Last summer Red Nose Studio was invited to collaborate on the development of an original ballet for Dance East Ballet Academy in Chris' hometown of Greenfield, IN.
The ballet, called Little Things, revolves around the struggle between a young girl named Sophia and her mother. While visiting her eccentric grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, Sophia searches for a lost gift and stumbles across a magic door in her grandmother's old bookcase. The portal leads to a secret world inhabited by gremlins, spiderwebs, evil witchy things and their queen, and the mastermind, Stephen Von Breckenbocker. Sophia must summon strength from the Christmas Angels – Faith, Wisdom and Perseverance – who help Sophia see the qualities her mother has struggled to instill in her.
In addition to creating the poster for the production, Chris helped develop the look of the ballet's main characters and designed and built the set. He says "For me, the challenge was how to create characters that help tell the visual story without any dialogue. Designing costumes that enhance movement of the dancers and not hamper it proved to be the biggest challenge. Seeing a costume on paper and on a body was one thing, but if that character couldn’t move like they needed to, things had to be modified."
The ballet ran during the 2012 holiday season and will be an annual production that grows and refines with time and the ages of the dancers. Visit Chris' blog for more sketches and photos from the production and to see a documentary about the making of Little Things filmed and produced by Rebecca Elayne Dixon.
