Edward Watson isn’t your average ballet prince. The riveting principal dancer of England’s Royal Ballet has portrayed psychopaths so often that if he doesn’t strangle someone onstage, you feel cheated.
But when he comes to the Joyce from Sept. 17 to 29, he’ll play a different kind of freak: Gregor Samsa, the buttoned-up traveling salesman who turns into an insect in “Metamorphosis.”
Kafka’s surreal novella was made into a dance two years ago by choreographer Arthur Pita. It won raves in London, thanks in part to Watson’s tour-de-force performance. His hyperflexible body and exaggerated proportions might not be right for “The Sleeping Beauty,” but they’re perfect here: His long hands and supple feet could easily be feelers.
Watson prepared for the role by studying insects. “What makes you uncomfortable is that something’s always moving or twitching,” he explains.
His roach approach is amped up with an icky special effect — a viscous fluid that oozes over the stage. The reality is sweeter: It’s molasses.
Ten liters of the stuff will be shipped from London to be mixed with water, a lighter-colored syrup and black dye to make the goo.
A recipe like that is never perfect on the first try. “If there was too much water, I’d slip,” Watson recalls, but that wasn’t as bad as the rehearsal when there was too little water: “I got stuck to the floor.”
Here’s what else dance lovers will want to stick around for this fall:
* Fall for Dance heads off the season once again as New York’s top dance bargain: All tickets for its City Center shows are $15. But to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the festival expands into Central Park for two free shows at the Delacorte Theater on Sept. 16 and 17. Acts include STREB, tumbling and diving in their daredevil “Human Fountain.” Then from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5, the party returns to City Center with five different shows (nycitycenter.org, 212-581-1212).
* New York City Ballet’s Sept. 19 fall gala is a triple treat: three new ballets by current hot shots. Company soloist Justin Peck is the newest kid on the block, joined by former principal Benjamin Millepied (Natalie Portman’s hubby, soon to be the director of the Paris Opera Ballet) and another French choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj. The season starts Sept. 17 and continues to Oct. 13 (nycballet.com, 212-496-0600).
* William Forsythe is one of the most exhilarating, frustrating choreographers around. When he’s bad, he’s an unholy marriage of pedantic deconstructionist and pretentious performance artist. But when he’s great, no one can touch him for complex, scintillating movement.
“Sider,” which experiments with fragments of Elizabethan tragedy, may be both. He’ll be at BAM Oct. 9 to 12 (bam.org, 718-636-4100).
* The San Francisco Ballet specializes in commissioned works, and its repertory reads like a who’s who of contemporary ballet. For its first visit to New York in five years, its showpiece will be Christopher Wheeldon’s new take on “Cinderella,” featuring a tree brought to life by master puppeteer Basil Twist (Oct. 16 to 27, davidhkochtheater.com; 212-496-0600).
This fall’s dance season, it seems, is all about metamorphoses.