Directed by Guy Maddin
2002
Canada
75 min (Silent w/ English intertitles)
Tickets $8

*Special pre-show talk with Tara Birtwhistle and guest

Click here for tickets to this screening of Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary

Starring starring RWB Principal Dancer Tara Birtwhistle, RWB School Professional Division Founding Director David Moroni, Senior Ballet Master Wei-Qiang Zhang (Johnny Chang) and former Soloist Johnny Wright

Beautifully transposing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire yarn from stage to screen, Guy Maddin has created a ravishing treatment of this gothic horror. In conjunction with the return presentation of the RWB presentation of the ballet, the RWB and Cinematheque present this sumptuous, erotically charged feast of dance, drama and shadow. The black-and-white, blood-red-punctured Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is a Gothic grand guignol of the notorious Count and his bodice-ripped victims, fringed with the expressionistic strains of Gustav Mahler.

“Maddin has discovered a new kind of cinema, the welding of silent-film technique, avant-garde imagery, and 21^st century technology....Victorian sexuality and melodrama are brought together in a shadowy world of expressionistic images and an athletic, almost rabid, choreography.”
- Bruce Diones, New Yorker

About Tara Birtwhistle:

A principal dancer in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Tara Birtwhistle dazzles her audiences in roles that emphasize her dramatic talent, versatility, and chameleon like qualities. Birtwhistle credits her pre-professional training to the Sherwood Park School of Dance and the Red Deer School of Ballet. In 1986, she began her professional training with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School Professional Division. She graduated from the Professional Division in 1991 and immediately joined the RWB as a corps de ballet member. In 1995, she was promoted to soloist and in 2000 became a principal dancer. Birtwhistle was also nominated for a Gemini Award for her stunning performance in Guy Maddin’s  Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary, a screen adaptation of the ballet. Among the many accolades behind her name, Birtwhistle was designated “One of 100 Young Canadians to Watch in the New Millennium” in Maclean’s magazine. Among the many accolades behind her name, Birtwhistle was designated  “One of 100 Young Canadians to Watch in the New Millennium”  in Maclean’s magazine.