Jake Gisby loves nothing more than playing the clown.
Which is just as well, as in the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Dunedin he gets to play Bottom.
It is a character he gets to have a lot of fun with, although it does come with a down side - having to dance with a large donkey head on.
"It gets really hot. So it's managing the donkey head with dancing, doing a pas de deux. There's a little cut out that I can see out of, but other than that, it's pretty immersive."
Gisby, who is performing the ballet for the first time, says his character is picked on a bit and then Oberon "King of the Fairies", played by soloist Zacharie Dun, and Puck, Oberon’s jester, decide it would be a funny idea to turn him into a donkey.
"Bottom loves his life as a donkey. He's finally confident. He feels super comfortable. He feels appreciated. He feels confident, loving his life. He can be a bit of a fool, but be more accepted for it because he's, you know, a donkey."
He also falls in love with Titania, performed by soloist Katherine Minor, and she falls in love with him.
The journey his character goes on makes the role a lot of fun to dance, he says.
"I have to take Bottom somewhere. He has more depth and complexity to him than a regular character, which is cool. He does have levels of being super happy, super sad, super confused."
A challenge, though, has been developing the skill of acting without having the use of facial expressions to convey emotion due to the donkey head.
"I can't portray a smile through a donkey head. So I have to embody being happy."
The role also comes with responsibility.
"It's a great experience, but it's also a lot of stress because I'm quite integral to an overarching story amongst Midsummer Night's Dream."
Being Bottom has required a lot of rehearsal, along with the other dancers also performing the role, to get used to the donkey head and being "super hot".
"But it's still a great laugh. And I do smile behind the mask when I'm shaking from heat stroke. But no, it's great."
Managing the high heat, lights and low oxygen while keeping up stamina and not letting the character drop at any time is important. He has also been working on making sure he is breathing correctly so he does not panic inside the head.
"Because obviously, when you're panting, you've still got to remember to be a donkey. Also, having full committal to being a donkey is quite intense because it's another way to hold your body for a period of time. It's just a lot of stamina work.
"But it's a cool challenge because it's really rewarding when it goes well because it feels like you've really achieved something. And it's obviously a massive relief to take off the coffin helmet."
Helping them prepare for the role is a nutritionist so they get the right amount of electrolytes, carbohydrates and protein to get through the performance and making sure they have got enough energy at the right moments.
"Because I don't want to blast out all my energy prior to putting on the donkey head. But luckily, prior to putting on the donkey head, I have a little bit of time off stage. So that's my moment to cool down, get some water in."
Gisby - who trained at the Dance Education Centre, Tauranga, and the New Zealand School of Dance - joined the RNZB full-time as one of two 2022 Friedlander Foundation Scholars and became an artiste in 2023, also gets to perform in the ballet as a rustic.
"Every rustic has their own version of their own character. Not every rustic's the same. Everyone's got their own little unique X-factor that they bring, which is cool, because then when you do it with different casts, it feels fresh."
"He’s essentially in a bit of a power struggle with the ‘Queen of the Fairies’, Titania. There’s obviously a bit of romantic tension there for sure, but on the other end of that they’re like opposite ends of a magnet.
"It’s a very powerful role and lots of fun and lots of very decisive dancing."
It is Dun’s first time dancing the role. He admits a principal role is always daunting.
"I think it's quite exciting to experience that character and bring your own experience through your own human emotions - you can kind of try and channel that into the character. You know, pull on different pieces, and kind of almost lose yourself in that way too, and make the character truly a version that is believable for yourself. So the way that I might portray it is very different to a way that another dancer may portray it."
Dun, an Australian from New South Wales, returned home from about six years working in Canada with the Alberta Ballet to recalibrate and work out his next steps when RNZB returned an email he had sent asking about work. He made a guest appearance in Hansel and Gretel in 2023 and joined permanently last year.
"The universe aligned and I ended up here. And I haven't left. I think just, you know, the proximity ... to family in Australia and also I think that New Zealand is such a beautiful country."
For Dun, the pas de deux with Titania near the end of the ballet is a highlight. It is the first time he has been paired with Minor.
"I think we've really found a great connection. We've been working side by side to make sure that it makes sense for us, but then also for the audience, and where we take the narrative and how we're feeling about it. So I think that that's the peak of it. We've been fighting for so long throughout the ballet, and then we come to it and we kind of drop the ego in that.
"And so then it's kind of finally we surrender to each other, and I think that's such a special happening."
Minor, who was born in France and raised in Portland, Oregon, agrees the final pas de deux is special. Unlike Gisby and Dun, she is performing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the fifth time and this season is her first time revisiting a principal role.
"It was when the pas de deux starts where both Oberon and Titania come down a long staircase, and I just remember standing at the top of the staircase and each step down the stairs, I was very present in kind of reminding myself to enjoy the moment and to be present in the moment. And so I felt, I remember feeling very present that show, kind of acknowledging that I was doing something I had always hoped for. And I felt very fortunate."
She enjoys performing Titania, as she has a lot of different sides, is strong, makes her own decisions but is also very playful, whimsical and mischievous.
"She's one of the characters that I've played that interacts with a lot of other characters, because she interacts with Oberon and she interacts with the Changeling and Autumn and the other fairies. And so she has different dynamics with all of those other characters. And so each time she comes on stage, it's almost like a different part of her character.
"But there is sort of a thread that ties that all together, which is she's strong in herself, she's established. So I would say even though her character changes, she's consistent in knowing herself."
"They're kind of mischievous, but they always fall back in line when Titania is around. And so I think contrasting those two characters is the challenge for me. Within Titania herself, maybe the first time I did the role, I found that sort of dominating presence a bit challenging.
"But I think getting to revisit it a second time, there's just more understanding in what to bring to that character."
Re-visiting the character she has found muscle memory to be a great thing, as her body has remembered the music.
"Liam's [Scarlett’s] choreography is so musical and your body kind of remembers the music in a way that you don't necessarily intellectually understand.
"So there's a huge advantage coming back to revisit a piece because you don't have to do all of that work of training your body to respond to the music. It's already underlying and then you can work on more of the nuances of the character, details, heads, the use of the eyes even. It's quite satisfying."
Minor is also nine years older than when she first performed in the ballet.
"This time around I have been thinking a lot about the original process that we went through in creating the ballet. I think just remembering how magical that experience was and how to keep that alive in a way."
TO SEE:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Royal New Zealand Ballet
Regent Theatre, November 7.
