100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 91: The Hothouse
Above are the set models for the Hothouse in which Aurora sleeps. When she falls asleep, the flowers are in bloom: 100 years later, the plants have overgrown, and if you look closely, you can see the skeletons of men who have tried to rescue her.
100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 84: the poster
Our striking poster for The Sleeping Beauty is a combination of photograph and illustration. Dancer Sophie Martin, who plays roles including Aurora and the Fairy of Song, posed for a photoshoot (above), and the image was then illustrated to include the Bluebird and woodland branches. Both the photograph and the illustrations were done by Holly Warburton.
100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 31: Aurora
Aurora means ‘dawn’, and when the Prince wakes her, they dance together as the sun rises.
100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 25: The Cactus
At the height of Aurora’s birthday celebrations, three gardeners burst into the party with a beautiful cactus in full flower. Aurora reaches up to touch the flower, but pricks her fingers and instantly falls asleep. The gardeners are Carabosse and her daughters in disguise, and they wheeled in the cactus to fulfil the curse as the King had banned all sharp objects from the kingdom.
100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 22: casts
Each dancer learns up to three roles so there are different casts for different performances, and over the course of a tour, there could be up to five different Auroras!
(L-R: Claire Robertson, Sophie Martin and Tomomi Sato)
100 Days of The Sleeping Beauty
Day 19: The Rose Adage
Every ballet version of The Sleeping Beauty contains its own Rose Adage, where Aurora dances with potential suitors at her 16th birthday party. In most versions, the princes each give Aurora a rose, but our creative team decided against this as they felt Aurora could have easily pricked her finger on the thorns of one of the roses and fallen asleep early!
