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PRESS: Kirov at the City Center. April 2008 Tour 
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Сообщение What the money guys say
A Close Up View of the Kirov
By ROBERT GRESKOVIC. April 16, 2008

New York


Since first visiting New York in 1961, the Kirov Ballet, heir to the legacy of Russia's legendary imperial theaters, has consistently been framed by the city's Metropolitan Opera House during the opera's off-season. But this year the ballet troupe is appearing during the opera's high season and so had to find another stage. Ardani Artists Management is presenting the Kirov at full company strength, including orchestra, at City Center, a less spacious and deluxe setting.
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When the curtain went up on the first of the season's offerings, City Center's shallow auditorium and somewhat confined stage showed the company at unusually close range. The Kirov's presentation of Act 3 of "Raymonda," a 1948 restaging of Marius Petipa's 1898 production of Glazunov's lush score, came decorated with what it could reasonably fit of Simon Visiladze's honey-hued décor showing heavy drapery with a castle in the background. Happily, the aristocratically mannered dancers, admittedly used to grander spaces, took the limits in their stride. And what a stride these elegant men and women display within this storybook realm, one mixing French nobility with courtly, Slavic dances.

The Kirov presents this culminating scene of the knightly tale told in "Raymonda" as an otherworldly, old-world gathering. Its fine-toned texture is distinguished by folk-style upper-body accentuations and boot-shod footwork shaped by determined but deft shifts of weight and thrust, all made ballet bright by a smiling and seamless ease of execution. As the eponymous heroine, the regal and radiantly gracious Uliana Lopatkina swept through this world with a confidence as unmistakable as it was unshakable. As her dashing swain of a cavalier, Danila Korsuntsev was somewhat plain but utterly charming and elegant.

To close its second week, the Kirov presented "Etudes," Harald Lander's 1948 (revised in 1952) dance-class ballet to Knudage Riisager arrangements of Karl Czerny's exercise/practice music. With its beginnings in French and Danish ballet-school traditions from the 1940s and 1950s, "Etudes," which entered the Kirov's repertory in 2003, has little direct connection to the methods of the Russian troupe's own school.

Given all the smoothness and artful ease that the Kirov dancers bring to "Raymonda" and other works of longstanding Russian lineage, Michel Fokine's "Chopiniana" prominent among them, it's touching to observe these dedicated dancers trying so hard to master some of the physical oddities of Lander's "Etudes": Holding the arms down and low in front of the ramrod vertical torso, so much a part of some Danish and French dancing, puts almost teeth-gritting expressions on the faces of the comely Russians dancing this ballet class so different from their own.

The inherent intimacy of City Center put both the troupe's ensemble and leading dancers -- whether performing in works second nature to the company or not -- in a fresh and strong light.

Sometimes this could make for a glaring experience. Take, for instance, "Le Spectre de la Rose," Fokine's romantic reverie (to Weber) about a young woman and the spectral "rose" that hovers about and awakens her from dreaming about her first ball. The Kirov's remake of Leon Bakst's 1911 costume for the male rose spirit was even more unfortunate seen this close. In the over-eager and brusque performance by the simian-faced Igor Kolb, the rose-colored spirit looked most like an ill-clipped shaggy dog, dyed cerise.

Elsewhere, however, seeing Kirov Ballet artistry at such proximity can be newly rewarding. The mist-like trail that a long line of Kirov female "shades" from "La Bayadère" can suggest on expansive stages appears here, instead, as so many phosphorescent blooms glowing in a dreamlike night. This floral intensity comes not only from the lighting on the women's fine-tulle costumes but also from the achingly beautiful attack the corps de ballet brings to the now-famous repeated steps and poses that give each dancer an individual and yet collective visual fragrance.

Of course, as the Kirov has proved again and again, even if details of design or choreography leave much to be desired, the talents of individual dancers can override a multitude of wrongs. This time, besides the seasoned Ms. Lopatkina, the poetic and plush Anton Korsakov, and the nowadays locally familiar Diana Vishneva, the company has a mostly intriguing roster of 20-somethings to capture the imagination and fill the eye.

