Ballet is a physical struggle to achieve perfection on stage. Swaths of fabric, sleepless choreographers, and a group of well-trained performers came together to attempt a fantastic production that was both artistic and entertaining. Whether it's one of Petipa's great classical ballets or the astonishing recent production of Alice in Wonderland (change title) and the ballet form, both are love stories , better shows for the eyes, ears and heart that are rooted in classical ballet. Say no. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although Petipa and Christopher Wheeldon, Alice's choreographer, may have lived hundreds of years apart, the two ballets are not too different from each other. other (Royal). The choreography, the theme and even the extravagant nature of each performance are both deeply rooted in the same ballet tradition. One of the common roots of these ballets is that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Pharaoh's Daughter are both spectacles. However, they are shows in different ways. While Wonderland uses technological marvels such as a moving letter film, Pharaoh provides a massive troupe of dancers with archers and other identically dressed guards, adding to the depiction of the Egyptian era antique. In addition to the large number of performers, extravagant sets highlight the dancers and the production itself. "Petipa designed...her ballets" to "[use] backgrounds painted in perspective, dancers", these "were arranged to give a false perception of the recession of the scene, making the scene much deeper than the she wasn't" and the performers look fantastic on bigger stages. -than life (Scholl Pg 9). In fact, Petipa's ballets were very reminiscent of once-popular court spectacles in their length and flamboyant style. “The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862) was the first of Petipa's great ballets and remained the first. the most ambitious, with three acts and nine scenes, including an epilogue and a prologue,” a length somewhat inflated compared to the condensed two-act length of Wonderland (page 7). This extravagant length would continue to plague his productions, which makes sense when you consider it. consider that "Petipa's works are described as a 'bol'shoi balet'....a translation of the French ballet un spectacle" (page 4). Both productions, like most great stories, center on love and desire and both take place in fantasy worlds. Alice, who is in love with a boy who works for her, also happens to be the naughty girl from Wonderland. While in Pharaoh the protagonist and English Lord, Lord Wilson falls into a drug-induced fantasy and falls in love and "wishes to marry the pharaoh's daughter, Aspichia" (page 7). These ballets also seem to share a similar technical basis when it comes to their choreography and dancing. It seems that both productions have a classical sense in their dance style, particularly in their use of pointes, jumps and lifts. However, if these ballets have their differences. The Pharaoh's Daughter, while implementing the point, does so sparingly, with the dancers going to the point for a few seconds before coming back down recounting the spiked shoe technology that Petipa had. Whereas in Alice, the actresses, especially Alice, tend to be about to do a lot more, especially in the big scenes..