Steampunk, pirates and cowboys? Modesto troupe’s new production has it all
Old-fashioned entertainment combines with an “edgy steampunk” style as Modesto’s Central West Ballet returns to the stage.
CWB presents “A Steampunk Night of Outlaw Dances, Pirates, Cowboys and Damsels” at the Gallo Center for the Arts on Oct. 22-23. The show also will play Oct. 29 at the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts in Tracy.
“’Pirates, Cowboys and Damsels’ is a new and exciting piece of fantasy that blends old-fashioned entertainment with an edgy steampunk style like in many science-fiction comic books,” according to a press release from Central West Ballet’s artistic director, René Daveluy.
Steampunk “comes from a sci-fi movement that started in comic books and has become beloved particularly as a fashion statement ...” Daveluy said in an email. “It is mostly Victorian styled with a twist — where technology has matched today’s modern world using steam and gears as the foundation of everything that can fly and operate and everything that is technological.”
Only parts of the show feature a steampunk theme, he added.
“The production takes a multimedia approach, using real backdrops and creative projections to give the audience a feast for the eyes,” Daveluy said in the release.
The program opens with a cowboy theme, including line dancing. The ballet then moves into the Old West with saloon fighting scenes, a western romance, a nod to Dia de los Muertos, a silent movie damsel in distress with a villain, hero and train, an “automaton duet” and a grand finale, the release said.
The automaton duet is “a pas de deux that employs mechanical movements between both partners on stage,” Daveluy said in the email. “Basically they are — loosely based on — sort of robots reminiscent of the HBO series ‘Westworld’ (so I did a play on it and entitled it ‘World of West’).”
The second half continues with a pirate theme, “a journey through an alternate 17th-century world of buccaneers and sultry dames,” the release said. This portion of the program has eclectic dance themes including a steampunk Capt. Hook, a marooned couple on a deserted island, a swashbuckling dance evocative of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” and a “seductive” duet set at night.
The pirates portion of the program opens with storms and ghost ships, and closes with an ensemble dance.
Music scores for both ballets were created by Daveluy, who also choreographed the show.
”In recent years, we really took off with new concepts such as ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ in 2015 and ‘Dracula’ in 2018,” Daveluy said in the release. “This new program is pushing the envelop even further in terms of artistic concepts and entertainment.”
He said the family-friendly “Pirates, Cowboys and Damsels” is a journey into the past and also an expression of the human condition for any era.
“A Steampunk Night of Outlaw Dances, Pirates, Cowboys and Damsels” will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22-23 at the Gallo Center for the Arts, 1000 I St., Modesto. Tickets are $30-$39 at www.galloarts.org.
“We have lots of drama within those two ballets, which is heavily reflected in the music scores,” Daveluy said. “we are excited to bring our audience something original every season, and this new show promises to entertain and inspire everyone’s imagination and passion.”