The fair, fine-boned and bird-like Leonid Sarafanov, who is 26 but looks about 16, is an enchanting performer who soars through vigorous air turns like a genie popping out of a bottle, even though his limbs appear to have the least aggressive of muscles. The handsomely proportioned Victorina Tereshkina isn't as tall as she looks, but at 26 she is remarkably accomplished. Ms. Tereshkina made confident and radiant work of the huntress Diana in the jolly "Diana and Acteon" duet, which treats classical mythology with a casual air and classical, show-off dancing with a determined one. As her partner wrapped in a leopard skin, the baby-faced Mikhail Lobukhin danced complementary rings around Ms. Tershkina's Diana. He has a flair for embellishing bold turning jumps with finesse and without fuss.

Twenty-three-year-old Alina Somova was shown in a number of prominent roles. Almost paper thin but not anorexic-looking, the bleached blonde with a sharp chin and sweet face is charmingly gangly at this point. Her high-flung legwork sometimes renders ballet's aim for harmonious "line" as a frisson of multiple lines, but Ms. Somova has real power in her filament-like extremities and a pixie-like sweetness that gives precociousness an agreeable aspect. She took the lead of "Etudes" alongside the equally precocious Mr. Sarafanov and ran with it to a degree that made many in the audience feel as giddy as she seemed to become while dancing it.

The season's final week begins with a bill of ballets by William Forsythe, who has made a career of skewing ballet's ways and sometime skewering its traditions. It will end with a program of Balanchine works that have made their name by extending the Russian traditions that the Kirov has long embodied. How all this will fit these Kirov dancers -- or on the City Center stage -- remains to be seen, but anyone attending this run will be nearer the answers to such questions than previous New York seasons have allowed.

Mr. Greskovic writes about dance for the Journal.

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17 апр 2008, 19:08
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Almost paper thin but not anorexic-looking, the bleached blonde with a sharp chin and sweet face is charmingly gangly at this
******************************************

Octavia ,podozrewaju chto Alina Somova personaz dlja
Vanity Fair ... ne WSJ

WSJ eto Vishneva ,ona raboaet s postanowschikom verojatno toj ze nazii chto i redakzija WSJ -Mose Pendletom


Vanity Fair ljubit jarkix dam ...(Bianka Brandolini D'Adda ,dinastija s 7 weka ,priwlekatel'nnaja doch' sowetskix diplomatow w 60 godax ,,J.Kennedi & ) i pechatet materiali ob obnaruzenii stawlenika Kissingera -Elkana ,Chefa Fiata w sostojanii narkoticheskogo op'janenija w kwartire transwerzita .


18 апр 2008, 04:04
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THE COMPANY IS currently pushing an amazing creature named Alina Somova, whom you can think of as a radiant, atypical star, or as a vacant semi-freak: She’s very tall, very blond and very thin, and she flings herself into crazy extensions, her leg slamming up past her ear—she’s a combination of a gorgeous showgirl and Alice after she’s swallowed the “drink me” potion. When she relaxes her glazed look and a natural smile escapes her, you see she’s a nice girl with extraordinary facility who can actually dance.

?

1. Ona ne ochen' wisokaja ... primerno 172 sm ,minimum dlja Miss Russia ,Miss Germany

2. Original'no ne blondinka ... vse ostal'noe 100% natural'no

3.she’s a nice girl - Krasiwee chem wsja resannaja miss Russia ,MBA -V.Lopyreva ,no ustupaet 4 Miss World ,chempionke Ewropi po tanzam S.Bruscoli(toze wse natural'no 177 sm ,rowesniza)

Yskorenija razwiwaemie konechnostjami ostawljaut wpechatlenie legkosti .Tak i dolzno bit'

K primeru -fundamental'nnij prinzip Kon'jaka Delamain -legkost' ,xotja
on kak wse kon'jaki 40 gradusow a intensiwnost' aromata wische chem y drugix .


18 апр 2008, 17:01
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Swjatoslaw ,
Somova performed well on this tour. But in high energy performance of Les Etudes the atmosphere in the theater reached feverish intensity on both sides of the orchestra pit and she was mesmerizing!!! And not just Somova - the whole ensemble performed exceptionally well that night. One of the best performances I've seen - truly unforgettable!


