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BY PAUL HORSLEY
FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: DEVON CARNEY’S R&J
JOURNEY COMES FULL CIRCLE WITH KC BALLET PREMIERE

or a kid who was about to devote his entire life to dance, young Devon
Carney sure took a long time to realize that Romeo and Juliet was not
Fjust a Shakespeare play but also one of the most famous ballets in the
classical repertory. “The first time I actually experienced the ballet was when
it was choreographed on me,” said the dancer-choreographer, who as Artistic
Director of Kansas City Ballet is currently creating his own version of the
ballet for the company’s Diamond Jubilee season-opener this October. “It was
first introduced to me through the text, and then through seeing it acted as
a play,” said Devon, who was a lowly 23-year-old member of the corps at
Boston Ballet when the late Chinese-born choreographer Choo-San Goh
chose him for the Opening Night lead in 1984 (a performance that made The
New York Times). “So I had all this background information when I finally
had the opportunity to be exposed to it as a dancer.”
Astonishingly, as a youngster
he’d never even seen a video or
broadcast of one of the well-
known ballet versions of Romeo
(such as Frederick Ashton’s or
John Cranko’s), so as an adult
dancer he approached it without
prejudice. “It was really the
Brett Pruitt and East Market Studios
story, the one literary work of
Devon Carney, Devon Carney’s new
Kansas City Ballet Romeo and Juliet ballet Shakespeare’s that I connected
with as an adolescent,” said
Devon, who took the helm at KC Ballet in 2013, “when I was just a kid
myself.” He had been dancing since age 14 in his native New Orleans, but
when a high school teacher did a side-by-side comparison of Shakespeare’s
play with the film version of West Side Story he still didn’t focus on Jerome
Robbins’ choreography. “For me as a dancer it was interesting,” he said, but
it was still the story of Romeo and Juliet that fascinated him most.
Until, that is, he came across Sergey Prokofiev’s music for the ballet shortly
afterward, which was just as life-changing an experience as getting to know
the bard’s play. It was in the library of Tulane University, where his father
was a professor, that he first pulled out a conductor’s score and began
listening to Prokofiev’s music on the library’s reel-to-reel tapes. “It knocked
my socks off,” Devon said of the music. “It’s one of my favorite scores in the
world. … immensely inspiring. It’s a beautiful road-map to the story.”
Boston Ballet’s Romeo was an enormous success not just for the company
but for Devon, who was dancing his first principal role (and quickly advanced
to Soloist and then Principal Dancer in the company), and also for Choo-San,
who died in 1987. But Devon said he is working hard to create his own
Romeo, which is not as simple as it might seem.
“The DNA of Choo-San’s approach to the ballet is with me,” he said. “Now
that I have my opportunity to interpret the work, I’m trying to be very aware
of the influence … that these other great interpretations have had upon me,
and be quite careful not to let those cloud my inspiration.”
For the full-length version of this article, go to kcindependent.com and
click on Arts Corner.
Romeo and Juliet runs from October 13th through the 22nd at the Kauffman
Center. 816-931-8993 or kcballet.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor; send an email to paul@kcindependent.com ONLINE
or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or Twitter (@phorsleycritic).

kcindependent.com | September 2, 2017 | The Independent |15