riding Hood by Beni Montresor is now on my wishlist? Delicious!)
• And because it's fairy tale day here's that cool info graphics interpretation of Red Riding Hood: www.vimeo.com/3514904
• Back to Fairy Tale Facts: Early Rumplestiltskin - dwarf grabs his own feet & rips himself in half after losing his bargain with the queen.
• RT @JoshDrescher In the original version of "The Little Mermaid", she doesn't get the Prince AND winds up committing suicide.
• RT @JoshDrescher Hans Christian Andersen eventually changed ending: She STILL doesn't get the Prince, but winds up going to Mermaid Heaven.
• Most of the evil stepmothers were originally the real mother. Grimms changed it because they thought it threatened the family unit.
• RT @JoshDrescher Original Jack & Beanstalk J is a murderous burglar. Giant isn't evil. J sneaks into castle, tricks wife, robs & murders G.
• RT @JoshDrescher Wasn't till much later the giant was turned into a villain in order to provide Jack with heroic justification to kill him.
• RT @JoshDrescher The original Princess and the Pea was full of bawdy double entendres.
• RT @JoshDrescher After sleeping on pile of mattresses she complains to Prince "something hard" kept her up all night, to amusement of all.
• The evil queen gets brutally punished in the 'original' Snow White by being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes till she falls down dead.
• In a very old version of Cinderella, C actually KILLS her 1st stepmother to get her father to marry the housekeeper instead.
• The Three Little Pigs: Wolf eats the first two then climbs down the chimney of the 3rd, only to end up being boiled alive in a big pot.
• Early Beauty & the Beast: the Beast had a snake-like appearance. He was transformed into a beast because he seduced an orphan (a kid).
• Hans Christian Andersen's were often tragic & filled with religious (Christian) symbolism. Happy birthday HCA!
• ...and some of them lived happily, some did not. The End.
• Another Fairy Tale Fact by request of @filboidstudge (& Mary). "What info do you have on Donkeyskin?" This may take a couple of tweets :)
• Donkeyskin is, even watered down, clearly about issues of incest. The 'adopted' part of the daughter was added. Originally she was pursued..
• ... by her actual father. the act of her donning a donkeyskin to escape is doubly interesting. Skins, especially animal represent carnality.
• The girl in Donkeyskin is wearing the disguise of the very thing she's trying to escape, outwardly wearing 'evidence' of her violations.
• The donkey at beginning with gold 'tumbling out its ears' originally had gold feces. A little jibe on how the king made his wealth perhaps:)

(Here is the book mentioned in the tweets above. Though not a story by Andersen it still worth a mention!)

Sunset Boulevard and Snow White

 With so many discussion of Snow White the tale, Snow White adaptations and retellings and Snow White on film, I thought it was a good time to post briefly on the connection I see with academy award winning film Sunset Boulevard.

It was Willa: An American Snow White that made me click to the connection. Being set in the theater with a beautiful but aging star in the role of the queen and an up and coming talented actress as Snow White (Willa) it wasn't too much of a jump to take the comparison to the movie business.

Since the connection occurred to me I can no longer see the classic Sunset Blvd without thinking of it as "the tale of the unfortunate huntsman-prince". If you keep Snow White in mind as you watch Sunset it's not too much of a stretch to consider it a Hollywood noir version of the Wicked Queen's story, as told through the eyes of the huntsman/prince (who becomes collateral damage). Although Gloria Swanson doesn't play a parent, she is a film role-model (both on-screen and off) for the wanna-be stars of the next generation and is as removed from, and aloof toward them as any self-involved queen could be.

Just as Snow White seems to be a definitive film in cinema history due to it's strong motifs/imagery and dark vs light character and story elements, so too, Sunset Boulevard can claim the same. It seems we continually return to this type of tale to define key times of both success and a (usually tragic) "changing of the guard", when one era and generation give way to the next.

