Six graduates of Pysariev’s school of chorography won awards, even the Grand Prix, of the Fifth Serge Lifar International Ballet Contest recently held in Kyiv.
This year, the event was arranged to commemorate the brilliant choreographer’s centennial, and the contest proved a mirror reflection of everything happening in modern ballet. On the one hand, better technique, but on the other, the number of markedly creative individuals could be larger. The choreographers came out with numbers lacking expressiveness, so no one was placed in the nomination. Serhiy Bondur and Maksym Skliar from Ukraine shared the second place. Yury Grigorovich, head of the jury, noted, “New systems of dance are born. They are mostly in a state of quest rather than discovery. We haven’t seen a real leader. At present, choreography is undergoing a rather complicated process. It will probably take some time and we also need a fresh impetus. Modern choreography borrows many things from classical ballet, while introducing new athletic and ballroom dance elements, even from daily life. Today’s classical dance is a complex system that demands great talent to be fully put into practice. I was personally impressed by male performers Yaroslav Salenko, Yevgeny Lagunov, and Zherlin Ndudi, as well as by female dancers Olesia Makarenko and Natalia Matsak. I think they showed a high professional level.”
Mr. Grigorovich, how do you feel about the Lifar contest’s prestige? Can its geography be expanded?
Grigorovich: “I was at the Benois de la Dance recently, and I’ll be in Varna after Kyiv . I think that your contest is interesting. I also think it will live on and that it must be supported and improved organizationally. Not only in memory of Serge Lifar as a great choreographer of the past century. The more contestants you have from various countries, the more interesting the event will become.”
Previously, winning a contest like this one made one instantly famous. What about now?
Grigorovich: “Winning such contests opens the door to the West; winners are made interesting offers by foreign impresarios. In addition to having international acclaim and an opportunity to perform on prestigious stages, every such winner is better off financially. Too bad some of them leave and never return. This is true not only of ballet. A number of promising researchers and musicians have also left like that. A sad reality these days.”
(Indeed, Kyiv ballet dancer Iryna Dvorovenko, a Lifar Grand Prix laureate, currently lives and successfully performs in New York. Former Kyiv resident Oleksiy Ratmansky is at the head of the Bolshoi’s ballet troupe starting this season — Author)
Anastasia Volochkova’s star first shone in Kyiv in 1996. Any regrets about launching her into orbit?
Grigorovich: “None. I was one of few to have taken Anastasia in at the Bolshoi. Vasilyev picked her in St. Petersburg, but didn’t sign a contract. I met her in Austria, she was competing in a festival and I liked her very much. When the Bolshoi offered that I revive Swan Lake, I thought Volochkova would be good for Odette-Odile, so I invited her. I think she danced very well. There is some talk about her name. Volochkova is not the tallest, nor the heaviest ballet dancer. It’s just that some maneuvering is going on backstage. I believe that Anastasia is a very interesting dancer and that she has a good future. I only wish the current Lifar winners had as much perseverance and dedication as Volochkova does.”
This year’s Lifar contest received 127 applications. In the end, 97 dancers competed, mostly representing the Ukrainian ballet school. There were also countless organizational problems interfering with the schedule and creating a nervous atmosphere. Moscow ballet contest schedule and procedures, for example, are made known a year and a half prior to the date. In Ukraine, it was done several months before the Lifar festival, so many prospective contestants refused to arrive, being unable to prepare a program on such short notice.
Experimentally, several organizations were entrusted with making the contest arrangements and the result was awful, as it was practically impossible to figure out who was responsible for what; booklets were issued near the end, rather than before the festival; media people were somehow left out of the audience; no one knew exactly what the program was. Add here a great many other irritating details that distort the whole picture. If we want the Lifar contest to become a truly prestigious international cultural event, we must work consistently and not on a last minute basis. As it was, even Ukraine’s closest neighbor, Russia, with its rich choreographic traditions, actually ignored the festival, as only two contestants arrived in Kyiv: Irina Lapteva from Yakutia (she would not make it even to the third round) and Vyacheslav Buchkovsky from Moscow (he would receive a consolation prize in the senior standing). Buchkovsky is currently with the Nemirovich- Danchenko Company, but he represents the Ukrainian school as a graduate of the Kyiv Choreography College. No contestants came from France, a sad fact, considering that Serge Lifar headed the Paris Op О ra Ballet for more than three decades; it was there that he had actually revived the French school of choreography.
Donetsk, in contrast, had a pleasant surprise for the festival audience. Vadym Pysariev, as befitted a true selectionist, has cultivated an excellent younger generation of dancers. His pupils proved that they were several steps ahead of the other contestants, in terms of both technique and dramatic mastery. The end result was truly spectacular, as Yaroslav Salenko (currently premier danseur with the National Opera of Ukraine) winning the Grand Prix. In the junior team standing, major awards were conferred on Denys Cherevychko (placed first), Oleksandr Kyshchenko (placed second), and Maksym Kovtun sharing the third place with Aset Murzatakov from Kazakhstan. Zherlin Ndudi and Yevgeny Lagunov showed considerably greater mastery, being respectively placed first and second.
Vadym Pysariev noted that the Lifar contest was a dress rehearsal for his pupils scheduled to perform in Perm, Russia. This means that the dancers have a very tight schedule. They will have to take extremely difficult examinations, vying in the prestigious Arabesque ballet contest.
“Our school is based on the Solovyanenko Opera and Ballet Theater of Donetsk,” says Vadym Pysariev. “Our students can witness the conception of new performances, watch the cast rehearse; they can breathe in that special atmosphere in the wings; most importantly, they can take part in these performances. They are taught to find their own creative paths, rather than unquestioningly follow in the masters’ footsteps.”
Olha Holytsia, a first year student with the Kyiv College of Choreography, was placed first in the junior group. Olesia Makarenko, soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine, won in the senior group. The jury conferred the Nadiya (Hope) Consolation Prize on the youngest contestant Yelizaveta Gogidze, and on Yekaterina Khaniukova for the best stage presence (she had performed very well in two rounds and stood a good chance of winning the main award, but then sprained a leg during rehearsal, but the jury still regarded her as hopeful, hence the award). Denys Matviyenko won a special Lifar Foundation award for his performance in a revitalized version of Lifar’s Suite en Blanc.
