Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) is set to return to the Centennial Concert Hall with their production of The Sleeping Beauty. Based on the classic fairytale and set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s iconic score, the ballet will feature choreography by new artistic director Christopher Stowell.
Born to Kent Stowell and Francia Russell — former dancers with the famed New York City Ballet — Stowell spent 16 years as a dancer at San Francisco Ballet, rising to the rank of principal dancer. He has served as artistic director of the Oregon Ballet Theatre and associate artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. He was appointed as artistic director of RWB in January 2025, taking over from longtime director André Lewis in June.
“I feel really honoured to have been chosen,” Stowell said. “Interestingly, when I was a ballet student in Seattle, the RWB used to come on tour there […] frequently […] I hadn’t imagined that my career and the RWB would unite or connect, but when the opportunity came up I realized it was a perfect match because of my interest in the company from when I was much younger and my long experience in working in Canada.”
The Sleeping Beauty features the classic elements from the original fairytale — the birth of Princess Aurora, the blessings from the fairies, the curse of the evil fairy Carabosse and Aurora’s 100-year sleep following her 16th birthday, which can only be cured through true love’s kiss.
Stowell’s production emphasizes the importance of time in the storyline, with each scene in the ballet being distinctly sometime later from the previous.
“There’s the prologue where [Princess Aurora] is a baby, and then we immediately jump 16 years ahead. Now, she’s a grown up, and then after an intermission, we jump 100 years ahead, and now she’s asleep in the castle waiting for her prince,” he explained.
Stowell created his version of The Sleeping Beauty for the Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2010, adapted from the original choreography by famed choreographer Marius Petipa. Stowell noted that while there are good records of the “basic architecture” and famous elements of Petipa’s production, not all of it has been well-preserved. Additionally, the length of the score required adaptation for modern audiences.
“There’s […] almost four hours of music for Sleeping Beauty that Tchaikovsky wrote,” he said. “Mine’s two hours and 20 minutes […] As a choreographer, the first thing you have to decide is where you want to make the cuts in the music […] and then how you want to link the famous set pieces together.”
Stowell stated that the RWB’s dancers have been great to work with, describing them as engaged and invested in the process of learning the new choreography. According to him, The Sleeping Beauty relies heavily on the strength of the whole company and not just the principal dancers.
“The leading roles are incredibly hard, but it’s really about how the whole company dances,” he said. “[The Sleeping Beauty is] great for a company to take its technical and artistic level [or] abilities to the next level collectively. We all have to pull ourselves together to dance this ballet,” he reflected.
When asked what he is most looking forward to about The Sleeping Beauty, Stowell said that this was the first production that he has primarily helmed during his RWB tenure, with this previous season having been primarily curated by Lewis before his retirement.
“I’ve been proud of everything we’ve been doing. It’s been a great season, but this is the first time audiences are going to get to see what this company looks like with my hands directly on the production,” he stated. “Sleeping Beauty is an important step in our relationship.”
RWB’s production of The Sleeping Beauty will run from March 12 through 15 at the Centennial Concert Hall. For tickets, visit rwb.org. For more information on RWB, follow @rwballet on Instagram.