The quote below further strengthens the connection to the darker, more unapologetic variants of Snow White for me:

Film writer Richard Corliss describes Sunset Boulevard as "the definitive Hollywood horror movie," noting that almost everything in the script is "ghoulish." He remarks that the story is narrated by a dead man whom Norma Desmond first mistakes for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark house that only opens its doors to the living dead." He compares Von Stroheim's character Max with Erik of The Phantom of the Opera, and Norma Desmond with Dracula, noting that, as she seduces Joe Gillis, the camera tactfully withdraws with "the traditional directorial attitude taken towards Dracula's jugular seductions." (source)

Now Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass Apples, which doesn't change too many of the key elements of the tale at all despite the use of "the living dead" and other vampiric elements, seems even more natural of a retelling, doesn't it?

Ironically, this tragic character who's inevitable downfall we watch and can sympathize with, is probably more true to the tale than most happily-ever-after versions, since it gives an indication of the fall-out that can occur when a queen loses her throne. While the prince character has no chance of happiness with the rising star he's fallen in love with, like the fairy tale, we do see the beginning of the queen's dance in red hot iron shoes at the close of the film. Her delusions continue to a mental cracking of her inner mirror so reality and fantasy are no longer separated. All this is revealed, as is her crime, under the hot, hot spotlight of a ravenous news crew and police escort. She both gives herself up to her deserved fate and gives herself over to her consuming madness in her final famous line: "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." 


In true Hollywood style, she ensures her image is the one that will never be forgotten. Snow White - and every other hopeful - don't stand a chance.

I could make further parallels but it's probably best, considering the iconic nature of the film, to let you find your own unique connections to Snow White. I bet you'll find more than a few. Take a look at the plot HERE with this in mind. You'll see what I mean.

This poster, which everyone says captures the spirit of Norma Desmond and the driving force behind the story, reminds me of Medusa - another tale about being trapped by beauty and the power in reflection.

Is Mattel's New "Ever After High" Just Another Princess Line? Or Is It Even Scarier Than "Monster High"?

Are you a royal or a rebel? Is Apple White's destiny at risk? Will Raven Queen flip the script? Let the page turning tale begin...

No. I did not write the above. (!) These are the teaser quotes for Mattel's soon-to-be-released Monster High spin-off line, Ever After High.

Fantasy writer Seanan McGuire (no stranger to fairy tales) summarized the premise for the new toys this way:

"Ever After High, where the children of famous fairy tale figures go to school as they prepare to take the Legacy Pledge and relive the stories of their parents. Hundreds of generations of Wicked Queens and whiteout girls* passing poison apples back and forth between them like Valentines..."

The story, er, collection begins with two characters**, er, dolls: Apple White (Snow White's daughter) and Raven Queen (the Evil Queen's Daughter), playing out their dueling destinies while attending the same classes. (Dum dum daaaaah!)

They even have "Mirror Blogs" we can follow them on as they comment on events, rumors and more from their (opposite) POVs.

(From the official Ever After High website:)

Raven Queen: "Just found out I'm not rooming with Maddie. My new roomie is Apple White???"

Apple White: "Spellbinding morning - the perfect day for starting a charmed new school year. Consulted my magic mirror, and I'm..." (to be revealed) 

 

OK I'll admit it. I've been rolling my eyes for much of this blog post but the "twisted teens fighting crappy destinies"/"stereotypical fairy tale characters get giant doses of reality" concept is actually beginning to make a bizarre sort of sense to me, especially if the characters are referencing the grimmer details of their parents tales and follow basic logic through. If any of those aspects are allowed to play out I can actually see this being quite "high concept" (*wince* sorry) and catching on... In fact it took me all of two minutes to find other people (mainly teens and therefore the target purchase group) thinking along the same lines and already quite excited about the whole idea.

Take a look at an excerpt from one of the (many) comments in a dedicated Tumblr blog:

"...like how is this premise somehow creepier than the one with monsters
I’m getting over my initial aversion but this is giving me some serious NO REALLY THIS IS F***ING DISTURBING feelings regarding fate and free will and the fact that some of these kids are expected to have no choice beyond ultimately dying in unbelievably gruesome ways (go look up what originally happened to Snow White’s stepmom*. Or Cinderella’s stepsisters. I’ll wait here) is a lot scarier than the franchise is admitting so far.
_____
*You know, on reflection, a woman who’d make her former tormentor dance to death in red-hot iron shoes as wedding entertainment probably is a woman who’d name her daughter after that which almost killed her herself and will eventually almost do the same to said daughter."

