Singapore Dance Theatre (SDT) proudly presents a new full-length production Sleeping Beauty at Esplanade Theatre in December. Featuring a talented bevy of dancers such as Ginny Gan, Chihiro Uchida, Kana Murakami and William Wu Mi; this classic take on the perennial fairytale plans to set the mood for an ethereally theatrical performance.

In this childhood favourite lies the bittersweet, nebulous plot of a curse that puts a Princess into a century's worth of slumber- and to reverse this sordid misfortune is to have a prince give her the kiss of life. This delightful anecdote allows the setting for a celestial display of ballet which is bound to stir the senses and invoke longings of chivalry and romance.

Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in which its opulence, dynamism, formal rigour and sensitivity to the sheer pleasures of choreographed stagecraft, epitomizes perhaps better than any other production, the true meaning of classical ballet. 

At the christening of a long-wished-for princess for the reigning (and ageing) of King and Queen, fairies are invited from far and wide as godmothers to offer gifts, such as beauty, wit, and musical talent, to the baby girl. However, a wicked fairy, whose wrath is incurred due to an oversight on the invitation list, casts an exacting curse on the princess, surmising that, on reaching adulthood, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die. A good fairy, though unable to completely reverse the spell, quells the certainty of mortality for the princess by putting her to sleep for a hundred years instead. The Sleeping Beauty thus slumbers for perpetuity, patiently awaiting the awakening kiss of true love from a chivalrous prince.

Sleeping Beauty will take place from 16 to 19 December 2010 at Esplanade Theatre. Tickets at $50, $70, $90 from SISTIC.

Photos by Dennis Ng

Sleeping Beauty - Dancers Profiles

Chihiro Uchida

Began dancing at Classical Ballet Academy S.O.U. in Japan, Chihiro won the Idemitsu Kousan Scholarship at the 8th Asian Pacific International Ballet Competition in Tokyo in 2001 and was accepted into The Australian Ballet School. Upon graduation, she joined SDT in July 2005 and had performed in many SDT productions including Boi Sakti’s Reminiscing the Moon, La Sylpide, Coppelia, Legacy of Goh Choo San, Swan Lake and Giselle In The Park. She has also taken on principal roles in Jeffrey Tan’s The Nutcracker and Sometimes I think I Remember, Graham Lustig’s Cinderella, Kuik Swee Boon’s Pellucid, Jorma Elo’s Glow-Stop, David Dawson’s A Million Kisses to My Skin, Goh Choo San’s Unknown Territory, George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Edmund Stripe’s Piano Concerto No.2, Opus 102 and Goh Choo San’s Double Contrast. Last year, Chihiro performed the lead role of Odile/Odette in Swan Lake for the first time.

Ginny Gan

Obtained NAC Bursary to New Zealand School of Dance (NZSD) and graduated in Nov 2007. During her training in Singapore Ballet Academy from 1999 to 2004, Ginny was involved in several SDT productions such as Giselle, Cinderella, Red Shoes, Coppelia and Sleeping Beauty. In 2000, Ginny won the 1st prize in the Asia-Pacific Dance Competition in the Modern Group Category and in 2003, she clinched the 1st prize in the Modern Solo category of the Perth Theatrical Festival Dance Competition. In NZSD, she participated in performances like Balanchine's Divertimento No. 15 & Agon and was given the featured role in La Sylphide. In July 2007, Ginny was one of the two students chosen by NZSD to attend a summer exchange program with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School before assuming her position as a full-time member with SDT.

Rosa Park

Rosa Park started dance training at Sunwha Arts School and obtained a B.A. Degree in Dance from Ewha Womens University as well as a Master’s Degree in Dance Sejong University of Korea. While she was in university, she was offered to dance for the Korean National Ballet Company (KNBC) in 2002 and made her debut as a professional dancer in Yuri Grigrovich’s The Nutcracker, in which she danced as Marie.

As a soloist, she participated in a number of renowned dance pieces such as The Nutcracker (Marie), Balanchine’s Symphony C, Swan Lake (Pas de trios , Four Swans, Napoli, Princess, etc.), Giselle (Friends pas de duex, Two willy), Rudolf Nurey’s Sleeping Beauty (Teanderness Fairy, Pas de Cliq), Le Corsaire (Odalisc), Don Quixote (Two Friends, Qupid), La Fille mal Garde’s (Eight Friends), Jean Chistophe Maillot’s Dove La Luna, and Gala Pas de duex (The Flame of Paris, Don Quixote, Le Corsaire, Sleeping Beauty). She was also a guest dancer to Royal Swedish Ballet (Soloist Swan Lake) and Korean Ballet Theatre (Principle, Raymonda and Mongyudowondo).

Of the many competitions she had participated in were Korean Dance Association Competition (Gold prize, 2002), Dong-A Competition (Sliver prize, (1998), Bronze price, (2002)), Korean Ballet Association Competition (Sliver prize (1997), Bronze prize (1995)), and Kirov & UBC Competition (Sliver prize, 1995). She joined SDT as a full-time member in 2009.

Kana Murakami

Graduated in 2003 with a Diploma of Dance at The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet and began dancing at The Tokyo Ballet from 2004 to 2006. While she was at The Tokyo Ballet, she performed in Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide, Carmen, Etude, Pierre Lacotte’s La Fille du Danube, Maruice Bejart’s Phrases de Quatuor and Danses Grecques. She joined SDT as a full-time member in 2010.

Chen Peng

Trained at the Beijing Dance Institute and joined as full member of The National Ballet of China from 2003 to 2005. He has performed the pas de deux in La Corsaire, The Nutcracker and Raymonda, as well as The Red Lantern, The Red Detachment of Women, Ettude, Yellow River and Sylvia among others. Chen Peng joined SDT in September 2005 and was involved in productions like Coppelia, Impressions, Ballet Under The Stars and Legacy of Goh Choo San. He has also taken on lead roles in SDT’s productions of Swan Lake in 2007 and 2009.

