Good and Evil, Embodied

During opening night of Ballet West’s performance of Val Caniparoli’s “Jekyll & Hyde,” my dad turned to me and said, “I remember you once told me that dancers are telling stories with their bodies. Watching this, I really understand what you mean.” He took the words right out of my mouth.

Performance

Ballet West: “Jekyll & Hyde” by Val Caniparoli

Place

Capitol Theatre, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 25, 2024

Words

Sophie Bress

Jordan Veit and David Huffmire in “Jekyll & Hyde” by Val Caniparoli. Photograph by Beau Pearson

In my experience, story ballets in particular can take on a sort of prescribed, formulaic nature, with steps utilized as ornamentation as opposed to as drivers of story. “Jekyll & Hyde,” choreographed by Caniparoli for the Finnish National Opera and Ballet in 2020 and running at Ballet West through November 2, on the other hand, made each movement feel absolutely essential, each nuance propelling the story forward.

In Caniparoli’s telling, the story’s author, Robert Louis Stevenson (portrayed at Ballet West by principal artist Tyler Gum), becomes a character of his own. The ballet opens with Stevenson, sick in bed, calling on his nurse for his nightly dose of opium. From there, Stevenson begins to dream up the story of Dr. Jekyll, a physician interested in the dark impulses that live within us all.

From the get-go, Stevenson’s own movements are echoed in those of Dr Jekyll (danced on opening night by principal artist Jordan Veit). The symmetry between the mens’ choreography highlights that Jekyll is not only a creation of Stevenson, but that Stevenson is also putting himself into the character. To borrow from my dad again, this made the whole story seem almost autobiographical.

Jordan Veit and Tyler Gum in “Jekyll & Hyde” by Val Caniparoli. Photograph by Beau Pearson

Later, as Jekyll’s self-experimentation builds and Mr. Hyde (danced by David Huffmire) emerges, the three men engage in an ongoing trio of sorts, building on each other’s movements and motivations in ways that solidify this deep tie.

It wasn’t only Jekyll and Hyde with which Stevenson shared a connection, though—the whole ballet brought the audience into the author’s writing process. It was abundantly clear, through a variety of repeating motifs, that Stevenson was architecting the story even when he wasn’t onstage.

“Jekyll & Hyde’s” second scene takes place inside an insane asylum and features a corps of dancers dueting with metal-framed, wheeled hospital beds. The display is simultaneously engrossing and hard to watch, with the mental patients flailing as if trying to crawl out of their own skin, emblematic of the conditions that plague them. One can’t help but notice, though, the recurring presence of the beds onstage, and how Stevenson’s own labored movements in his bed echo those of the patients in his mind’s asylum.

Another recurrence was a sort of hallucinatory, inner-mind setting built by a mirrored black backdrop and, sometimes, red and white masks. Through these scenes, the audience was able to get an even deeper look into the psyche of Stevenson, Jekyll, and Hyde, as they battled with one another and their other respective inner demons, represented by those they had loved, lost, and hurt over the course of the performance.

Katlyn Addison and David Huffmire in “Jekyll & Hyde” by Val Caniparoli. Photograph by Beau Pearson

The entire effect, enhanced by a phenomenal atmosphere created by David I. Reynoso’s sets and costumes and Jim French’s lighting design, was appropriately Halloween-ish, but also deeply contemplative, with plenty of opportunities for the dance artists to dig deep into the guts of the story and the motivations that drive their characters.

The corps dancers, as well, transformed, contributing irrevocably to the dark atmosphere in the theater. The two female leads, Katlyn Addison (as Nellie Carew, Jekyll’s fiancée), and Emily Adams (as Rowena, a prostitute), pulled out the marrow of Caniparoli’s choreography, taking each step with the utmost intention to serve the story. And Gum, Veit, and Huffmire, in particular, showed an almost method-actor level of transformation when taking on these roles—I almost can’t believe I’ll likely see them each as princes later on this season.

In story ballets, it is not as common that dancers in male roles get a chance to express themselves as emotionally and deeply as their female counterparts. In “Jekyll & Hyde,” though, the male leads were given myriad opportunities to probe their respective characters’ complexity. The final scene, a wrenching duet between Jekyll and Hyde, as they battle for control over their inner self, is particularly emblematic of this. Stripped down to nude briefs, the two men are simultaneously distilled down to pure emotion—embodying the desires of good and those of evil.

Sophie Bress

Sophie Bress is an arts and culture journalist and dance critic. She regularly contributes to Dance Magazine and Fjord Review, and has also written for the New York Times, NPR, Observer, Pointe, and more.

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