Sat 5/20 @ 7PM
City Ballet of Cleveland performs their annual recital on this Saturday and they’ve brought alumna Diana Yohe back as guest artist for the featured dance, the pas de deux from Flower Festival of Genzano, a challenging and charming duet that’s a showcase of the Bournonville style. Back in 2011 we interviewed Yohe but that was before she’d landed her first contract as a professional ballet dancer. Since then she’s been dancing with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre where she was recently promoted to soloist. In the course of a phone interview with her, we previewed the concert and touched on diverse subjects.
CC: Please tell us a little about Flower Festival.
Diana Yohe: Flower Festival of Genzano was choreographed in Denmark in the Bournonville style in 1858, so it’s old, and the old French style of dancing that it’s based on is even older, but Bournonville is still a technique that every dancer learns. It’s right up there with Balanchine technique, very famous and very well thought of.
Bournonville has its own porte de bras, its own way of using the arms, that brings you back to your preparatory positions with the arms held low. Bournonville emphasizes ease in the upper body to create an appearance of effortlessness even though what your lower body is doing is often very difficult.
As old as Flower Festival is, it’s still performed by famous dancers today, retelling the story of two young lovers.
CC: Watching some YouTube videos of Flower Festival, I was reminded how very sweet it is. She teases him a bit, but tenderly. The other thing that struck me, they don’t seem to be a prince and princess, but everyday people. Maybe middle-class Scandinavians.
DY: They’re supposed to be Italians, Rosa and Paolo. I don’t know if Bournonville liked Italy or Italian culture.
CC: Reflecting longstanding enthusiasm for Italy and things Italian, perhaps. What will you wear for this performance?
DY: The girl wears a long, Romantic tulle skirt that covers her knees. The guy wears a loose-fitting, blousy shirt and tights. The costuming is very simple. The whole idea is to show off their technique — their dancing — and tell the story.
CC: Who provided the costume? Did you bring something from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s costume department?
DY: Yes. PBT has Flower Festival in their rep and their costumes are very beautiful.
CC: So will you be wearing the yellow dress that’s on the PBT website?
DY: Yes, a very happy yellow.
CC: Watching rehearsal the other day, I saw the corps de ballet standing in a semi-circle while you and your partner danced the pas de deux. But none of the YouTube videos included a corps.
DY: It depends what you’re performing for. Flower Festival was originally part of a larger ballet but today the pas de deux is often performed separately and without the corps for galas and competitions. But I think originally the corps was part of the pas de deux. And it’s kind of cool for us that we’ll have other people onstage dancing with us.
CC: We hear that PBT recently promoted you to soloist. Congratulations. And even before your promotion, you’ve been dancing many excellent featured roles. You were cast as Myrtha in their Giselle. You were the title character in their Alice in Wonderland.
DY: Yea, Alice kind of happened last minute. The girl that was learning Alice got injured and I had to learn that part about a week before the show. It was quick but it was a really cool role to do. That specific production is full of special effects so it’s very different from most ballets you’ll see. When you get an opportunity like that it was like “Oh, no!” but I felt very lucky that I got to learn it and perform it.
Luckily there was a student matinee before opening night and that served as my dress rehearsal. Because of all the lighting and the special effects, it was such a very hard ballet for the stage crew that after two nights in the theater I never got a dress rehearsal. Stressful but worth it. And we’ve bought Derek Deane’s Alice so it’s in the rep.
CC: PBT has some video of Alice in Wonderland on their website. Is that you in the video?
DY: No. They did Deane’s Alice a few years ago and those videos are from then.
CC: Anyway, judging from the videos that’s a very handsome retelling of the Alice story. Big costumes that really identify the characters!
DY: There are a lot of characters in that ballet. A lot of set pieces. Special effects. Magic tricks. The stage crew had almost as much to learn as the dancers. A very complicated ballet.
CC: In contrast to Alice, which is a fun, contemporary ballet, Myrtha is an important character in an iconic ballet from the Romantic tradition. She’s what? The leader of the Wilis?
DY: Yes. That was one of my favorite roles I’ve ever performed.
CC: I thought you might like that. Now, I’m not real familiar with the choreography but I remember arabesques and penchés that Myrtha has to hold for a long time. I would think that any instability, any wavering in those held positions would cause Myrtha to lose her authority.
