David Chesky Orchestral Urban Composer

The Zephyrtine Ballet
"A fantasy for children and families"
by David Chesky

Click HERE to read the story.

Click on the tracks to listen to the live recording of The Zephyrtine Ballet,
conducted by Rui Massena at the Guimarães Arts Festival in Portugal 2012

(Scene Descriptions)

Act 1

TRACK 1
Scene 1: Bens Farm in Vermont
Set: A farm in Vermont, with a bedroom and window
Action: Tension
Dancers: The Zephyrtine
On a dark empty stage, a young boy named Ben is sleeping in bed. A spinning light is dancing outside the room in the field of the farm. Suddenly, with a big flash of light, the magical Zephyrtine appears on the stage.

TRACK 2
Scene 2: the Introduction of the Zephyrtine
Set: Farm
Action: Grand and heartwarming,
Dancers: The Zephyrtine
The Zephyrtine takes a bow in time with the three French horn chords. After a one bar bell introduction, Zephyrtine does a solo dance while young Ben anxiously watches through the window.

TRACK 3
Scene 3: What is this?
Set: Farm
Action: Tension
Dancers: The Zephyrtine and Ben
The Zephyrtine slowly approaches Ben’s window and they see each other. A scared Ben backs away as The Zephyrtine comes and knocks on the window and Ben runs back and hides. Then the Zephyrtine does it again, and Ben hides and runs around some more. The two accidentally back up into each other and are startled.

TRACK 4
Scene 4: New Friends
Set: Farm
Action: Fun, friendly conversation as they both warm up to each other
Dancers: The Zephyrtine and Ben
Ben and the Zephyrtine say hello to each other (Ben is voiced by the piccolo and the Zephyrtine is voiced by the French horn). Ben says something funny to the Zephyrtine. The Zephyrtine mimics Ben. They enter into a dance, each having a solo (piccolo solo is Ben’s dance and the French horn is Zephyrtine’s). The new friends dance together.

TRACK 5
Scene 5: Let’s visit my home, Eudora
Set: Farm
Action: Majestic and soaring as they will fly
Dancers: The Zephyrtine and Ben
Ben and the Zephyrtine engage in friendly conversation (piccolo and French horn) and the Zephyrtine asks Ben if he would like to visit his magical home in Eudora. Ben ponders the offer (sound of the harp and strings), and agrees to go. They do a majestic dance as they fly away to Eudora.

Act 1 black out on last big chord.

Act 2

Eudora is a strange place; birds have no wings and cannot fly, vegetables are not able to grow but instead are manufactured in factories, and ice cream grows on trees. People are of all different colors like blue, red, green and yellow. It is a utopian society where all live together as one, without wars or killing.

TRACK 6
Scene 1: Morning in Eudora
Set: The town of Eudora with colorful buildings, and ice cream trees
Action: Comedy
Dancers: the entire ballet corps as trios
Its early morning with the town still while Ben sleeps. Birds begin to sing and then the alarm clock goes off. Ben wakes up. The Eudorians make their way to work, dancing, they are blue, yellow and green workers.

TRACK 7
Scene 2: Dance of the Ice Cream Trees
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: the entire ballet corps
Dance of the ice cream trees. The entire town celebrates their ice cream trees with a dance.

TRACK 8
Scene 3: Dance of the Wingless Birds
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: Three Wingless Birds
Dance of the wingless birds. It is a comical dance. The goofy little birds line up, dance, and lose their place, and get confused and a Eudorian stops them. They line up again to repeat the dance. They dance, get confused and walk off stage.

TRACK 9
Scene 4: Dance of the Zephyrtines
Set: Eudora
Action: Majestic
Dancers: Three Zephyrtines
Dance of the Zephyrtines. They all line up and do a very macho Russian dance.

TRACK 10
Scene 5: Dance of the Chocolate Cows
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: Three Chocolate Fat Cows
Dance of the Chocolate cows. The people of Eudora get Chocolate milk from chocolate cows. It starts off with a few false starts. This is funny dance with all these fat cows. At the end one last crazy cow is left on stage dancing (she forgets the number is over) while the others leave the stage.

TRACK 11
Scene 6: Vegetable Builders
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: Three Vegetable Builders
Dance of the Vegetable Builders. The Vegetable Builders do an up-tempo dance to demonstrate how they build vegetables. At the end of the dance, Ben receives an invitation to meet the King.

Act 3

TRACK 12
Scene 1: The Red King's solo
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: Kalek, the Red King
The Red King enters with a big fanfare, all disheveled. They put his robes on. Ben meets Kalek, the Red King, with his short pants and two mismatching socks. The Red King dances a comedic dance.

TRACK 13
Scene 2: The Green Queen's Solo
Set: Eudora
Action: Majestic and then gets funky
Dancers: the Green Queen
Dance of the Green Queen. The Queen has an elegant entrance and does a very graceful, elegant dance. The Green Queen suddenly shakes it up and the rhythm changes to a funky groove.

TRACK 14
Scene 3: The Blue Princess's Solo
Set: Eudora
Action: Asian mysterious
Dancers: the Blue Princess Solo
Dance of Chaya, the Blue Princess. She enters from the back and does a very elegant, sensual dance. At the end, she sits down next to her father, the Red King.

