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Tales from the dark side: dancers on the power of witchy roles.

Article Excerpt
What makes a witch? Is it just warts and a mastery of the black arts? Or is it strength and intelligence united in a woman whose power frightens people? Witches creep through dance in various forms, and they almost always cause trouble, or at least scare the pants off people. Think of evil Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty, or fortune-telling Madge in La Sylphide. In a dark corner of early modern dance lurked the masked witch-woman in Mary Wigman's solo Hexentanz II (1926); and more recently, The Bell Witch cast her spell in a ballet choreographed by Ann Marie DeAngelo for Nashville Ballet.

But what makes these witches such troublemakers? Often, it's jealousy. Carabosse, the wicked fairy, is enraged at not being invited to Aurora's christening and flings out a curse, ruining the party. Madge takes revenge on James for throwing her out of the house when she reveals to his fiancee that he loves another (the Sylph). The Bell Witch is said to have harrassed the Bell family in Tennessee out of jealousy or spite. Only Wigman's witch dances purely from a sense of her own power. With Halloween looming, Dance Magazine set fear aside and spoke to several dance artists familiar with these roles to find out more about the creatures...

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