DANCE MENAGERIE

Spotlight

Truth, beauty, transcendent love, eternal order: these are the verities of classical dance. Still, if you can make a ballet the kids will see a second time (not to mention year after year, like The Nutcracker}—Eureka! You've got your future audience in the gate. It isn't easy, though, holding your own against Gameboy and the Cartoon Network.

This May, the New York City Ballet has a try at the tricky genre. Resident choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, having shown he can tell a story with his backstage ballet, Variations Serieuses (a sort of All About Eve meets A Midsummer Night's Dream), is taking on Carnival of the Animals, a charm bracelet of a score by Camille Saint-Saens. "It seemed like a perfect choice to be made into a children's ballet," Wheeldon says, "because there are many vignettes, quite short, and they're light and fun. And some of them are silly, and some of them are quite beautiful." But what's the story? As a boy, Wheeldon wrote an essay about being locked in London's Natural History Museum overnight. This idea is the basis for a verse narrative written by the actor John Lithgow, who is also an author of children's books. (Wheeldon and Lithgow met on the musical Sweet Smell of Success.) "John wrote each animal as a character from the boy's life," Wheeldon explains, "coming to life in a fantasy-type state." Lithgow will be part of the action—sharing the stage with NYCB lights Jenifer Ringer and Carla Korbes—and is preparing for the challenge by taking dance classes in L.A. And Wheeldon's challenge? "Finding the right way of dealing with the elephant so you're not insulting a prima ballerina."

LAURA JACOBS