A year ago ballerina Kateryna Khaniukova left her second home, the National Opera of Ukraine, only to return and remind of herself as the soloist of the English National Ballet (ENB). For her homecoming she chose one of the brightest parts of her repertoire, the effervescent, jolly Kitri (Don Quixote), very much loved by Ukrainian ballet fans in the times when she was principal dancer in Kyiv.
For a dancer the stage is the absolute, just like a mountain peak for a climber, canvas for a painter, the ship’s deck for a sailor. By the way, the last simile is not only lyrical, but also literal: the surface of a professional ballet stage is made of the so-called deck cant, a sort of timber which allows a soft “landing” after a jump, absorbing shocks for the dancer’s feet, and also gives an additional impetus during the “take-off.” Dancers begin to master the stage at an early age, and for the majority, that is the chorus, it remains the workplace. To the more ambitious, the stage offers extra challenges, demanding work at full stretch, investing 100 percent of their talent and effort. Success and recognition for a ballet dancer means but more hard work throughout all their life. There can be no resting on their laurels: from a place of triumph, the stage can turn into a scaffold.
1.5 hours daily classwork and 6.5 hours rehearsals: such are the terms of Khaniukova’s contract with the English National Ballet. Over the five years of working with the National Opera of Ukraine’s troop, she has danced almost all classical parts. The path from Little Radish to Juliet took Khaniukova, via The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty to Swan Lake and Giselle to Don Quixote and Le Corsaire to the realization that this is not enough: global trends in the development of contemporary choreography urge many dancers to try them in modern and contemporary dance. The ballet stage in Kyiv is mostly oriented on classical dance and hardly offers any such opportunities. That is why Khaniukova took the offered position of the soloist at the English National Ballet as a chance to learn something new about herself without breaking up with classics for good, and she hit the nail on the head. The proportion of classical and contemporary choreography in this respectable troop, dating back to 1949, is approximately 70 to 30. That means that Khaniukova’s repertoire will include a lot of usual, “danced-through” parts, and simultaneously she will be working on the images created by the fancy of the best-known masters of the contemporary dance, neo-classical dance, and metaballet. These include ballet gurus as John Neumeier, Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, as well as radically different plastic interpreters like Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant, and Liam Scarlett. The latter trio created the triptych Lest We Forget, commissioned by Tamara Rojo, artistic director of the English National Ballet. The project, where our ballerina also took part, spent the entire 2014 on an international tour to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.
“These are three one-act performances, reflections of three different artists about war,” told Khaniukova to The Day. “I have worked in the production of the young, but already renowned and very promising choreographer Liam Scarlett. The number, to the accompaniment of Liszt’s piano music, is called No Man’s Land and features men at war and women who wait for them at home. You have to agree that for me, whose country is still ablaze with war, this was an extremely burning issue. Thanks to the producers’ talent, they virtually never use naturalism for dramatic effect, touching the spectators by plastic contrasts of sentiments and emotions. Maliphant created a hypnotic, ‘awfully effective,’ according to some reviews, Second Breath, while Khan presented his ballet Dust, the best modern work of 2014, according to the critics.”
The review of this project started exactly when you just arrived in London. Its plastic is very different and requires a different pattern of muscle use. How did you manage to solve this problem?
“Ballet dancers’ age is short. Were I a little older, it would be too late to take up such work. But now I am in top form. My experience as a soloist at the National Opera of Ukraine’s ballet company and my success in numerous competitions give me the necessary relaxedness in the plane of classical repertoire, while the conditions at the ENB open up every opportunity to explore new horizons and do not distract me from attaining the optimal result. Two months was enough to fit in the company’s system. And this is not so easy, given that I was taken on in the middle of the season, which had never happened before. My first performances were not in London, but on tour. In Madrid I danced in Le Corsaire, in Manchester, in Coppelia. And only at the end of the year, in a series of Christmas Nutcrackers, I appeared before the audience in the capital. The company tours extensively, it does not have a stage of its own, and the schedule is pretty full. I came to Kyiv after touring China, Singapore, London, and Madrid.”
How did you manage to make time for Kyiv?
“I wanted very much to make a nice surprise for my family, especially for Mom. Moreover, the opportunity to dance in Don Quixote luckily coincided with her birthday. The family learned of my arrival from posters, Grandma took her friends to see the advertisements of her beloved granddaughter. This alone was worth coming here! In London, despite the tight schedule and rather tough terms of contract, I got support from Ms. Rojo, who allowed me a short unpaid leave. In Kyiv, my proposal to perform at my home stage was welcomed by director general Petro Chupryna. My old-time partner Viktor Ishchuk was sincerely happy to dance together again in our favorite performance. Dreams come true, if you really want them to, and do your best for this.”
Ukraine has chosen to develop in the direction of Europe. There has been a lot of argument concerning the differences in the repertoire policy of the Western and Ukrainian theaters. You have an opportunity to compare them.
“It is very individual and depends on your physique and capabilities for work. The existence of repertoire theaters, based on certain education patterns, traditions, music amateurs’ habits, the coverage of events, and ultimately, on tastes and means of average public, is absolutely justified. The time-honored plays, who have their tried and true audiences for decades – masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, and Nutcracker – offer an opportunity to evaluate not only different dancers in the troupe during one season, but also different generations, in retrospect. However, you cannot live on preserves alone. Likewise, art demands progress, renewal, and fresh ideas. It seems to me that the public should hear new names in choreography, get to know the contemporary trends, and the repertoire should expand thanks to new plastic ideas. Of course, it is not worth while copycatting the West, but we must not refuse its gains and its search for the new either. This should be interesting to the young ballet generation, it could shape a new public, and it is simply vital for the development of ballet as such.
“When I enjoy working in the contemporary productions of talented choreographers, when I see the spectator’s response, I begin to dream of making it available also to ballet lovers in my home land, in Kyiv. We have a wonderful company, we have such promising young dancers, such great teachers that they can take up any task. They have already proved it more than once by such productions as Master and Margarita or Zorba the Greek. It is worth while trying again and again. And I will be happy if my dream comes true. Maybe, it will happen quite soon.”
The Day’s FACT FILE
Kateryna Khaniukova was born on July 4, 1989 in Kyiv and graduated from the Kyiv School of Choreography in 2007. Between 2007 and 2014 she was the soloist of the ballet company of the National Opera of Ukraine (teachers: Liubov Yatchenko, Akimova, Tetiana Biletska, Alla Lahoda).
Khaniukova is the laureate of international competitions: Serge Lifar contest (Kyiv, 2003, 2nd prize), Yurii Hryhorovych contest (Sochi, 2007, 2nd prize), Fourth International Ballet Dancers Contest (Seoul, 2011, 1st prize), Third International Ballet Competition (Istanbul, 2012, 1st prize and Gold Medal). In 2012, she became laureate of the National Program Person of the Year 2011 for her contribution to the positive international image of Ukraine, in the nomination “Artists.” Since 2014 Khaniukova has been soloist for the English National Ballet.
In 2015 she became finalist of the annual Emerging Dancer competition, held by the English National Ballet. Her repertoire includes the parts of Clara, Odette-Odile, Aurora (The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty by Pyotr Tchaikovsky), Juliet, Cinderella (Sergey Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella), Kitri (Don Quixote by Ludwig Minkus), Medora, Gulnare (Le Corsaire by Adolphe Adam), Giselle in Adam’s eponymous ballet, Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Bogdan Pawlowski), Little Radish (Aram Khachaturian’s Cipollino) et al.
