FAB Focus with Cassie Parker
Cassie on Coppélia
Hello! My name is Cassie Parker and I’m a digital marketing intern with FAB. I consider myself a bit obsessive with ballet and theatre, and although any childhood hopes of becoming a ‘prima-ballerina’ are long-gone, it has been an absolute thrill to be involved with FAB over the past year.
At 4, I was slotted into the local ballet studio, “Miss McGirr’s School of Ballet,” where I continue to take classes today. Every dancer, no matter how long ago, remembers their first performance and cherishes their first costume/character. While many young ballerinas assume the role of a flower or a fairy, my earliest ballet memory was performing as a fish swimming below Captain Hook’s boat in Peter Pan. A fellow fishie fell over in front of me during the routine, but as the show must go on, I ran past my friend without missing a beat in my spring pointes.
Coppèlia holds a dear place in my heart, and I am forever grateful to my selfless grandmother who gave up her ticket for me in November 2016. To me, no other traditional ballet moves, both physically and emotionally, in the way that Coppèlia does. Although there is beautiful acting in Giselle, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, I have never been more immersed in the ballet than watching every character be (literally) animated in Coppèlia. Ako Kondo’s strong-willed Swanhilda was a character I had rarely seen on the classical stage, and the physicality within Dr Coppelius’ toy room still amazes me. There was a crash dummy in the room, which was strewn on a chair, folding his limbs such unnatural angles that I almost swore it was a stuffed doll (it wasn’t!).
However, the storyline of Dr Coppelius is tragically beautiful, and the complexity of his character being both an antagonist as well as the victim is a plot device that has left me thinking years after the curtain fell.
Another iconic aspect of the ballet is the music. Leo Delibes’ score retells the story as if it were a book – it’s hard to describe, but although it has been years since I last saw the stage performance, the score still brings me very close to the emotions of the storyline, immersing me in the animatronic amazement of the toy room, as well as the broken-hearted despair of Dr Coppelius.
It’s a very exciting time at the moment – my ballet classes have just started back, and my ballet school is setting up a few holiday classes to help regain some lost technique. I am very excited to stream Coppèlia on BalletTV, and I’m hoping to finally watch it with my Grandma from her home