Gianna Reisen on Her First Narrative Work, an Alice in Wonderland for Carolina Ballet

In September 2017, Gianna Reisen stepped into the limelight as the youngest choreographer New York City Ballet had ever commissioned. She was 18 years old. Her work, Composer’s Holiday, opened the door to later projects with Carolina Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, the School of American Ballet, and again with NYCB. Reisen’s entire repertoire, until now, has consisted of contemporary or neoclassical pieces.

For her fourth time working with Carolina Ballet, the now-26-year-old is tackling uncharted territory in her choreography: a story ballet. Running March 13–30 at the Fletcher Opera Theater, Reisen’s hour-long Alice in Wonderland will make its world premiere alongside Jerome Robbins’ Fanfare.

“I hadn’t seen [a narrative ballet] for myself—maybe not yet,” Reisen tells Pointe, explaining that following Carolina Ballet’s debut of her Signs last April, artistic director Zalman Raffael asked if she’d be interested in creating a narrative work for the company. “But then when the opportunity came,” she says, “I thought, Why not?”

We spoke with Reisen to learn more.

For your first narrative ballet, why did you choose Alice in Wonderland?

I wanted to do something that hasn’t been done a lot in ballet. Then Alice popped into my head. I knew that [Christopher Wheeldon] had made one, and there are [others] floating about. But I felt like it was an opportunity to challenge myself, and that I could still make it me—quirky and weird.

The story is already so abstract. Things just happen. And in the book, she wakes up at the end and it was all a dream. I’m not going in that direction—there will be hints that she is dreaming, but I’m playing more on the theme of youth and the imagination we have as kids that leaves us when we get older.

How did you proceed from there?

Music’s always first for me. But I needed to be really familiar with the story, so I read and reread the book and started watching different movies to get ideas. The ballet will be a hodgepodge of all the adaptations of Alice.

What’s interesting is that with story ballets in general, there are so many added elements of sets and props and optical illusions with lighting. The full picture isn’t going to be there until we’re at the theater. That’s been really interesting to me, because it hasn’t been in my normal process.

What did you choose for the music?

I had the option of using an existing score. That would have simplified my life! But of course, that’s not what I do. [Laughs.] I chose to build a world myself with all different types of music. The throughline is Philip Glass—I’m kind of in a Glass obsession right now. I found this amazing set of scores called A Descent Into the Maelström, which is his musical adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe poem where a sailor is taken down a whirlpool. I thought, This is Alice falling down the rabbit hole!”

I’m sprinkling in different music genres. There’s some smooth jazz from the Bill Evans Trio, some solo piano, and this amazing Indian group [Rajasthan Express] that has a really cool album with Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead.

How did you approach creating Wonderland?

I had the idea to change the movement quality once Alice gets to Wonderland. We start more classical, and then it grows to be something else—the movement gets quirkier, and there are more modern elements. Fewer pointe shoes. I want it to be recognizable from the real world to the obscure.

There are a lot of animal characters in Alice, and I didn’t want to be so on the nose with that. The caterpillar, for example, will be a Vegas mobster guy who has a comedically long tie and smokes a cigar. For the Mad Hatter, I took a lot of inspiration from David Bowie. He’s going to have a whole microphone lip-syncing moment—a rock-star kind of guy.

Tell me more about your Alice.

With story ballet comes character building and acting, and I’m not entirely educated in that way. It’s newer territory. With Alice, I think: “How would I approach this situation?” 

There’s a Little Alice, as well, who’s 8 years old and in the Carolina Ballet School. She’ll help with the visuals of Alice growing and shrinking, but she’s also a character herself, in a way. She’s kind of the younger version of Alice. There’s more to that, but I won’t give it away just yet!

Any other thoughts on tackling your first narrative work?

Story ballets weren’t at the top of my list in terms of my career path. I thought maybe it would happen later, but as I’m in this process I’m really glad that it’s happening now. I’m learning a lot. I’m wearing a lot of hats. You always do as a choreographer, but not like this, at least for me.