Then I (re)realized this is actually about selling (yet another) set of princess dolls and not primarily a story, or a show. Nor is it about providing a tool to deal with grim(m) teen issues (although it would be SO cool if that were the case). Unlike the Monster High dolls and accessories (beloved by many fairy tale afficionados) Ever After High has no cool teen zombie designs with bonus frankenfish or adorable voodoo puppy pet accessories to hook you into the sell. Despite that these princesses have the potential to be pretty dark in nature (Twisted Princesses anyone?) it's not like they'll be at home on the shelves next to Gris Grimley and The Walking Dead swag. They're just too... princessy-looking.

And then this appears on the Ever After High Facebook page:

So... yeah. We'll see. The seeds are there but will they bloom into the greatness of their true destiny or will they wither and die like so many forgotten...?

Ack. Never mind.

The line was officially announced at the end of May and is releasing in July this year.

*aka Snow Whites.

** Characters so far are: THE ROYALS - Apple White (daughter of Snow White), Briar Beauty (daughter of Sleeping Beauty), Ashlynn Ella (daughter of Cinderella), Blondielocks (daughter of Goldilocks, also a royal, kind of - not too 'this' and not too 'that'). THE REBELS - Raven Queen (daughter of the Evil Queen), Cedar Wood (daughter of Pinocchio), Cerise Hood (daughter of Little Red Riding Hood, who's hiding a big bad secret), Madeline Hatter (daughter of the Mad Hatter, roommate Kitty Cheshire, she can also hear the narrators) And there are Prince Charmings everywhere, there's a giant named Tiny and the headmaster (Mr. Grimm) has a brother who is locked in a secret library underneath the school... and arguing male and female narrators.

Course Details on the FREE USF Fairy Tale MOOC with Kevin Yee (Starts August 5th!)

Note: All images in this post are from one of my newer favorite illustrated version of Snow White. These are from "Blancanieves" by Iban Barranetxea (website/blog at link)

Free Online Class: Fairy Tales by Kevin Yee 

(Reposted from HERE with permission)

Some of you know that my “day job” is in Higher Education. Among the classes I teach is one on Fairy Tales, with focus on Disney, Grimms, and Perrault. This college class is now available to the general public, and it’s completely free! There’s not even a book to buy for the class! 

The class is a massive open online course (MOOC) and is administered through canvas.net - it’s free to sign up and take the class! It’s a four-week course starting on August 5. 

Here’s the schedule:
Week 1 – Cinderella
Week 2 – Snow White and Sleeping Beauty
Week 3 – Rapunzel and the Frog Princess
Week 4 – Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast 

The class was built to expect about two hours of engagement/interaction (“work”) per week, so it’s not meant to overload the participants with chores and duties. In that sense, it’s less rigorous than my regular college classes. The class doesn’t have any required (synchronous) meetings; you do the work whenever you want within the week. 

This course does not have a completion certificate – you’d be taking it just for the fun of it. There aren’t any papers or projects. While the class does offer quizzes and discussion boards, there isn’t really a rigorous process to “pass” the course since there isn’t a certificate offered anyway. 

The class is, however, experimental in a different sense: it’s got game elements in it. We added badges and group competition, as well as Easter eggs, throughout the class. Each group is named after one of Walt’s seven dwarfs–it works a lot like the Harry Potter “house” competition, where individuals can earn badges for the whole group. This should be fun! 

Please feel free to sign up and spread the word. I can’t wait to share with you what these fairy tales used to mean and how they’ve been changed for modern audiences!! Sign up HERE.

One of the "nicer" (?) ways I've seen the Queen depicted ,dancing to her death in red hot iron shoes

I've signed up. Will you join me? Hope to see some of you next week and talk fairy tales with you!

