The Thing with Feathers: Emily Dickinson Meets Contemporary Ballet

“Emily Dickinson is a household name, [but] not many people know specific poems of hers … when you first start to read her work, it can be intimidating,” Genevieve Waterbury says.

Waterbury is the choreographer for Ballet Co.Laboratory’s upcoming April show, “Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse.” This ballet uses contemporary dance as the vehicle to tell the story of one of America’s most beloved poets.

“[It’s the] same with contemporary dance,” Waterbury continues. “Audiences are often unsure if they interpreted it correctly.”

For Waterbury, this ambiguity contributes to the beauty of both poetry and dance. “You probably will take away different things than the person next to you! [Dickinson’s] work is so open to interpretation, so this show will be too,” she explains. “There’s plenty to dig into, try to figure out if you choose that route, but there is as much honor in breathing along and letting go. I can’t wait to share it and hear all the different interpretations!”

Ballet Co.Laboratory was founded by current Artistic Director Zoé Henrot with the intention of creating an inclusive space for storytelling through dance.

“As a queer female dancer, choreographer [and] educator, Zoé refused the notion that ballet must conform to a singular mold,” Managing Director Rachel Koep explains. “Given ballet’s history of exclusivity, she founded an organization guided by inclusivity — celebrating all body types, gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, learning styles [and] socioeconomic positions.”

This inclusivity includes artists, audience members and the stories at the center of it all. “Ballet Co.Laboratory’s ‘Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse’ is our 15th original ballet highlighting stories historically excluded from the art form,” Koep says. “By creating these new ballets, those who once felt unseen in the art form now find their stories center stage.”

Choosing out-of-the-box and previously untold stories is important. “We know this fosters a more inclusive community where people feel encouraged to envision themselves as artists, students and arts patrons,” Henrot says.

“Ballet Co.Laboratory was founded to redefine the ‘traditions’ of ballet … [we are] committed to creating innovative ballets for a new generation,” Koep says.

“Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse” was a long time in the making. “This show was [Zoé Henrot’s] initial idea,” Waterbury says. “[Henrot] attended Mount Holyoke in Western Mass., as did Emily, so it had been on Zoé’s mind for some time and she pitched the idea to me a couple years ago.”

As the choreographer, Waterbury’s sensibilities are clear throughout the show, but she is quick to credit the many creative partners she had throughout the process.

“I had such thoughtful conversations with our incredible Emily Dickinson Museum guide, James Stenning-Barnes, poet and associate professor of English at Lawrence University, Melissa Range, and with local astrologer and artist, TK Sloane,” Waterbury says. “The artistic, marketing and production staff at BCL are all so incredible. Everyone has listened and approached the work with enthusiasm and vulnerability.”

Dickinson has provided ample inspiration for the creative team. “The show follows the timeline of Emily’s life but, just as she did, it uses metaphor, sound and texture as tools to process life,” Waterbury explains. “My creative process is similar to Emily’s in that nature is my greatest teacher … Trees represent lineage and legacy. Noisy bobolinks brave long journeys and indicate new chapters. Flies warn of death but with such animation that we start to dissolve the threshold between life and death.”

Considering Dickinson’s work, the themes of life and death are recurrent. “One thing I’ve enjoyed with casting choices is creating a sense of life cycles and of being reborn, further muddying the idea of life and death as opposites,” Waterbury says. “Several dancers play multiple roles, both as humans in society as well as a deer, bumble bee or part of the meadow.”

Dickinson has always been something of a mystery. Her reclusive nature, minimalist writing style and insistence that her correspondence be destroyed upon her death have all contributed to her enigmatic legacy.

“I imagine she intended, and probably reveled in, being such a puzzle,” Waterbury muses. “What’s also so interesting to me is that she really wasn’t all that obscure, much of her words and ideas are blunt, but I think the lack of queer visibility and acceptance in the world she lived wrote much of her story for her.”

Waterbury is referring to the popular theory that Dickinson was a lesbian, which is one of many aspects of Dickinson’s life that is explored in “Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse.”

“To say that there is no proof that she was queer is only possible through the distorted lens that open queerness was an option,” Waterbury says. “Through her poetry, preserved letters and others’ observations of her unusual lifestyle, it feels clear that she was not willing to subscribe to any restrictive ideas of what she ought to do and be. She also writes about her mischievous childhood in a letter stating ‘when I was a boy’ and signs ‘Brother Emily’ in another, further challenging the gender impositions of her time.”

“Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse” is set to Fanny Mendelssohn’s “Das Jahr,” which means “The Year” in German. The solo piano composition beautifully underscores the ballet and is a fitting choice considering that Mendelssohn was Dickinson’s contemporary.

“They only overlapped by about 15 years, [but] Fanny and Emily would have shared some experiences navigating to the world as women in the 19th Century from European descent,” Waterbury says.

Like Dickinson, Mendelssohn was beset by an intensely patriarchal world. “Fanny … had musical education like her more famous brother, Felix, and throughout their careers, he was said to have relied on her for much of his inspiration and guidance with his own composition,” Waterbury says. “Several works by Fanny were published under his name, supposedly because she was too busy with household duties to be in the public eye.”

“Das Jahr is what I imagine to be Fanny’s journey through a year,” Waterbury says. “Ultimately, she is the voyager and the choice maker, but we’re right there with her breathing in the scenery, feeling the bumps and turns so her choices make more sense. I hope to parallel that relationship with Emily’s story.”

All four performances are at Ballet Co.Laboratory Studio Theatre in St. Paul. Tickets are $40 with discounts available for children, students, seniors and groups. There is a delightful-looking VIP ticket package for Saturday shows that includes a short historical presentation and a cocktail hour. Tickets and more information are available on the company website, listed below.

Friday, April 11 at 7 p.m.
Saturday, April 12 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, April 12 at 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m.

Ballet Co.Laboratory Studio Theatre
276 E. Lafayette Frontage Rd.
St. Paul, MN 55107

www.balletcolaboratory.org