"Through the Looking Glass” Ballet Brings Lewis Carroll’s World to Life

Above: Top (left to right): Annie McIlhagga, Fiona Magyar, Christen Chappelle, Elsa Rusthoven, Simon Rebeck. Middle (left to right): Mikaela McWethy, Sarah Flink, Angela Xue, Miki Perdikakis, Kaleel Van Voorhees. Bottom: Emily McWethy

The East Lansing Dance and Theater Company (ELDTC), the performing division of The Studio for Performing Arts, will take to the stage once again with a creative adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. The story is for all ages, and will take place on January 27 at 7:30pm and January 28 at 2:00pm at the East Lansing Hannah Community Center’s Albert White Theater.

This original show has been conceived, organized, directed, and choreographed by ELDTC Artistic Director P.K. VanVoorhees, and follows a shy, teenage Alice (Emily McWethy) as she adventures to retrieve her kittens (Yagmur Ulsoy and Briella Fase), who have strangely disappeared into a living room mirror.

What follows is a flurry of adventures, including meeting some silly, self-consumed Queens (Kaleel Van Voorhees and Mikaela McWethy) accompanied by the Crow (Marissa Beatty) and the Jabberwock (Katherine Knox). Meeting more and more new friends along the way, Alice finds herself overcoming her fear and doubt, and finding out more about herself – and her destiny – than she ever knew possible.

Annie McIlhagga, a 7^th grader at MacDonald Middle School who is playing the role of Tweedle-Dum, says that her favorite part of the show is the two queens. “The Queens have a lot of cool dances,” she says. “Their relationship is really funny, and their costumes are amazing.”

The show features a cast of eighteen young dancers, exhibiting a variety of athletic and physical theatrical skills.

Tickets are $10 each and can be purchased at ThroughTheGlass@eventbrite.com

For more information, feel free to contact artistic director Patrice Van Voorhees at studio@dancesingact.com.

[Full Disclosure: the author’s sister is performing in the show, in the role of Tweedle-Dum]