Ripples of Change in ABT’s ‘Swan Lake’

With a new introduction and new choreography for Acts 1 and 4, audiences will be seeing a very different “Swan Lake” on Tuesday when American Ballet Theatre dances at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Artistic director Kevin McKenzie says the biggest make-over will be given to the role of the evil sorcerer Rothbart. A largely non-dancing part in other productions, the character will actually have solos. During the overture he’ll be seen seducing Odette and turning her into a swan and he will be a dominant force in the ballroom scene. The part will be double-cast with one performer as an acting Rothbart and another as a dancing Rothbart.

“He’s a huge controlling force in the story,” McKenzie said recently from company studios in New York. “I wanted to establish right off, yes, he was the bad guy, but also he was a supernatural being. He had control over mere mortals.

“To establish those powers at the very beginning, he is transformed in front of the audience from a beast to a very handsome man and back again. They see the monster, then the handsome guy they’re going to see in the third act, and back again.”

In the expanded role, McKenzie chose three dancers for their ability to combine passion and lyricism. “What all three have in common is a fire, but it’s under a cloak of elegance, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for in this particular role,” said McKenzie.

All three dancers are Latino, all three had similar challenges to face as men in dance, and all three are thoroughly enjoying the role which McKenzie created with Marcelo Gomes, who performed at the premiere in Washington, D.C., in March 2000.

“Rothbart is a fun role,” said Gomes. “You get to show off your technical side as well as your artistic expression, which I love to do. When we were first creating it, I couldn’t wait for the next step. But it’s hard. In the beginning, you’re dealing with all the princesses and there’s a lot of partnering. Then halfway through the variation, it’s not about partnering anymore. It’s about you dancing. That’s want makes it exciting. He manipulates everybody in the palace. Seduces almost everyone.”

“It’s a beautiful role,” said Ricardo Torres. “You are evil. But you’re a prince. You have to be a prince to convince [Odette] to hang out with you in the first part. He totally hypnotizes her and turns her into a swan. Then he seduces her.”

Carlos Molina finds the role of Rothbart especially virtuosic. “We have a variation that requires a lot of technique and you need a lot of stamina for it. You have to stay in character while you’re doing all this. That’s what makes it difficult.”

The three dancers have more in common than the role. Like most young males interested in ballet, they had to overcome prejudice and hostility to pursue their art.

Gomes, who was born in Brazil, was told to get professional psychological help.

“Any other kind of dance--samba, pagode, forro--social dances, a man can do that,” Gomes, 22, said in a separate interview from New York. “Why does ballet have to be different? But it was different. When I wanted to get time off from gym class to go study dance, my parents got called in to the school to talk to the director. He said there was something wrong with me. I did not want to do soccer. He told my parents to seek a doctor. They thought that was ridiculous.”

Some of his friends were supportive but others were not. “It was hard, but only when I was not in the studio. When I was in the studio, most of the time, I forgot about that stuff. I knew I wanted to be a professional dancer. If I had to hang onto those problems, I wouldn’t have made it so far so quickly.”

He left Brazil when he was 13 to study for three years at the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Fla. After three years there, he won the Hope Prize in 1996 at the international competition in Lausanne, then went to study at the Paris Opera Ballet for a year. He joined ABT in 1997 as a member of the corps and was promoted to soloist in August 2000.

Torres, 21, was born in Puerto Rico. He began dancing “because I couldn’t get into any sports,” he said from New York. “I wasn’t good at them.” His mother enrolled him in a local school that taught theater and creative movement, including ballet.

“They started putting on shows on Saturdays. I really liked it. But it was awful for me. In school, they would make fun of me. There were so few boys, I got into the [Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico] when I was 13. We had to go on tour, so everybody knew I was dancing. I was really lonely, but my mom and I were close. All through high school, I needed friends. But I liked [ballet] so much, it was worth it. I learned to block [the loneliness]. I filled my time with other stuff.”

Torres went to San Francisco Ballet School for a year on scholarship, then returned to Puerto Rico for a year. He joined ABT’s Studio Company in 1999 and the main company a year later, as a soloist. He won a 2001 Princess Grace Dance Fellowship and also the Chris Hellman Dance Award, given at the competition to only one dancer each year.

Molina, 27, was born in Cali, Colombia, and discovered dance, he said, “by accident.”

“I was in a regular school when I was little, but I liked to run around and play, so they suspended me for one year,” Molina said from New York. “I was 9. I didn’t know what to do. My mother knew about this ballet school, a special school to form dancers. I went to it. I liked it and decided to keep going.”

He quickly faced the prejudice that “ballet is only for girls.” “But since I spent most of my time at the school--it was a program of eight years and had academics and artistic programs all together--people didn’t have much opportunity to make fun of it.”

Molina moved to the U.S. when he was 18 to start a summer program on scholarship at the Houston Ballet. That led to another scholarship for a year’s study at the company. He went on to join the Hartford Ballet, where he stayed for four years before joining ABT as a corps member in 1998. He was promoted to soloist in 2001.

The combined talents of Molina, Torres and Gomes will bring more attention to the role, McKenzie said. But he also added that the reinvention of one character shouldn’t mislead anyone.

“It’s a very traditional ‘Swan Lake,’ for all the changes that I’ve made,” he said. “At first I thought, ‘I’m being so radical here.’ No, I wasn’t. The ending is very Shakespearean. Pretty much everyone is dead by the time it ends.”

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American Ballet Theatre will dance Kevin McKenzie’s staging of “Swan Lake” on Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $20 to $75. (714) 556-2787.