1:07 – 2:22, 2:40-3:18
“For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing,” said by Cide Hamete Benengeli, a fictional Muslim historian in the book, he emphasizes his role as a simple writer of Don Quixote’s life and actions. This quote is one of the clues hints that Cervantes is not entirely responsible for creating this character, Don Quixote. However, through Cervantes’ great writing, the character Don Quixote comes alive.
In the hands of the famous ballet choreographer, Marius Petipa, and ballet music composer, Ludwig Minkus, this great work of Don Quixote is presented through delightful, classical ballet dances and music. The transformation from literature into visual and auditory art is fascinating and took around two hundred fifty years to form a famous ballet stage play of Don Quixote.
The Chinese ballet dancer, Gong Sir, explained in the video the attraction of Don Quixote ballet from a professional perspective. The ballet form of DQ created by Petipa and Minkus put more focus on the storyline between Kitri and Basilio. However, it preserves the idealistic characteristic of DQ through the scene of windmill and dreams. With the perfect combination of the Spanish dance, stage costume, music, and ballet techniques, the 1869’s DQ presented in the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow comes to great success.
The aesthetic linkage between literature and ballet play bring the transmissional consciousness of character Don Quixote to the audience. Although Cervantes is not entirely the creator of DQ, neither Petipa and Minkus are the creators of DQ play, but the aesthetic experiences they bought to us is the consciousness of honest, dignified, proud, and idealistic characteristics, and there form a vivid entity through the great work of literature. I appreciate the professional ballet dancer’s perspective of this play, and he provides the individual elements that form the holistic, aesthetic watching experiences of 1869’s play.