Entering the throes of finals season and days and nights spent laboring away in Walsh Library, there exists a desire for an escape from the ever-impending doom of the student grind. Fortunately, Fordham’s abundant offering of cultural and performative clubs provide performers and students with these brief reprieves from academia, and with a plethora of upcoming articles and finals determining the fate of my GPA creeping closer, I was ready to dive into a cultural immersion.

On the characteristically dreary day that was Sunday, April 19, these escapist dreams were met in the form of a ballet show. I took a trip with Fordham Rose Hill’s ballet troupe, the Fordham Jetés, down the rabbit hole in Collins Auditorium at their performance of “Alice in Wonderland.”

As someone not extensively familiar with the plot or details of the story of young Alice and her fantasy world, I feared that I would struggle with following or maintaining engagement throughout the performance, but by the end of the first act, such worries were laid to rest. Even without knowledge of what was being played out on stage, the dancers’ physical and storytelling abilities, the set design and the stage production curated a spectacle that kept me smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

The exposition of the ballet showed Alice, played by Lillian Choe, FCRH ’29 and her sister, played by Izzy Kamikawa, FCRH ’26 reading and playing outside and depicted the process of Alice following the White Rabbit and drinking a series of elixirs to shrink to the appropriate Wonderland size. The props used represented this transformation of the protagonist. Throughout the show, the stage props themselves were simple yet effective tools to the storytelling of the entire production, differentiating the various settings and characters.

The White Rabbit character, played by Tim O’Brian, FCRH ’28, cuts through Alice’s fear and confusion of being transplanted into this foreign fairytale world, and their duet dances always had an air of cheer and uplift. O’Brian’s technical dance abilities contributed to his compelling portrayal of his character, leaping and bounding across the stage, while Choe’s more gentle, delicate movements displayed the spirit of a young girl frolicing and navigating new and fantastical lands.

Each character had their own unique styles of dance on stage. The Caterpillar had a fluid, slinky motion in her number that carried the more subdued, alluring mystique of the bizarre that the character is known for. On the other hand, the Queen of Hearts, played by Eliot Richards, FCRH ’26, and her entourage of cards encapsulated her cutthroat nature with their more rigid and angular performance.

Each of the Queen of Hearts’ numbers were distinct in their drama and pretentious tone. Her dance with the White Rabbit did an especially good job of conveying their respective characters, with the Queen bossing around the Rabbit, who had a consistent face of worry and apprehension throughout their joint performance.

While Richards and O’Brian embodied their respective roles’ commanding and acrobatic attributes, the other leads gave an equally impressive showing of their roles.

Julia Morales, GSB ’26 gave a perfectly enticing and unsettling representation of the Cheshire Cat, showcasing her flexibility during her solo performance, incorporating elements such as backbends in her dance and always sporting that signature grin, hammering home her character’s mischievous nature.

Similarly, the Mad Hatter, played by Rebecca Lothson, FCRH ’26, had a fittingly quirky and avant-garde dance number and costume. The accuracy and adherence to personality that each of the dancers depicted their roles with made the viewing experience just that much more fun to watch.

While each of the solo and character-specific numbers built the world and established the people in the show, the larger group numbers provided the more whimsical content in the ballet. Each ensemble number had my eyes fixed on the movement on stage, exhibiting the coordination and stage awareness of the performers. In both the cards’ and flowers’ dances specifically, I witnessed just how well the dancers kept symmetry and tempo with each other.

I would be remiss to not make any mention of the non-dance elements involved with this production. As a former stage crew geek, I had a special reverence for the set designs and backdrops used in the show. The lighting correlated well with each scene, and there were special moments where the Queen of Hearts would take to the stage and be accompanied by a flash of reddish hues shining on the stage. Each aspect of this show was extensively rehearsed and tailored to make the show the best that it could be.

“Alice in Wonderland” as performed by the Fordham Jetés was the ideal fanciful show for these dragging end-of-semester days. Moments of suspense and humor permeated the two acts and kept the audience entertained, and the dancer’s artistic and physical abilities kept me in awe that the people I was seeing on stage were the same people I see walking around campus and in classes. If you were unable to make it to this performance by the Jetés, be sure to follow their Instagram and stay posted about when you can next experience your peers pirouette and plié on stage and through the air.