18 апр 2008, 19:09
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Kirov challenges dancers, viewers

BY ROBERT JOHNSON

NEW YORK -- Conviction and daring are not qualities one associates with American ballet these days. The Kirov Ballet, however, still owns them in full measure.

The Russian company, which performs at New York City Center through Sunday, believes completely in what it does. It seems untroubled by the encroaching banalities of modern life, and its self-confidence and integrity explain why even less than perfect performances remain compelling. The Kirov expects mature consideration from its audiences to match the dedication of its dancers, and expects both dancers and viewers to make fine distinctions.

ake programming, for instance. This season the company has organized most of its programs around individual choreographers. We have had Petipa evenings that measured the distance between "La Bayadère" and "Raymonda"; Fokine evenings that balanced "Chopiniana" with "Schéhérazade"; and most recently a Forsythe evening of uncompromising seriousness. People who genuinely admire the work do not shy away from immersing themselves in it, and the Kirov thrives on such enthusiasms.

Yet even Harald Lander's virtuosic "Etudes," included as a tag to some of the Fokine nights, was a test of sorts. Unadorned by narrative or high-minded concept, "Etudes" showcases the dancers' technique. It fascinates people who love the beauty of this visual language and thrill to see it exquisitely rendered, but that's not everybody.

Insufficient attention was paid to the mystery in Fokine's ballets. The dancers' lyricism and unity buoyed "Chopiniana," although by so marvelously attenuating their gestures they risked ironing out choreographic accents. The Kirov doesn't seem to have a man for "Le Spectre de la Rose," since the ideally suited Anton Korsakov indulged himself by altering some pirouettes. Both he and Igor Kolb made their dancing so liquid that they did not complete key poses. While spectacularly voluptuous, "Schéhérazade," depicting the trespass of sex-starved prisoners in a harem, needs to be restaged.

"The Dying Swan," however, gave Fokine his due in two unforgettable interpretations. Uliana Lopatkina found a metaphor in full stops where her arms seemed pinned to the air, conceiving of death as the interruption of lyrical flow, but Diana Vishneva's Swan differed in temperament and physicality. Vishneva's muscles stretch wonderfully but not without resistance, which accounts somewhat for this ballerina's dramatic insight and for the way viewers sense her movement. Beating the air with proud but desperate wings her Swan struggled to the last breath, when her head bowed reluctantly to the ground.

Vishneva's athleticism, passion and fearlessness also brought terrific humanity to Forsythe's "Steptext." In the otherwise spooky work, music and lights flash on and off unpredictably inspiring viewers to fill the emptiness by imagining a life that continues elsewhere or on another plane.

Less consistently inventive in "Approximate Sonata," Forsythe stages the rehearsal process and the boundary between reality and art fades. Only Leonid Sarafanov took naturally to "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude," yet the Kirov dancers' style and hopeful grace made this ballet's concern with speed seem shallow. Ekaterina Osmolkina also danced superbly here.

A classroom ballet of sorts, "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated" recalls "Etudes," except that while Lander happily shows us steps Forsythe emphasizes the pitilessness and narcissism of the milieu. A tough contender, smoldering Victoria Tereshkina devoured this ballet's every challenge.

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18 апр 2008, 22:52
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Catapulted Into the Present Tense

By ROSLYN SULCAS

The Kirov Ballet’s performances at City Center over the last two weeks exemplify the way that classical dance can appear dazzlingly lightweight, almost entirely divorced from the content that once rendered this work meaningful to its audiences. But ballet can look and feel as contemporary as any other art, and on Tuesday night the Kirov appeared in four works by Willam Forsythe that catapulted the dancers into the present tense.
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Mr. Forsythe, the American-born choreographer, is regarded by many in the dance world as the most important influence on ballet since Balanchine. (Others consider him as — in dance terms — the devil.) The four works on this program are not new. “Steptext,” a distillation of Act II of the full-length “Artifact,” was choreographed in 1985; “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1987; “Approximate Sonata” and “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude” in 1996. But without any kind of narrative they are the stories of ballet in our time, the sequels to Balanchine’s ground-breaking extensions of classical technique.

