INTERVIEW: Elena Zahlmann brings family fun, sophistication to ‘Cinderella’ ballet

Elena Zahlmann is celebrating her 17th year with New York Theatre Ballet. She serves not only as principal dancer for the esteemed company but also associate artistic director under the leadership of founder and artistic director Diana Byer.

In 2017, Zahlmann plans to do what she does best: dancing in many roles spread out across many performances. Her next show is a ballet she’s quite comfortable performing in. Cinderella will play the Schimmel Center at Pace University in New York City Sunday, March 12 at 3 p.m. The family-friendly show is part of the Once Upon a Ballet series for younger dance lovers.

It’s appropriate that Zahlmann will bring choreographic work to a younger crowd because ever since she was 3 years old, she has wanted to be a dancer.

“My mother and grandmother put me in dance classes just before I was 3, so I was always doing ballet and tap,” Zahlmann said recently in a phone interview. “I ended up at a school that was run by a Rockette, and I saw the show at Radio City, the Christmas show. And when I was 8 years old, I decided that I was going to be a Rockette, and I was going to live in New York City. That was what my life was going to be, and it wasn’t going to be anything else.”

Today, Zahlmann finds herself at a top dance institution in the dance capital of the world, and she’s been going strong at the company for 17 years. Her role as associate artistic director has been particularly interesting because it allows her to see and appreciate the other side of how the company works.

She has performed in Cinderella almost since day one at New York Theatre Ballet. This particular show is geared toward families. It runs one hour in length, but it’s sophisticated enough that adults will enjoy Donald Mahler’s choreography.

“Our ballets for children are not made to play down to children,” she said. “They’re almost meant to bring the children up to a certain level. Nothing from the story is really left out. All the main parts of the story are still there, and the ballet is just kind of so seamlessly put together even though it’s just an hour in length.”

During a performance, when Zahlmann is either playing the title role or the Fairy Godmother, she can hear the gasps and reactions from the younger audience members, and they seem to inspire her and the dancers on stage. “There’s a magical moment in Cinderella when the Fairy Godmother puts a cape around her, and she’s in her rags,” Zahlmann said. “Moments later, there’s a quick change, and she’s magically transformed into the ball gown. And you hear all the children gasp and say, ‘Oh, Cinderella.’ Then later on, when she makes her entrance into the ball, you hear the same reaction from the kids. You know that they are watching, and they are following what’s happening.”

Zahlmann has performed the title role of the ballet for almost a decade, so she’s not nervous about any of the technicality of the piece. In many ways, she feels like the ballet is in her body at this point.

“I often switch and also dance the role of the Fairy Godmother, too,” she said. “But again she is so in my body, too. The choreography is just there. It’s kind of second nature. I think the challenge from doing it so many times is to keep it new every time I do it. I find I return to the music and listen to the music a little closer and sometimes hear a different instrument that I didn’t hear the last time that we did it.”

The life of a dancer at New York Theatre Ballet is a busy one. As Zahlmann prepared for her role in Cinderella, she was also performing other pieces and gearing up for April shows in Sleeping Beauty. This variety and diversity keeps her going and also creatively engaged.

 

Zahlmann said: “When I first auditioned for the company, I remember asking one of the girls there who had been dancing there for a few years, I asked her, ‘Do you like it? What’s it like working here?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, it’s great. You get to dance a lot.’ I kind of thought, well, that’s not a good answer. It’s a ballet company. Of course, you’re going to dance a lot. That’s the job. But it’s a small company, so you really do get to dance a lot. Because it’s small, everyone is a soloist, so over the years, I’ve got to dance many great roles in masterpieces that if I had joined a much larger company, I might have ben overlooked for some of these things.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

New York Theatre Ballet’s Cinderella will be performed at the Schimmel Center at Pace University Sunday, March 12 at 3 p.m. Click here for more information and tickets.