Ballet Preljocaj & Jean Paul Gaultier's "Blanche Neige" Comes to the US

Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige (modified poster)

I started a draft of this story early in the week but was unable to finish it and I'm now glad I didn't. I originally focused on the world famous fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier and his unique take on Snow White for Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige, which is finally touring the US. Despite that it was Gaultier's collaboration that initially caught my eye (that's the Gaultier of the infamous cone-shaped bra for Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour in 1990), the more I read about the work, the more I wanted to share other aspects of this new-to-us Snow White as well (the ballet actually debuted in France in 2008 and has since won awards). From a study of strong females and the evil queen, through to comments from the choreographer on the story of Snow White's relevance today, there's a few treats ahead in the excerpts.

Note: Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige is a contemporary dance work, not a traditional tutu ballet.

I'll begin with this wonderful article by Pamela Trokanski of The Davis Enterprise who's actually familiar with Grimm's Little Snow White and fairy tales in general so, amongst the images of Gaultier's amazing costumes, I'll give you excerpts from here and a few other places.

From The Davis Enterprise on the ballet itself:

I grew up reading fairy tales — the real ones — before political correctness and cultural “sanitization” took place. They were stories of love and terror, of cruelty and revenge, of retribution and atonement. Good ultimately conquered evil, although there was often a price to pay, by both victim and perpetrator. 

Choreographer Angelin Preljocaj understands this in his bones. And he certainly speaks the language of fairy tale, fluently and faultlessly. His “Blanche Neige” (“Snow White”) is a stunning, visually opulent, work that captures the Grimm fairy tale version exquisitely.

On the story and characters of the ballet:

The entrance of the pregnant mother, danced by Nuriya Nagimova, her slow progression as she toils across the stage, desperate in childbirth, says a great deal about the power of well wedded movement to sound. The appearance of seven miners (not noted in the program) out of caves, high above the stage, rappelling down a rock wall, dancing vertically and horizontally above the stage, was unexpected and joyous, toying with our expectations that dance happens on a flat surface and is bound by gravity. 

Also captivating: the reappearance of the dead mother, materializing from above, hovering over and lifting her dead daughter momentarily, before leaving. 

There are small, but crucial choreographic touches that convey the story. The passage of time, between the King finding the baby, and Snow White’s growing up, is neatly conveyed by a simple, yet effective, use of set. The King moves behind a column of material, the baby sheltered in his arms, only to reappear with the young girl, beautifully portrayed by 9-year-old Camilla Pedrosa of Davis. (McKenna Lincoln, 10, of Woodland, danced the role Sunday.) Dancing with his young daughter, he circles yet another column, this time reappearing with Snow White as a young woman, danced by Virginie Caussin. 

The cats, minions of The Queen, were perfectly matched and moved sinuously across the stage, menacing and mischievous. Dancers Natacha Grimaud and Lorena O’Neil were perfectly suited for these roles. Athletic and elegant, they were able to convey both the bonelessness of languid felines and their willingness to play with prey. 

The Prince, danced by Sergio Diaz, made a marvelous partner for Snow White. While their opening interactions at the ballroom were everything they needed to be, it was the duet of the prince and the dead/unconscious Snow White that was incomparable. A pas de deux with one partner required to act limp and unresponsive calls for strength, timing, trust and true connection.

(Edit FTNH: Sounds like choreographer Kenneth MacMillan's tomb pas de deux of Romeo & Juliet - which is also amazing and heart wrenching.)

Did anything not work for me? An opening scene at court went a little long. Also, the program notes, by Preljocaj, state his belief that the wicked stepmother is, to him, the central character. I didn’t see that at all. But all in all, these are very small things, nothing compared to the torment of the wicked stepmother, forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance to her death.

On the costume designs (source):

“Snow White has this beautiful flowing costume, but it’s almost nonexistent on the side,” said Renae Williams Niles, director of programming at the Music Center. “So you see far more of Snow White than you ever thought you would.” 