This is not to say Mr. Forsythe is Balanchinian in tone, even if there are influences in some elements of his style: the dizzying, off-balance extensions of academic ballet positions, the athletic virtuosity, the speed and propulsiveness, the emphasis on doing rather than interpreting. But his work is not primarily a response to the textures of a score, and his movement possesses a kinetic complexity that takes far more liberties with ballet’s vertical planes and effortless equilibrium.

The Kirov company, which did not take on Balanchine’s work until the end of the 1980s, first performed the Forsythe program in 2004, and it dances Mr. Forsythe’s ballets with a go-for-broke enthusiasm almost entirely lacking in their account of the 19th-century repertory. In many ways the fit is a natural one: Mr. Forsythe’s use of movement emanating from the center of the back, the high-held arms and rotated elbows are simply the everyday stuff of Kirov training. The fit is less easy, though, when it comes to the feel for an interior rhythm and a way of individually shaping dance phrases.

In “Steptext,” a quartet for a woman, in a lipstick-red unitard, and three men, to fragments from Bach’s Chaconne from the Partita No. 2, Diana Vishneva dances with a breathtaking intensity and a burnished, astonishing rapidity and fluency of movement. “Steptext” plays with theatrical conventions: the house lights go on and off; the music is abruptly, repeatedly cut. The effect is to sharpen our attention and our hunger for the beautiful, sweeping movement.

The piece is partly an essay on partnering. It demonstrates a constant realigning of weight and balance between dancers that make explicit the muscular tensions that ballet usually masks. Here Ms. Vishneva’s three counterparts (Igor Kolb, Mikhail Lobukhin and Alexander Sergeev) are also remarkable, though they don’t always show their independence as dancers, even while partnering, that the choreography calls for.

“In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” suffered most from the relatively small City Center stage, and from too-bright lighting, far less sculptural in effect than the choreographer’s original design. Set to Thom Willems’s ticking, crashing score, this ballet is all about the cloistered world Mr. Forsythe found at the Paris Opera. The nine dancers — working, experimenting and trying to outdo one another — are real people, eyeing their rivals and friends from the side, trying out new ways of moving. All, particularly the superb Ekaterina Kondaurova and Elena Sheshina, danced with playful virtuosity, but the work badly needs more rhythmic nuance.

Before “In the Middle” came two works Mr. Forsythe created as part of the full-evening “Six Counter Points.” “Approximate Sonata” is a meditative series of pas de deux, lighted with painterly beauty to a muted piano score by Mr. Willems. Like “Steptext” and “In the Middle,” it is about the work of dancing and the intimate collaborative relationships among its four couples were finely delineated.

“The Vertiginous Thrill,” on the other hand, is about performance, Mr. Forsythe’s witty nod to ballet’s history. Petipa, Bournonville and Balanchine are all invoked in this Champagne bubble of a dance, set to the final bouncy movement from Schubert’s Symphony No. 9. Here Mr. Forsythe’s love for ballet and dancers shines through. It’s froth and fun, he seems to say, and also a simply astounding thing for the human body to do.

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18 апр 2008, 22:56
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Deconstruction Overload

By JOEL LOBENTHAL

Since 2004, the Kirov Ballet has embraced the works of William Forsythe fervently and more than a bit dogmatically. But it was evident on Tuesday night at City Center that four Forsythe ballets on one program is at least one too many.

Mr. Forsythe borrows from doctrinal schools of theatrical deconstruction fomented in the early decades of this century. He deploys them on a torqued grid of extremist takes on Balanchine's neoclassic vocabulary, and he sets them to soundtrack assemblages that often proceed by fragmented fits and starts. Boundaries and illusionism are assailed.

In the opening work, "Steptext," the auditorium lights stay on throughout the beginning of the piece and rise again toward its conclusion. The performers onstage see us and we see each other; our spectatorship becomes part of the text. Punctuations are open-ended here. "Steptext" opens without fanfare, as dancer Mikhail Lobukhin walks out and begins some oleaginous stretching. Soon, Diana Vishneva arrives posed downstage left for an aria of bent wrists and rippling, twisted, and entwined arms; her monologue is a preview of the particular semaphoric sign language that "Steptext" employs.

