When Houston Ballet opens its season this weekend with its mixed rep program Pecos Bill, Principal Dancer Jessica Collado will be dancing as Sluefoot Sue, a rough and tumble Texas cowgirl in the ballet choreographed by Artistic Director Stanton Welch.
“Sue, who everybody thinks is a cowboy, falls in love with Bill. Nobody knew that she was a girl until she kind of tamed the Widowmaker, the horse that she rides on and she takes her hat off and kind of the whole stage is in shock,” Collado said.
“She’s a fun character to play. She’s very nuanced and quirky.”
Collado is also dancing in Lar Lubovitch’s Meadow which along with George Balanchine’s Symphonie Concertante are both new to the Houston Ballet company. As it turns out, Welch’s fellow artistic director, Julie Kent, danced in Meadow’s original cast at ABT (American Ballet Theatre) when Lubovitch was making it, blending modern dance and ballet, said Kent.
“And Concertante is one of Ballachine’s jewels but not many people know about,” Kent added. “It hasn’t been danced that often. It’s very, very beautiful.”
Explaining why it is danced infrequently, Kent said: “One of the reasons it isn’t danced very often is that New York City Ballet and ABT try not to share repertoire too much because of the proximity to their audiences, their performing seasons. It’s in the repertoire at ABT this coming season.”
Another reason it’s not done as often, Kent said is because “It’s a huge ballet. It requires 24 women plus two principals so that’s 26 women on the stage. A lot of companies don’t have that size in order to produce a ballet of that scale. So that’s one of the reasons why it’s not seen very often. And then if it’s not seen very often people don’t know about it. I’m thrilled to have introduced it to the company.”
In a 2010 production of Pecos Bill, Collado danced the role of the Coyote Mom, who took in the young Pecos Bill and raised him after she caught her own pups trying to bite him. Eventually she tells him he must return to his own kind.
Now that she’s the horse tamer Sue, a question to Collado had to be how she portrays riding a wild horse in a ballet.
“It’s a series of lifts and tosses and turns that are kind of on the edge of catastrophe. That gives the illusion that she’s on some wild bucking bronco. The horse ends up falling in love with her at the end.”
The story ultimately does not have as happy an ending. Bill is attracted to Sue and her strength and how’s she’s tamed this horse. “They bond in that way,” Collado said. “There’s a series where she’s constantly being made fun of – they’re called the three beauties. They’re kind of like the three gossip girls in the town. The pretty girls who think she’s weird because she dresses like a boy and acts like a boy.
“Sue kind of lets that get into her head. Bill thinks it would be a nice gesture to give her a dress because she feels like she doesn’t fit in. At first she thinks this is the most disrespectful present she could get from him. How does he not see that she’s different. But then she has a change of heart. ‘Well maybe I’ll put it on for him to make him happy.’ So she puts on and then she goes to ride the Widowmaker who has kind of become their pet in a way and because she’s wearing the dress she slips on riding the horse and she ends up falling off of him and she dies.”
“The ballet does end on a very somber note that he’s lost her because in a sense he tried to change who she really was deep down. So there’s a little bit of a moral there of being proud who you are and not trying to change your identity to make somebody else happy,” Collado said.
“I remember watching Pecos when I was a student and Stanton originally made it. He did she a great job of creating these characters that are larger than life. The story is happy and there are moments that are really funny and the next thing you know you’ll be welling up with tears. I think it’s a really heartfelt ballet.”
Performances are scheduled for September 11-20 at 7 p.m. on September 11, 7:30 p.m. on September 12 and 18, 1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on September 19 and 2 p.m. on September 13 and 20 at the Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For more information, call 713-227-2787or visit houstonballet.org $30-$173.
