By Tetiana POLISHCHUK, The Day
By Tetiana POLISHCHUK, The Day
By Tetiana POLISHCHUK, The Day
The first day the audience enjoyed classical time-tested ballets. The second day featured new modern choreographic trends. A young troupe from the Swiss Ballet Academy performed their artistic director Alex Ursulak’s arrangements such as Neiman’s Dreams and the pas-de-quatre from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty along with original choreography of Love Song by William Forsythe, one of Europe’s most fashionable ballet masters. Regrettably, Alex’s current performers were noticeably weaker than the Stuttgart ballet group he had brought to Kyiv last time, but he is confident that in a couple of years his pupils will be coveted by any company; they are young, ambitious, fond of experimentation. He believes that ballet in the third millennium will be international, combining a diversity of choreographic trends.
Viktor Yakovenko, chief ballet master of the Ukrainian National Opera, says that, unlike previous years, this time the festival showed more geography, boasting soloists Anastasia Volochkova and Anastasiya Meskova (Moscow’s Bolshoi), Sandra Mulbauer (Vienna), Mariya Yakshanova (St. Petersburg) in addition to Ukrainian stars and previous Lifar winners. The organizing committee is ever careful to preserve Serge Lifar’s heritage. For the first time the audience saw scenes from the Suite in White (with Vadym Bratan dancing the male and Nadiya Honchar the female part). Lifar staged this masterpiece in 1943 (incidentally, the ballet is still on the Paris Opera’s repertory) and tried to convey his dreams of peace and good in the language of dance. He proved that ballets can be performed to symphony music, and many other have since followed suit. The one-act ballet Romeo and Juliet to Tchaikovsky’s music, also arranged by Serge Lifar, was danced by the Ukrainian Nadiya Honchar and Serhiy Yehorov (the original score had been restored by Viktor Yaremenko for the Kyiv stage last year).
It is nice to know that Anastasiya Volochkova, winner of the festival’s gold medal, has become a real prima ballerina; she is a soloist with the Bolshoi and Mariyinsky companies; she also has a contract with Covent Garden. Volochkova shows high professionalism and keen insight into the dramatic material. She has displayed various facets of her talent. She is tragic in the Legend about Love (choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich) and grippingly penetrating in the Fallen Angel (staged by Dan Thai Sung).
The audience warmly received Alla Rubina’s well-known number Sirtaki to Theodorakis’s music, brilliantly performed by Ksenia Ivanenko and Volodymyr Chupryn.
National Opera soloist Leonid Safranov became another audience favorite, appearing with different female partners: Moscow’s Anastasiya Meskova in the grand pas from Minkus’s Don Quixote, Tetiana Holiakova in Gottschalk’s Tarantella, and Nadiya Honchar in Ober’s classical Pas de Deux. The [latter] two ballerinas are soloists with Kyiv Opera. Sarafanov sees ballet’s future in a synthesis of classic and modern trends. Valentyna Kalynovska, manager of the Kyiv ballet group, adds, “Modern choreography rests on the classical foundation. Dancers from good professional schools can experiment. Unfortunately, we are not familiar enough with Western trends. Festivals are an opportunity not only to learn about new ballet trends, but also encourage the dancers; they are prompted to show what they are capable of.”
It can only be regretted that this year’s festival did not show many stars, so the participants had to make do with, so to speak, the family circle. Serge Lifar de la Danse obviously needs a larger scale, otherwise all the stated objectives — discovering new names, revealing new ballet trends in different countries — will remain the organizing committee’s good intentions, although the committee promised that there will be more performers at the festival next year.