On Tuesday, Ms. Vishneva was more truly Forsythian than she has sometimes been in the past. Not pert and playful, she was instead properly sour, ornery, and distempered. Mr. Forsythe wants his "Steptext" heroine to stay on the razor's edge. Crucial to "Steptext" (and to most of Mr. Forsythe's work) is the dancer's ostensible decision to break up the scripted interaction and go back to being an individual who stretches, rehearses, and talks to other dancers. But breaking character is scripted into the work, of course. Kneading her feet in her moments "at rest," Ms. Vishneva maintained a starting-block alertness.

There is a great deal of repetition in Mr. Forsythe's work, deployed as polemical statement in the manner of minimalism. Variety thus is to some degree dependent on the range of physiques and temperaments introduced. In "Steptext," the stage picture benefited from the contrasting builds of the three tall men surrounding Ms. Vishneva. Whereas Mr. Lobukhin is earthy, Igor Kolb has an ideal classical silhouette, and Alexander Sergeyev is eccentrically elongated.

"Approximate Sonata," which came after an intermission, was the low point of Tuesday's program. It's a tedious piece. Tedium has its own important place in the theater, yet "Approximate Sonata" was like watching paint dry. It seemed in this context to be a rehash of trademark tropes; on a mixed bill with non-Forsythe works, it would appear fresher and work better.

After a pause, there was "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude," set to the booming final movement of Schubert's Symphony No. 9. For some reason, Mr. Forysthe had stipulated that the Kirov perform it to a taped performance rather than live music. The dancers were Elena Androsova, Ekaterina Osmolkina, and Olesia Novikova, together with Andrian Fadeyev and Leonid Sarafanov. There is an interesting contrast between the classical elegance of Mr. Fadeyev — pulled this way and that by Mr. Forsythe's undertow of disequilibrium — and the rubbery rapscallion Mr. Sarafanov, perpetually mobile except for moments when he's made to sit still and mind his manners.

Tuesday night's "Vertiginous" suffered from the exclusion of Svetlana Ivanova, who danced Ms. Osmolkina's role superlatively at the Kirov premiere in March 2004. Ms. Ivanova is in New York with the company, and there is no artistic reason why she is not dancing even one of the three performances. On Tuesday night, Ms. Osmolkina nevertheless danced very well, as did Ms. Novikova and Ms. Androsova, who is mostly cast in coryphée roles and hasn't danced "Vertiginous" nearly as often as the other two women. But Ms. Ivanova takes the ballet to a different level altogether.

Following another intermission, the program closed with "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated." Returning to the stage from "Steptext" were Mr. Lobukhin and Mr. Sergeyev. From "Vertiginous," there was Ms. Novikova. And from "Approximate Sonata," Anton Pimonov, Elena Sheshina, Yana Selina, and Ekaterina Kondaurova.

Here the dancers had a fine old time roughing up themselves — and each other. At center stage were Victoria Tereshkina and Ms. Kondaurova, who are both very tall and who would appear to have hip joints that allow their legs to rotate 360 degrees. Ms. Tereshkina was vampish and Ms. Kondaurova lissome. Xenia Dubrovina is equally tall and long-limbed, but less exaggerated; her note of chic reticence was welcome amidst all the petulance and provocation. An exemplary approach to Forsythe was also made by Mr. Pimonov, who takes canny measure of the material and delivers it straight without gratuitous thrashing and posturing. His duet with Ms. Selina was a highlight of "Approximate Sonata," as was his work in "Middle," which requires him to perform a series of running lifts carrying Ms. Novikova that went like a lightning streak across the stage.

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18 апр 2008, 22:58
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FORESIGHT FROM FORSYTHE

By CLIVE BARNES

April 18, 2008 -- TEN years ago, the idea of the Kirov presenting an entire evening of works by ballet's bad boy, William Forsythe, as it did at City Center Tuesday night, would have been tantamount to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

Now it's simply a question of how the mustache looks.

The St. Petersburg troupe - perhaps the pinnacle of classic ballet - has had, despite a few innovative narrative works such as "Romeo and Juliet," a creatively weak 20th century.

Now, in the final stanza of its rare three-week New York season, it's showing a clean pair of heels.