DY: Yes, you’re very vulnerable and if you’re shaky it messes with your character. So you have to have your classical technique down but also for Myrtha there’s a back story that you kind of have to come up with yourself.
Giselle is my favorite Romantic ballet. The music is beautiful, the story line is simple, and when you do the second act, it’s all about the dancing. My favorite role to date but also the hardest role I’ve ever had to do.
CC: You have a lot of company. A lot of people like Giselle. How many programs do you do a year?
DY: We have five major programs and smaller shows here and there. We always start our season with an outdoor show at Hartwood Acres. At the end of last year our last big production was Romeo and Juliet but after that we had a choreographic showcase that just ended this past weekend. And we tour some although it’s mainly in this area — Chicago, around Pennsylvania. I’m hoping one day maybe we can perform in Cleveland.
CC: That would be great! Not to take anything away from the ballet companies already based in Cleveland, but PBT has so much great repertoire. If PBT doesn’t come to Cleveland soon, we may have to send our readers driving to Pittsburgh.
DY: That drive is so easy! Two hours with E-Z Pass. (Laughs.)
CC: Sounds doable. Now, I wanted to ask you to say more about something you’ve touched on already, solving artistic problems.
DY: Dancers today are really lucky because we have so many resources. You mentioned the Alice video earlier. Well, I watched that video more times than I can count learning that role. I would use the video at the studio, working with other girls who were learning the role, and then I would go home watch it again just to make sure that I learned everything. For that role you’re on stage almost continuously for two hours. Even when Alice is not the center of attention, there are a lot of small acting parts on the side that you cannot miss without losing part of the story. If I hadn’t had that video, it would have been much more difficult to learn that part in the time I had.
When it comes to something like Myrtha, I did research online and I spent a lot of money on Amazon getting different versions of Giselle so I could watch how different ballerinas have done Myrtha. And I really enjoyed seeing how people approached the role.
CC: So, the importance of video resources in solving an artistic problem. How about an example of solving a non-artistic problem. Where do you live? What’s your daily commute like?
DY: I’ve lived in the same apartment for four years now. I found it on Craigslist — which some people think is sketchy — but I would always bring somebody with me when I looked at an apartment. So I live ten minutes from Ballet Theatre, a very short drive. I’m in a house above an older couple who have lived in this neighborhood a long time — they’ve been married something like 50 years. They have their upstairs converted into an apartment and it works out just so.
CC: When we talked with you in 2011 you were at Joffrey School and you had roommates. Do you have roommates now?
DY: I live by myself now. I had three years of roommates. And, you know, I think it’s important to have roommates and it’s important to live on your own. I still talk to the girls I roomed with at the Joffrey school. My one roommate is with Dance Theater of Harlem now so when we did a collaboration with them I got to spend a couple of weeks with her, which was awesome.
CC: We hear you just got engaged. Congratulations! What’s the story?
DY: As you know, he’s Joseph Parr, my partner in this Flower Festival.
We’ve known each other 4 years. We met at the ballet. I didn’t fully know when it was coming, but I had the feeling that it was coming soon. He waited until it was a beautiful sunny day and took me out to Mount Washington View Point without telling me what he was going to do. You can see the entirety of Pittsburgh from there. He surprised me there and had my best friend hide in the bushes to take a picture of the moment when he asked. It was perfect.
CC: I wanted to ask you about things to see and places to hang out in Pittsburgh. Mount Washington View Point sounds pretty nice. Even if you’re not getting engaged.
DY: Anyone coming to Pittsburgh for the first time has to go up Mount Washington. There’s an incline railroad so you can get up and down the mountain. You can see the point where the two rivers meet. Everyone says it’s the most romantic spot in Pittsburgh and I guess I have to agree.
In addition to Flower Festival of Genzano Pas de Deux, Saturday’s performance will include City Ballet of Cleveland’s original production of Alice in Wonderland and four new works choreographed by faculty members.
City Ballet of Cleveland performs its annual spring repertory concert Sat 5/20 @ 7pm at Tri-C’s Eastern Campus. Presale ticket are $30 for adults and $10 for students and seniors here. All tickets purchased day of show are $35 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. Learn more about City Ballet of Cleveland at cityballetofcleveland.org.
[Written by Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas]