TRACK 15
Scene 4: The Monster comes down from the mountains
Set: Eudora
Action: Tension
Dancers: The Monster (in shadow stealing the Princess, and some corps)
The stage goes dark as a gush of wind starts to blow. Ib, the Monster is voiced through the bass drum, walking to the stage from a distance. Hungry, Ib searches for something to eat, since the Ice Cream Trees have all been melted by the heat. The angry monster decides to steal the Blue Princess and wreck havoc on the town. All the people are scared and run away. The music ends as Ib, the Monster walks off stage.(The entire scene should be in a dark stage setting)

TRACK 16
Scene 5: Where is the Blue Princess?
Set: Eudora
Action: Confusion
Dancers, Ben, the Zephyrtine, the King, the Queen, and ballet corps
The Red King learns that his daughter is missing. As a reward, he will give an Ice Cream Tree to the person that finds his daughter. The Eudorians are divided into small groups as they begin to look for the Princess doing a lopsided Russian dance. The dance becomes more frantic as the music continues.

Act 4

TRACK 17
Scene 1: The Sapphire Forest
Set: The Sapphire Forest, with sapphires all over the floor and all the trees have sapphire leaves.
Action: Mysterious
Dancers: Ben, the Zephrytine, and corps as fish
The Zephyrtine tells Ben that the only one who knows how to get the Blue Princess back is Gortee, the wise old talking fish. They travel to the Sapphire Forest where Ben and the Zephyrtine learn that the fish all live in the trees.

TRACK 18
Scene 2: Gortee the wise old talking Fish
Set: the Sapphire Forest
Action: Mysterious
Dancers: Gortee the wise talking fish (Ben, Zephyrtine, and corps look on)
Ben and the Zephyrtine meet Gortee the wise old talking fish that dances for them.

TRACK 19
Scene 3: Dance of the fish that live in the trees
Set: the Sapphire forest
Action: Mysterious
Dancers: Gortee the wise old talking fish and corps (Ben and the Zephyrtine look on)
All the fish dance. Ben learns from Gortee the only way to save the princess is to throw a pumpkin into the Monsters mouth and he will gently go to sleep.

TRACK 20
Scene 4: Ben and the King
Set: Eudora
Action: Conflict
Dancers, The Red King and Ben and Zephyrtine and corps look on
Ben tells the Red King about the pumpkin, but no one in Eudora knows how to manufacture one. Ben explains that on his farm in Vermont they grow pumpkins, so he must travel back home to get one. The Kings argues that Ben is crazy for thinking of such a plan and sends him to jail for his own good, because everyone knows you can’t grow vegetables.

TRACK 21
Scene 5: Let's go find a real Pumpkin!
Set: Black screen with farm
Action: Majestic
Dancers: Ben and the Zephyrtine
Ben successfully escapes from jail. He and the Zephyrtine fly off to Vermont to bring back a pumpkin from his farm.

Act 5

TRACK 22
Scene 1: Ib, the Monster
Set: In front of Ib the Monsters Cave
Action: Tension, then conflict and fighting
Dancers: Ben, the Zephyrtine, and the Monster
Ben and the Zephyrtine enter Ib, the monster’s cave. Ben is scared when he hears the monster (voiced by the bass drum). The monster appears and they try to fight him off. Ben gets ready to throw a pumpkin into the monster’s mouth but pulls out a potato by mistake from the sack and chucks it into the monster’s mouth. The potato has no effect on the monster, but only makes him more upset. The monster chases him. Ben grabs a pumpkin and throws it into the monsters mouth. A coo-coo clock strikes and the monster becomes rapidly dizzy, stumbling around the stage as he falls into a slumber.

TRACK 23
Scene 2: Ben and the Blue Princess
Set: in front of Ib, the Monsters cave
Action: Romance
Dancers: Ben and the Blue Princess
Ben rescues Blue princess and they do a beautiful dance together.

Act 6

TRACK 24
Scene 1: The King assembles all
Set: Eudora
Action: Majestic
Dancers: the King as the corps look on
The celebration begins with the Kings opening fanfare to get everyone together.

TRACK 25
Scene 2: The celebration
Set: Eudora, the Grand Festival
At the Grand Festival, the characters come and do short versions of their theme dances with their music in succession. The festival commences with the Eudorians dancing and continues with Dance of the Wingless Birds, Dance of the Zephyrtines, Dance of the Chocolate Cows and Dance of the Vegetable Workers.

Scene 3: Dance of the Wingless Birds
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: the Wingless bird trio
Dance of the wingless birds.

Scene 4: Dance of the Zephyrtines
Set: Eudora
Action: Majestic
Dancers: The three Zephyrtine corps
Dance of the Zephyrtines.

Scene 5: Dance of the Chocolate Cows
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: The Chocolate Cow trio
Dance of Chocolate cows.

Scene 6: Dance of the Vegetable workers
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: The Vegetable workers trio

Scene 7: Ben gets an Ice Cream Tree
Set: Eudora
Action: Comedy
Dancers: Everyone
The King gives Ben an Ice Cream Tree as his reward. Ben and the Blue Princess dance around the Ice Cream Tree with the corps. A fanfare begins the end of the ballet. Ben will take the Ice Cream Tree back home to Vermont to share with his best friend, Jerry.

THE END