Not that it's gone short on tradition: Last week, in an agreeable mishmash bundled up from Petipa's "Le Corsaire," Uliana Lopatkina showed that opalescent sheen that makes her, like the troupe's Diana Vishneva, one of today's great ballerinas.

Still, it's the 20th-century implants that have bated the dance world's breath: Balanchine and Forsythe this week, Harald Lander's crankily and creakily beautiful "Etudes" last week, in which male soloists Leonid Sarafanov, Vladimir Shklyarov and Andrian Fadeev proved terrific.

The acid test came with the Forsythe, one of the world's leaders in classic dance's avant-garde.

Having invited him to stage four ballets, the Kirov dancers pulled up their pointe shoes, dusted off their arabesques and proved absolutely smashing.

They looked as though they had been dancing it all their lives. And, of course, in fact they had. For despite Forsythe's fondness for electronic music, his choreography is still rooted in the classic tradition, plus Forsythe's sense of "cool," which seems second nature to Russians.


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18 апр 2008, 23:02
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GO: The Kirov does Forsythe

Forsythe's style looks different here than on his own company--not so in your face but also implacable, whiplash yet static--and maybe that's why I liked it so much.
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The Kirov dancers are exceptional at switching styles, probably because they've been trained so solidly in a single school that they know what a style is. Still, they bring to Forsythe a softness and slipperiness--as if we've entered a world where the sound has been turned off--that probably returns the work too solidly to ballet for his own taste. It expresses a tenderness and curiosity toward this old idiom that I haven't seen much from him (and certainly not from all the Forsythe spin-offs). Maybe the difference is that these are earlier works, from 1985 to 1996, while the stuff that he's brought to BAM in the last several years has been more up-to-date. In any case, I was thoroughly engaged--delivered to the dances' world. It helps that we get a whole night devoted to Forsythe and that, unlike the classical ballets, these fit on the City Center stage.

Dancers I especially couldn't take my eyes off:

--Diana Vishneva in "Steptext," one woman among three men making a real-- uncontrived--story out of her outlandish figures.

--Olesia Novikova (black hair, very white, open face) bringing out the Balanchinean rhythm in Forsythe's homage to the master, "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude." Novikova moves like a pebbled stream, with small but startling bumps in a constant flow. I think this is what people mean by Russian cantilena: however much rhythmic counterpoint the steps involve, you feel the rush of the whole passage rather than just the push and pull of discrete moments. It's like being inside a dream.

--Henna-haired Ektarina Kondaurova had that power too in the central inside-out adagio of "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated."

Anyway, the Forsythe program only continues through tomorrow (Thursday). Then the company is on to Balanchine for its final three days at City Center, which should also not be missed.

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18 апр 2008, 23:07
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HOME ALONE Part 11.
...the dude still talks about "deep freeze of the Communist era"... what a dinosaur :x

Цитата:
Radiant Line of Russian Style Energized in a Triplet of Balanchines
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY

A colleague of Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) shrewdly wrapped up that great impresario’s work into three categories: “To reveal Russia to itself; to reveal Russia to the world; to reveal the world — the new world — to itself.” We can now see that a fourth project remained: to reveal that new world to Russia. Only after the Iron Curtain had lifted, decades after his death, could that be possible. The Kirov Ballet closed its three-week season at New York City Center on Sunday with a triple bill of ballets by George Balanchine, the last of the five choreographers Diaghilev introduced to the West. These three — “Serenade” (Tchaikovsky), “Rubies” (Stravinsky) and “Ballet Imperial” (Tchaikovsky) — demonstrated just how this process is still going on.

What experience could be more historically and aesthetically complex than watching companies that are still waking from the deep freeze of the Communist era coming to terms with works made in the West by radical St. Petersburg modernists who got out of Russia before that freeze began? Even some of the early Diaghilev ballets by Michel Fokine, a few of which the Kirov danced earlier in this City Center season, have joined the St. Petersburg company’s repertory relatively recently.

There have been horrors: no account of Bronislava Nijinska’s “Noces” can ever have been worse (more misdirected in body language and accentuation) than the Kirov’s a few years ago. There have been triumphs: the Kirov’s illustrious 1989 accounts of Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony” and “Theme and Variations”; its galvanized, glowing 2000-2 accounts of his “Rubies”; and to a lesser extent, the rest of “Jewels.”

