Brutal Ballet

Bridie Mayfield's troup dances classical ballet to heavy metal music

When I used to think of ballet, visions of sugar plum fairies came dancing unbidden in my head.

I pictured scantily clad, emaciated, young woman moving gracefully around the stage on their satin ensconced tiptoes, looking like ethereal princesses flitting with their bewitched princes twirling to the heights of the heavenly, painted skies.  I did not think of ballerinas fitted in red PVC, adorned with inverted metal crosses, white contact lenses and corpse paint cavorting to death metal music, but that is because I had not yet been introduced to the Brutal Ballet located in Brisbane, Australia.

Bridie Mayfield, the creator of Brutal Ballet, has performed nearly every form of dance from bellydance to bollywood.  She came up with the inspiration to dance classical ballet to heavy metal music from her love of metal and her experience from Ballet Deviare which is New York's premier heavy metal ballet company.  One day she put a video of herself with a fellow dancer performing ballet to the Dethklok theme on YouTube and received an overwhelming response.  That's when the Brutal Ballet was born. 

"Since I was small I always made up dances to music I loved, so when I started getting into metal it was no different to me.  When I heard about Ballet Deviare in New York I realized dancing to metal was accepted by metal fans and knew I had to either join them or start something myself, and I knew someone else wasn't going to start a metal ballet company here.  I managed to pull together enough dancers to start trying out some of the choreography."

Dethballet, their current production, is using the music from Metalocalypse which is a dark, cartoon parody of an imaginary Scandinavian death metal band called Dethklok.  Brendon Small, one of the creators of the popular cartoon, is also a talented guitarist that composes the original death metal to accompany every episode of the show.  Metalocalypse has fast become a popular icon for metal enthusiasts worldwide.  The Brutal Ballet production of Dethballet uses footage from this hilarious cartoon as part of their show and has been using a live band for the past few months formed especially for their performances called Klokblok.

"I love Metalocalypse, it's just one of the best cartoons ever!  I think I started seeing the choreography form because I'd watch the cartoon so much, the music in it would get in my head and a dance would start forming.  It's so similar to the kind of classical I love and it was kind of forming itself whenever I'd hear it.  A lot of it came fairly easily, but a lot of it was incredibly difficult too.  It's very even in its composition which is something ballet works really well with.  I was originally doing some stuff to Meshuggah and realized the dancers would have to be really experienced to handle it.  I think it's that Dethklok felt right though, it was just one of those things."

Dancing ballet to metal music has been an exciting journey for them.  Artistically, they are rejuvenating the dying spirit of ballet and bringing sophistication to metal music that it has always deserved.  They are attracting a diverse crowd of heavy metal music fans and people who have never attended the ballet before.  The show has become extremely popular and they find they are constantly recruiting new fans of the combined genres.  They have been surprised to discover that they seem to get more respect, recognition and appreciation dancing to metal music then they did to classical ballet.  Even though they are on stage in metal regalia and playing the dark overtures of metal music, they are still dancing in the traditional ballet style.

"I always wanted to bring an element of horror to ballet, and apparently have managed to do that.  We do some of the dances on pointe (on our toes) some in bare feet and some in colored contact lenses, which has really set us apart from other dance companies.  In ballet we have a part of the work called allegro which is mainly jumping, which we use a lot of in things like Birthday Dethday and Awaken.  When it's done properly it looks beautiful.  I've been doing Irish dancing for the last four years as well, which is very fast and really helped with choreographing the faster songs.  I think the ultimate idea behind Brutal Ballet is that in metal, men are the dominant force and women in metal have to toughen up and be as powerful and strong as the men to be taken seriously.  Doing ballet is graceful, elegant and feminine so it kind of allows us to keep our place as it were."

It is not uncommon to attend a rehearsal and see lots of eyeliner, corsets, tattoos, piercings and hefty, stomping boots.  It has become a prerequisite to have an interest in the alternative and darker side of life.  Bridie, who not only runs the company but makes all the costumes as well, is also a ghost hunter and would like to document ghost hunting all over the world as they go on tour.  All the dancers that are currently with the company are self-proclaimed metalheads.  They are dedicated to a life of metal and the alternative lifestyle.  The ballet company would like to develop other productions with different types of metal music.  There is a lot of metal they want to dance to and musicians they want to work with. 

"Being that there are so many genres of metal it makes it easy to be diverse.  For example the difference between a dance to a Maiden song and a Slipknot song would be massive, simply because the music is so different.  And then Slipknot have songs that are so entirely different from each other, with a dance to "Tattered and Torn" being completely different to "Sulfur" and the same again with "Vermillion"."

The company is continuing to perform Dethballet while simultaneously working on new ventures.  They have just started a project filming performances where they dance to local Brisbane metal bands beginning with Born From the Ashes.  They would like to follow up with another series where they use other regional Australian heavy metal groups and then move to international ones.  They have also just started to tour with the Dethballet to Melbourne and Sydney and are hoping to start a North American tour sometime next year.

"I'm torn between which of two bands to use for the next full length ballet, but seeing as Dethballet looks like having a fairly long shelf life, it may totally change between now and when we get to the next one.  A lot of people joke about us dancing to Dethklok forever, just making a show with each album released!"

So next time you think of the ballet, think of gothic ballerinas swathed in black tutus and chains jumping through the air to the high pitched squeals of guitars landing in pirouettes while giving you deadly stares.  If this is the douse of culture you have an appetite for then check and see if the Brutal Ballet will be boorishly tip-toeing into your area sometime in the near future.

Brutal Ballet on MySpace.

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