Sarasota Ballet dancers dig for characters for dramatic ‘Las Hermanas’

Margaret Barbieri hesitates after saying that she loves Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s “Las Hermanas,” a dance interpretation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba.”

“Maybe love is the wrong word because it is so dark,” said Barbieri, the assistant director of The Sarasota Ballet. “But it is an amazing piece and it is an honor to be able to stage it.”

“Las Hermanas” had its premiere in Stuttgart in 1963, and Barbieri was featured as one of the sisters in the Royal Ballet premiere in 1971.

It is the story of five unmarried sisters whose lives have been dominated by an oppressive mother, who has been mourning her late husband for years. The eldest sister is engaged to a young suitor, but when the man is seduced by her younger sister, she faces life as a spinster, while the spirited younger sister takes her own life.

The MacMillan website describes the piece as a “tense psychological drama about sensuality under harsh repression and the emotional and violent consequences that follow.”

“That’s an important phrase, the tense, psychological drama,” she said. She asked her casts to do some research. Some read the original play, and others read about it. But Barbieri said everything is clear in MacMillan’s choreography.

“The eldest sister, her movements, her positions, her looks, really tell you everything about her,” she said. “And likewise, the meanness of the other sister, and the sweetness of the younger sister. Until that one moment, she’s the one with all the confidence. She’s got the men at her feet. This is probably the first encounter with a man, though she probably snuck out a few nights before.”

In a review of a 2019 performance, Herald-Tribune dance critic Carrie Seidman noted MacMillan’s “uncanny ability to capture the essence of human frailty and veniality in movement that is authentic rather than contrived and to leave an enduring stamp on your conscience.¨

“Las Hermanas” is part of a triple bill that opens with George Balanchine’s “Emeralds” and closes with his jazzy “Who Cares?” set to music by George Gershwin and arranged by Hershey Kay.

In one of the casts, principal dancer Marijana Dominis returns to the role of the Youngest Sister that she first played five years ago. The passage of time and more experience have altered her approach to the character.

“Before I had small moments where I knew how to act and what to do,” she said. “Now I try to create a character who is always there, to create an atmosphere throughout the ballet instead of just having those moments that indicate who she is.”

It is important for the dancers to understand the story, she said. “You have to know which emotions you’re going to portray. That’s No. 1. I have been going through my own life experience and asking myself in what situations did I feel the way she does. What did I do in that moment? How did I act?”

The Youngest Sister is the role Barbieri first performed in 1971. “Having her here is so important for getting all those little nuances, the right intensity of those moments,” Dominis said. “A smile can be happy or mean ‘I’m better than you.’ She makes sure we knows those differences.”

First Soloist Anna Pelligrini is one of the dancers performing the Eldest Sister who is betrayed over the course of the piece. Five years ago, she performed the role of the Jealous Sister. “I’ve really had to dissect the story in a different way through a different sister. But it’s in the choreography. The eldest sister has a way that she stands, very hunched and introverted. I have to hold that in my whole body through the whole ballet. That’s getting into the character. You don’t really have to add anything extra. That hunched feeling helps me feel the character.”

There will be two casts performing. In one, Pelligrino and Dominis will be joined by corps dancer Kennedy Falyn Cassaday as the Jealous Sister. In the other, Principal dancer Jennifer Hackbarth will dance the Eldest Sister, with Coryphée Sierra Aberlardo as the Jealous Sister and Principal Jessica Assef as the Youngest Sister.

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Barbieri said MacMillan’s choreograph says a lot for the characters, particularly the older sister.

“She has clenched wrists, which has a say in your upper body. It’s a feeling, not superimposing the shoulders. It’s coming from the inside. She’s not the pretty one and she knows she’s got this sensual younger sister who playing up to the man she is supposed to marry, who she doesn’t want particularly, but what she feels is coming out in her stance.”

She recalls getting inspired early in her career watching actors like Maggie Smith and her contemporaries at the Royal Shakespeare Company. “The thing that amazed me was that they told the story in their whole body. They didn’t tell the story just by the words and expressions, but by the way they stood, the way they walked, the way they turned. I learned from that. That’s what I must use when I’m doing dramatic roles.”

Barbieri said it will be a relief for audiences that the program scheduled “Who Cares?” to end the program so “the audience can leave on a happier note.”

‘Portraits of Expression’

Sarasota Ballet performs George Balanchine’s “Emeralds” and “Who Cares?” and  Kenneth MacMillan’s “Las Hermanas.” 7:30 p.m. April 5, 2 and 7:30 p.m. April 6. Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. Tickets are $35-$125. 941-359-0099; sarasotaopera.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Ballet performances balances ‘Las Hermanas’ with Balanchine