Hot Culture is one of the most
popular Russian YouTube channels about art and culture. The project’s author, journalist and producer from St.Petersburg Alexander Malich, is discussing with his guests the most interesting and important things happening and going on in Russian and world culture today. As a part of collaboration between Hot Culture and Dance Open, five special episodes are released. These are five conversations with significant persons of nowadays — writers, designers, businessmen, and even street racers. Can you guess the topic? Yes, it is ballet. Why do we need it in the modern world that seems to be overwhelmed by other interests?
Ballet is a special form of art wich possesses its special language. Dancers put a lot
of time and efforts into studying it, and every choreographer is trying to invent his own unique "dialect". But how the audience is taught to understand this vocabulary? How does the spectator penetrate into into to these secrets? How to learn not only to
watch but to really see the ballet? In fact, this is a very rare kind of education. But if we want the word spoken to reach afertile ground and begin to flourish, this ground should be prepared.
Dance Open is going to fix this. As a part of the Online Marathon, we introduce a series of lectures by the leading Russian dance critics and historians of choreography.These virtual meetings are designed for everyone: for experienced ballet fans who want to hear precious details from the respected speakers, and (most importantly!) for those who have lots of questions while watching a performance and want to understand the choreography context. That is why the topics are so different: from the essence of why we are magnetized by ballet to the detailed analysis of the specific names — how to stand out and to turn your name into a dance brand?
Vita Khlopova — is contemporary ballet researcher, founder and curator of No fixed points project.
Olga Ugarova is dance columnist with Sobaka.ru, special correspondent for La Personne Ballet
Magazine, author of Telegram channel VeryBallet.
Leila Guchmazova is dance reviewer, staff writer for the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, expert and jury member of the Russian National Theatre Award Golden Mask
Bogdan Korolek is a ballet reviewer, author with Colta.ru, Petersburg Theater Magazine, Bolshoi and Mariinsky brochures, assistant to the Artistic Director of Ural Ballet.
Even Dance Open Festival cannot host every performance of the wish list: there are restrictions concerning logistics, venue capacity and stage size, and simply the limited number of festival days.
That is why in frames of the Online Marathon we show the records of performances we wanted to bring but were not able to, a well as last seasons’ productions that were in higher demand then the possible tickets amount.
Surely, a record and a live performance are very different kinds of activity and even of art.
But we suppose that they both have unique advantages: for example, a video camera may highlight the details which escape a human eye.
This playbill is flexible, as we are constantly discussing with ballet companies whether
they can provide us with new videos of their performances. One thing we can absolutely guarantee: Dance Open cinema just like
Dance Open festival shows only the world’s best ballet.
LE BALLET DU GRAND THÉÂTRE DE GENÈVE. CHOREOGRAPHY: CLAUDE BRUMACHON. MUSIC: CARL ORFF
The series of the film shows will be opened by Claude Brumachon's Carmina Burana performed by the Geneva Grand Theater ballet. In the context of recent events experienced by people, this performance "sounds" truly therapeutically. The severity of being, aggression and despair here are shown through a softening art filter — you can look at it point blank, it will not hurt, but fear and depression must be lived and experienced in order to become stronger. There is no literary plot where good fights with the forces of evil: the plot of the ballet is the ideal rhythmic order in music, which meets plastics chaos in choreography. But the unlimited power of life will triumph anyway.
BALLETT DORTMUND CHOREOGRAPHY: XIN PENG WANG MUSIC: MICHAEL NYMAN
Dream of the Red Chamber is based on one of the greatest Chinese novels with the same name written in the 18th century by Cáo Xueqín. The history of the rise and fall of the wealthy Jia family with internal upheavals described in the book has become something like our Eugene Onegin or War and Peace for national Chinese identity — generations relate their experience to the tragic love story of young Baoyu and his cousin Lin Daiyu. The Dortmund production, originally carried out together with the Hong Kong Theater, is not limited to being illustrative (although authentic folklore notes are present here), but is looking for a plot connection with modern China, the empire — economic giant. And it is found, not least thanks to the music of Michael Nyman — one of the most innovative modern minimalist composers, the author of the soundtracks for the films The Piano, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Gattaka. Online broadcast will be avialable on April 16 via the VK.com and our website danceopen.com for free.
Duration: 1 hour 53 minutes
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
BALLET OF SLOVENE NATIONAL THEATRE MARIBOR. CHOREOGRAPHY: EDWARD CLUG MUSIC: GIOVANNI BATTISTA PERGOLESI
Theatre gift from the Maribor Ballet and Edward Klug — the Stabat Mater ballet, which the Dance Open will exclusively show on VKontakte on April 18, is hard to overestimate. The medieval Catholic sequence “Stabat mater dolorosa” (“The grieving Mother stood ...”), which tells of one of the most piercing gospel stories, takes on a real opera volume in Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s music. Hope is the defining concept for the choreographer in this music. From here comes a detached thoughtfulness, without imposing a specific plot and said names.
Broadcast will be avialable on April,16 via the VK.com and our website danceopen.com for free.