Generally any Kirov season in the West will now contain a Balanchine program or at least one Balanchine ballet, and it’s always a completely compelling spectacle. If St. Petersburg is the Russian city known as the “window on the West,” then Balanchine in New York is always, in part, a window on St. Petersburg. When you watch the Kirov dancing any Balanchine ballet, you see how strong a stylistic connection still runs between the two. And any Balanchine ballet wakes up these dancers and turns their spectacular and competitive technique into sheer dancing.

To watch a corps of 16 Kirov women hopping in arabesque in “Serenade” or “Ballet Imperial” is a joy. The radiant line of Russian style, so juicy, here becomes not statuesque but energized. To watch the same corps, in either ballet, facing into the wings with the same annunciatory arms they use in “La Bayadère” is to see one of a hundred moments in which the Kirov refracts ballet history like a hall of mirrors. They then move those arms, and the rest of the body, turning dance past into busy present. This is especially true at City Center, where the audience is so close to the stage and where, in these performances, “Serenade” has never been more brightly lighted. Innumerable choreographic masterstrokes that on larger stages pass casually fell into the sharpest focus here.

But it’s also true that the Kirov dancing almost any Balanchine ballet will show how deep the chasm is between these two ballet cultures. Kirov dancers tend to be grandly theatrical; like the British Royal Ballet, they need almost always to act Balanchine, to present Balanchine. It’s not enough for one dancer to look another in the eyes; she has to give that moment dramatic weight and let us know just what that weight is.

In the first three City Center performances of these ballets, I enjoyed and admired no dancer more than the bewitchingly elegant Ekaterina Kondaurova: beautiful in “Serenade” as the heroine (Saturday evening) and the Dark Angel (Friday evening, Saturday matinee), and marvelous as the “Rubies” second girl (Friday evening). But she seemed to need to show us (even at curtain calls) how the “Serenade” heroine was an innocent girl struck down by transformative experience, how the Dark Angel is a reluctant agent of tragic fate and how the “Rubies” soloist is a twinkling source of dark mischief. Apparently, she can’t just be these things and let the rest take us by surprise.

As a result, layers of the ballets — much of their true and thrilling mystery — go missing. So much of “Serenade” is just about dancers doing, and returning to, basic ballet class work. But the Kirov responds to the real drama in “Serenade” by “playing” even the class work theatrically. (Though in “Études” and its William Forsythe quadruple bill, the Kirov drops its airs and shows unaffected, cool manners.)

The Kirov “Rubies” is no longer the ultrapercussive knockout it was a few years ago. All three ballerinas officially cast for it at these performances dropped out at short notice. Replacing them, Olesia Novikova danced the role with a soft and demure loveliness that was all wrong until, on Saturday night, she began to find the sharpness and nonstop impetus it needed. Of three successive men in the male principal role, Anton Korsakov (Saturday matinee) showed the right basic Balanchine style, the whole body shiningly engaged, but without any of the role’s particular technical flair; Leonid Sarafanov (Saturday evening) had technical flair of a far too weightless kind.

In the central role of “Ballet Imperial,” Victoria Tereshkina had something of a triumph on Friday night. Deservedly so. She not only manages all its complex turns and jump steps with real skill, she also finds moments of pliancy and luxuriance in between. On Saturday night Uliana Lopatkina showed even more understanding of its many interpretative nuances, but in a role that calls for juice galore she is the least juicy of all Kirov ballerinas, and she simply can’t manage all the technical challenges with sufficient ease.

At these performances I heard some people say, “The Kirov shouldn’t be dancing Balanchine,” and others say, “Nobody dances Balanchine better.” I disagree with both; the Kirov dancing Balanchine is revelatory. Yet even now, 19 years after the first Balanchines it showed us, there is still much left for it to reveal to itself. The Kirov has become the temple of ballet academicism. Balanchine was the genius of ballet classicism. The connections and the differences between the two were rivetingly evident at these performances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/arts/ ... ?ref=dance


Последний раз редактировалось Octavia 22 апр 2008, 17:28, всего редактировалось 1 раз.



21 апр 2008, 16:57
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