Sharp, steady footwork needed to stage a swordfight

‘Romeo and Juliet' performers carefully rehearse scenes to ‘get the blades to sing.'
By Steven Brown

It could be a slow-motion film, except that these are live dancers in a studio. They're learning a sword-fighting sequence from “Romeo and Juliet.” One jab at a time.

Addul Manzano thrusts his sword – actually an epee, as used in fencing – toward Jhe Russell's waist, but Russell eludes the blow. Manzano jabs toward the waist again. Russell again dodges. Manzano aims at his opponent's shoulder. Another to the shoulder. Manzano lunges forward with his dagger. Russell still escapes him. Manzano tries another jab of his epee. Russell's weapons deflect it.

They repeat the sequence a few times, as fight choreographer Giles Davies guides and corrects them. The 90-second scene devours more than an hour of rehearsal. Still it's not right. When the dancers' weapons collide, Davies doesn't want the audience to hear a clank.

“Try to get the blades to sing,” Davies says. How? Steel should meet steel “like a violin bow against a string.”

Davies is helping N.C. Dance Theatre make one of its infrequent forays into full-length story ballet – well, infrequent outside of the annual “Nutcracker.”

Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, the troupe's artistic director, is choreographing Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed love, working with the now-classic score by Sergei Prokofiev. (Bonnefoux originally planned to use Hector Berlioz's chorus-and-orchestra version. After a hoped-for collaboration with the Charlotte Symphony didn't work out, he switched to Prokofiev's music for orchestra alone, thinking it would suffer less from being heard in a recording.)

Davies, who comes by his stage-combat experience as a member of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, is working behind the scenes helping craft the fight scenes. Still other guests will go to work onstage. When a story demands partygoers, townspeople and the title characters' relatives, an 18-dancer troupe needs fleshing out.

NCDT is marshaling its NCDT 2 training troupe as well as apprentice dancers and students. It has hired two dancers to fill out the ranks of hotheaded Montague and Capulet men. Mel Tomlinson, a prominent former member of NCDT, will return to play the Doge of Venice. Ex-dancers from NCDT's staff will play other supporting parts. Even executive director Doug Singleton, a non-dancer, has been drafted for a walk-on as Romeo's father.

The need for so many performers is one reason NCDT doesn't often do classical ballets, Bonnefoux says. Another is the expense of costumes – more than 100, in this case – and sets.

But members of NCDT's audience often ask to see the big story ballets, he says. And performing them is good for the dancers. The title roles of “Romeo and Juliet” are among the richest in ballet: “You need to be as good an actor,” Bonnefoux says, “as you are a dancer. The technique is important. ... But you have to be believable. The feelings have to come through.”

And for the male dancers, “Romeo” is a chance to add combat to their skills. The meticulous rehearsal helps keep them safe during the swordfights, but strategy also plays a part. A dancer aims for his opponent's hip or shoulder, Bonnefoux says, rather than the center of the body. And keeping eye contact with the opponent is crucial.

“You need to be able to see in his eyes that he's OK or he's not OK,” Bonnefoux says. “If something goes wrong, he cannot put up his hand and say, ‘Stop!' But you can see in his eyes ... that you'd better slow down.”

If the men are prepared and in control, Davies says, they're safe from harm. But they don't want things to look that way to the audience. So they have to remember that they're playing characters – men who are gripped by the fight-or-flight instinct or who are startled when an enemy's blade comes too close for comfort.

“All the danger,” he says, “comes from the dancers' ability to act out that danger.”

And they have to remember to make their weapons sing.