Duration: 37 minutes
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
DANCE COMPANY THEATER OSNABRUECK CHOREOGRAPHY: MAURO DE CANDIA MUSIC: MAURICE RAVEL
In the Bolero score of Maurice Ravel, which has countless choreographic interpretations, the Italian choreographer Mauro de Candia first heard a dystopia. On stage, the artists of the Osnabrück Dance Theater are in uniform, under cold light and in puffs of smoke. The set design is ascetic. Plastic language is streamlined and laconic: the world, where the individualities are destroyed goes to a disaster. There is again something to think about, and it’s clear where to move to move on.
Online broadcast will be available on April, 20 via the VK.com and our website danceopen.com for free.
Duration: 20 minutes
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
LE BALLET DU GRAND THÉÂTRE DE GENÈVECHOREOGRAPHY: JEROEN VERBRUGGEN
MUSIC: PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY
All adults who have forgotten that they were once fourteen should definitely watch the Nutcracker by Jeroen Verbruggen. In the online marathon program, this is another psychotherapeutic session from the Geneva Grand Theater: either a fairy tale about finding a soul mate, or an animated blockbuster in the spirit of Tim Burton, or an unpredictable quest through the Wonderland, where youth looks for itself and loses itself in hundreds of reflections and dozens of the doors. Here, each step has a butterfly effect: you shout, but where you are heard and who will respond is not to guess. But the nutshell of fear and doubt will surely crack when love comes.
Online broadcast will be avialable on April 22 via the VK.com and our website danceopen.com for freeDuration: 1 hour 23 minutes
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
MALANDAIN BALLET BIARRITZCHOREOGRAPHY: THIERRY MALANDAIN
MUSIC: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
The French choreographer Thierry Malandain repeatedly came to Russia. We are accustomed to his signature: he is a master at speaking beautifully about complex things. “La Pastorale”, which Dance Open will show on April 24 — that`s Beethoven`s “La Pastorale” Sixth Symphony and Cantata op.112. The premiere of the performance took place in December 2019, but appears to be especially relevant today. The idea of the choreographer is that we are all closed in our space and forced to deal with our own demons, but not to destroy the world around us. The finale is in a completely Beethoven spirit: harmony can only be achieved together with other people and in unity with nature.
Online broadcast will be avialable on April 24 via the VK.com and our website danceopen.com for freeDuration: 1 hour 2 minutes
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
BALLETT DORTMUND
PART I.«GEWISSEN!»
CHOREOGRAPHY: XIN PENG WANG
MUSIC: HENRYK MIKOLAJ GORECKI, BRYCE DRESSNER, IGOR WAKHEVITCH, SUPERFLU and RAMMSTEIN
PART II.«ERLÖSUNG!»
CHOREOGRAPHY: XIN PENG WANG
MUSIC: HANS ABRAHAMSEN, LOUIS ANDRIESSEN, LUCIANO BERIO, MICHAEL GORDON, DAVID LANG AND PETERIS VASKS
The literary plot of the second performance of the Dortmund Ballet – Goethe's Faust – does not require presentation. Xin Peng Wang, as always, asks questions on behalf of those who live today, highlighting their interpretation with a non-trivial choice of music: Henryk Górecki’s score and Rammstein’s songs are adjacent here. Is modern man being destroyed by the insatiable thirst for knowledge, more and more looking similar to destructive arrogance? Details indicating the time of the action are minimized, and Goethe's mystical plot is brought to the level of the parable: is there any hope for salvation, for liberation (“Erlösung!” — this is exactly the name of the second part of a large three-hour ballet) after the experience lived by mankind in the 20th century? Thought-provoking material will be available on April 26.
Online broadcast will be avialable on April 26 via the VK.com, Fontanka.ru and our website danceopen.com for free.Duration: 3 hours (Part I and Part II)
Broadcast will start at 7 p.m.
Dance Open Gala as a genre is a collection of performances. The pick of absolutely the best dancers and ballerinas at a particular point in time. Unfortunately the career of a ballet dancer is grievingly short: those who were dancing primas five or ten years ago are becoming coaches now. However we still have the precious videos of Dance Open Galas. We have been making these records for more than 10 years. Our Golden
Collection consists of genuine choreographic masterpieces performed by the stars written in the world’s ballet history.
Yes, this year's Star Gala will not take place in April as usual, but we are carrying out our
long-cherished dream: we are presenting a series of films "Dance Open Golden Collection". We call it a series because we already possess an entire constellation of ballet eternal treasures.
Dance Open Star Galas of different seasons presented pieces by a wide variety of choreographers. The ballet as an art is notable for its capacity to keep alive and highly demanded with no regard to the current era: Petipa, Fokin, and Vainonen are no less important today than Wheeldon, Ratmansky or Ekman. We have collected world masterpieces performed by the world’s best dancers at Dance Open Galas and have executed a videostory of the development of Russian ballet thought. The one and a half centuries of thrilling history from Arthur Saint-Léon and Jules Perrot to Boris Eifman and Yury Posokhov. Vivid video sketches will tell about each choreographer in a short, concise and cheerful manner.
