The Royal Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland….

Christopher Wheeldon in rehearsal of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with dancers Beatriz Stix-Brunell, James Hay, Liam Scarlett and Alexander Campbell.

Down The Rabbit Hole….

Scene plot: There is a party in Alice’s house. Everyone is there: her severe mother, her sisters, and many guests. Alice dance all the time and, tired, falls asleep. She notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labeled “DRINK ME”, the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. A cake with “EAT ME” on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling. Alice is unhappy and cries as her tears flood the hallway.

The Caucas Race

“What IS a Caucus-race? said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. Why, said the Dodo, the best way to explain it is to do it.(And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)”

~ Chapter 3 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

After swimming around in Alice‘s pool of tears, the animals need to dry off, and The Dodo recommends a caucus race. There are no rules; all of the participants run haphazardly around in no particular direction, and everyone wins.

Forward, backward, inward, outward, come and join the chase.
Nothing can be dryer than a jolly caucus race.
Backward, forward, outward, inward, bottom to the top,
Never a beginning there can never be a stop
To skipping, hopping, tripping, fancy free and gay,
I started it tomorrow and will finish yesterday.
Round and round and round we go, and dance for evermore,
Once we were behind but now we find we are be-forward