William Wu Mi

Graduated with an Advance Diploma in Dance as a scholarship student from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. In 2006, he won the CitiBank/Asian Culture Council Dance Fellowship to attend a Summer Intensive Course at the Ailey School. As a student, he danced the roles of Frantz in Coppelia, Prince Florimund in Sleeping Beauty and Ma WenCai in Yuri Ng’s Butterfly Lovers. He has also performed in Thierry Malandain’s Sextet, Natalie Weir’s His Weeping and Jean Paul-Comelin’s Mozart Requiem. William joined SDT in July 2007 and made his debut performance with the Company in Legacy of Goh Choo San. He was also a guest artist for Kuik Swee Boon’s Silence in the Singapore Da:ns Festival in October 2007 and was involved in productions of Legacy of Goh Choo San, Swan Lake and Giselle In The Park.

About Staging Director for Sleeping Beauty -

Janek Schergen (Artistic Director of Singapore Dance Theatre)

Janek Schergen is from Göteborg, Sweden. He studied ballet with Richard Ellis and Christine Du Boulay of the Sadlers Wells Ballet, and continued at the American Ballet Center and the Harkness House for Ballet Arts in New York. In 1971 he joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the following year became a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia, under the directorship of Barbara Weisberger and Benjamin Harkarvy, spending 11 years with the Company. In 1978, under the guidance of Mr. Harkarvy and Lupe Seranno, he began teaching in the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet. In addition to maintaining his career as a dancer and teacher, he began staging the works of Mr. Harkarvy for Pennsylvania Ballet and other companies.

In 1981, he was invited by Mary Day, the Director of Washington Ballet and Choo San Goh, the Company’s Resident Choreographer, to guest teach for the Washington Ballet. He joined Washington Ballet in a full time position as ballet master and teacher and toured with the Company through the Far East, Europe and South America, as well as the United States.

In 1988 he was invited to be ballet master and Company Teacher for the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm, rehearsing full-length classics such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and La Bayadere, as well as works by Sir Frederick Ashton and Sir Kenneth MacMillan. In 1991 he completed his studies in written dance notation in London, receiving his certification in Benesh Movement Notation.

In 1991 he became a ballet master for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre where he rehearsed the full length classics and important additions to the repertoire such as MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations, Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Great Galloping Gottschalk, John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew and Balanchine’s Apollo, Ballet Imperial, Serenade, Allegro Brillante, Concerto Barocco, Theme and Variations as well as others in the repertoire. He has staged his own production of The Sleeping Beauty for Ballet Met (1994), The Milwaukee Ballet (1995), Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (1996, 2000, 2005) Pennsylvania Ballet (1997, 2002) and the Norwegian National Ballet (2006).

In January, 1994, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Nashville Ballet, as well as Director of the company’s School. He remained with the organization for three seasons. From 1997 to 2002 he taught Company and School classes for Ballet Pacifica as well as Inland Pacific Ballet.

In addition, as Artistic Director and a Board Member of The Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation, he continues to stage the works of Mr. Goh for various companies in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa and the Far East. He has staged more than 120 productions worldwide. He is the Chairman of the Awards Committee for the Choo-San Goh Awards for Choreography which annually gives out choreographic grants to such organizations as Het Nationale Ballet, Limon Dance Company, San Francisco Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Houston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, Pilobolus, New York City Ballet and many others. Over the course of the last four years, 78 different grants have been made devoting more than US$700,000 to to the creation of new works of choreography through the efforts of the Foundation.

Since the establishment of the Singapore Dance Theatre in 1988 he has been staging the ballets of Choo San Goh for the Company’s repertoire. To date he has staged thirteen works for them and in December 2000 mounted the full length Romeo and Juliet for the Company. At the request of SDT he was asked to author a monograph on the career and ballets of Choo-San Goh. The book, with his text, was published in Singapore in September,1997.

From 2002-2006 he was ballet master and staff teacher of the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo. He was responsible for rehearsal of many full length works (Swan Lake, Othello, Cinderella, Taming of the Shrew, Onegin, Sleeping Beauty) in addition to contemporary works and the most recent Balanchine repertoire including Symphony in C, Agon, Serenade and Four Temperaments. The production he created of Tornerose for NNB was broadcast on NRK television in December 2006.

With the appointment of Janek Schergen as Artistic Director in January 2009, the Company is poised for new achievements in the international and Singapore dance arena. Janek is also the Artistic Director of the Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation which oversees the licensing and production of Choo San Goh's ballets and the annual Choo San Goh Awards for Choreography.

About Singapore Dance Theatre

The Singapore Dance Theatre (SDT) was founded in 1988 by Goh Soo Khim and the late Anthony Then. Under the directorship of Goh Soo Khim, SDT has developed into a premier professional dance company that has grown from seven to 24 dancers. Over the years, The Company performs five to six seasons, including the widely popular Ballet Under The Stars (BUTS) at the Fort Canning Park.

The Company’s repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary ballet, from renowned choreographers and staging directors like Goh Choo San, George Balanchine, Nacho Duato, Jiri Kylian, Stanton Welch, Marie-Claude Pietragalla, Thierry Malandain, Mauricio Wainrot, Val Caniparoli, and Graham Lustig, David Dawson, Jorma Elo and Edmund Stripe.

With the appointment of Janek Schergen as Artistic Director in January 2009, the Company is poised for new achievements in the international and Singapore dance arena. Janek is also the Artistic Director of the Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation which oversees the licensing and production of Choo San Goh's ballets and the annual Choo San Goh Awards for Choreography. To know more about SDT, visit us at www.singaporedancetheatre.com