...(Jean Paul Gaultier's) costumes make it to the Music Center thanks to Angelin Preljocaj. The artistic director of the French ballet company and choreographer of the work said there’s a purpose to the revealing elements. The outfit shows both the character’s childhood purity and how she is in the process of becoming a woman.“The costume is half [a] costume of a woman and half [a] costume of a child,” he said in heavily accented French. 

In terms of costume design, it’s hard to get more contemporary than Gaultier. The fashion icon, who worked for Pierre Cardin before launching his own label, brings his unique style to all of the outfits while maintaining perfect harmony with the rest of the production, according to Niles.

(from  shopfair:) The costumes were designed by Jean Paul Gaultier and really suited the modern interpretation of the classic fairytale choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj to music by Gustav Mahler. The designs ranged from subtle JPG touches like straps and suspenders to full-blown JPG with the stepmother's bondage queen outfit (which was wonderful) and the best use of fringe I have seen this year (pictured on the right). "This is not the first time that Gaultier designs clothes for dancers. He has collaborated with Régine Chopinot, the choreographer, for 11 years in the past(1983-1994), during which he had sewed costumes for –more or less- 18 ballets choreographed by Chopinot." 

And excerpts from a completely different sort of review fro a 2009 performance, focusing on the evil queen, by Claudio from iHeartBerlin,de:

Being a fairy tale expert and a psychologist I was always indulged by the strong female characters appearing in Grimm’s fairy tales. I appreciated their impact in the stories as an evil and intense element of the plot. One of my favorites has always been the evil queen of Snow White who is obsessed with her vanity to the point where she loses everything.

...If I had to describe the style and the feeling the piece was giving me I would say that it is a great mixture between a stylish gothic music video and a really classical nice Midsummer Night’s Dream production. What perhaps sounds like an odd combination results in an emotionally touching balancing act between both styles. 

...Most intriguing was obviously the charming Beatrice Knop who proved herself as an enormously powerful solo dancer. Especially in her mirror scenes I totally believed that she was doing real magic instead of dancing. Also the scene where she kills Snow White with the apple really had a disturbing intensity. I literally saw the poison entering the body through the movements of the witch. (Read the whole review HERE.)

And finally, some very interesting comments on his Blanche Neige from the choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj (who, by the way, is referencing Bettelheim):

Preljocaj said the fairy tale remains relevant today, in the age of plastic surgery and other ways that women can remain young-looking.

"It's a very modern story, in the sense that today with scientific and medical progress, women can stay young and beautiful for a long time," said the choreographer. 

"That creates a potential conflict between generations. Daughters, faced with mothers who want to remain lovers, desirable and active socially, can develop a kind of Snow White complex."

"Generations are coming together. You often see 50- or 60-year-old women in the street with their daughter, dressed the same, swapping clothes and handbags. They can even be love rivals."

As with the upcoming big screen versions, Preljocaj's production does not follow the Disney version of the fairytale, rather putting more focus on the cruel stepmother. 

"It's the same as with 'Swan Lake', with the black swan and the white swan: Snow White is the positive character, beautiful and pure, while the stepmother is the opposite, also beautiful, but dark and hate-filled," he said.

"Snow White' is "really a thriller," he said. "The story of 'Sleeping Beauty' can be told in two lines. 'Snow White' is full of twists... leading to lots of ways of interpreting it choreographically." (source)

Here's a video of excerpts from the ballet. though the first courtier scene is a little long, the rest of the video is very dynamic and shows off choreography, costumes and the Snow White story beautifully:

For it's US debut gala at the Mondavi, Magrit Mondavi, Don Roth and Jeremy Ganter got together round table style to discuss Blanche Neige of KVIE's Studio Sacramento. It's about 20 minutes long but for anyone who likes theater and ballet production as well as Snow White, it's worth watching:

Watch Mondavi Center on PBS. See more from KVIE.

I've only seen ballet school versions of Snow White so to see a full-length professional work, complete with world famous set and costume designer collaboration would be amazing.

"Snow White" will be staged in Los Angeles from March 23-25, before heading to the East Coast at the end of March, through to April 21. The US cities where the work is to be performed include Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (source)