Rhoden’s work is post-Balanchinean choreography, a new aesthetic in movement, stage, picture, and performance concepts reflecting a post-modern, techno-savvy worldview.

Dwight Rhoden

Dwight Rhoden has established a remarkably wide-ranging career, earning distinction from The New York Times as “one of the most sought out choreographers of the day.” A native of Dayton, Ohio who began dancing at age 17, Rhoden has performed with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Les Ballet Jazz De Montreal and as a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As a performer, he has appeared in numerous television specials, documentaries and commercials throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and has been a featured performer on many PBS “Great Performances” specials. For nearly 2 decades, Rhoden’s choreography has been the lynchpin in the development of the Complexions repertory. For over 19 years, Rhodens’ work has filled some of the most prestigious theaters across the globe including, The Bolshoi Theater, (Moscow), The Marinsky Theater (St. Petersburg), Maison De La Danse, (Lyon) The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion,(Los Angeles) Cairo Opera House (Egypt) The Arts Center, (Melbourne Australia) Telaviv Opera House (Israel) The ASB Theater, (New Zealand) Holland Dance Festival, Isle De Dance Festival (Paris) to name a few. CCB and Rhodens’ work has been presented on 5 continents and in over 20 countries. “Musicality, innovation, purpose, consistency, a brilliant use of stage space and the ability to tell a story — all these qualities make him (Rhoden) one of today's elect choreographers. (The LA Times). Since 1994, Rhoden has created over 80 ballets for Complexions, as well as numerous other companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Arizona Ballet, The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company, BalletMet, The Dance Theater of Harlem, Colorado Ballet, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, North Carolina Dance Theater, The Pennsylvania Ballet, Marinsky Ballet (Kirov), Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, amongst others. Mr. Rhoden has also directed and choreographed for TV, film, theater and live performances including So You Think You Can Dance, E! Entertainment’s “Tribute to Style”, Amici, and Cirque Du Soleil’s Zumanity, and choreographed and appeared in the feature film “One Last Dance”. He has also worked with, and/or created works for such high-profile artists as Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Kelly Clarkson, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, U2, and Patrick Swayze. Rhoden was commissioned to create a work for the centennial celebration of renowned collage artist Romare Bearden. “Rhoden’s work is post-Balanchinean choreography, a new aesthetic in movement, stage, picture, and performance concepts reflecting a post-modern, techno-savvy worldview” (Dance Magazine). Widely known as “a dancer’s choreographer,” Rhoden has worked with, coached and created for some of the most diverse artists spanning the worlds of ballet and contemporary dance including legendary dance artists Carmen De Lavallade, Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, Diana Vishneva, Desmond Richardson, Sandra Brown, Jodie Gates, and Gus Solomon, to name a few. Mr.Rhoden is the Resident Choreographer of North Carolina Dance Theatre and has lectured, taught, created works for and served as Artist in Residence at universities around the United States including New York University, Juilliard, UC Irvine, Skidmore College and The University of Mississippi, where his 2004 Racial Reconciliation Project was credited as a catalyst for dialogue in a community that has been historically divided. Rhoden is a beneficiary recipient of various honors and awards including the New York Foundation for the Arts Award, The Choo San Goh Award for Choreography, and The Ailey School’s Apex Award in recognition of his extensive contributions to the field of dance.

In his own words

My main interest is in real human beings.

Ballet can express what cannot be said by words. Ballet let us find the line between visible and invisible.

You need to get up early and work hard every day. That's all the magic there is to it.

It is necessary to keep the balance between the conservatism and innovations. A dancer must have a classical academic background in order to be able to dance everything. Just like an artist should be able to draw a human face before painting the black square.

Modern dance is by no means second class or some low-quality staff. It is just a more democratic direction.

A dancer can make five, ten, fifteen pirouettes. But this is just a trick. Spectators won’t be remembering tricks but the meaning of dance.

Alexey Miroshnichenko

Alexey Miroshnichenko is an artistic director of the Perm Ballet and one of the leading choreographers working in the neoclassical style. He was born in Donetsk in 1974. After the graduation from the Vaganova Ballet Academy he started dancing with the Mariinsky Theatre. Miroshnichenko debuted as a choreographer in 1997 with The Wedding by Stravinsky on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. His first choreographic works were considered brave and stylish. In 2002 he majored in Choreography from the Vaganova Academy and went on to teach there for several years. Miroshnichenko is in constant search for the new music for his performances. In 2007 he staged two ballets with the music of contemporary artists — Ring with to the music of Russian hip-hop band 2Н Company and As an Old Grinder… to the music of Leonid Desyatnikov. And in 2015 he overworked the forgotten suite of Shostakovich Conditionally Killed while reminding us that the author of some of the most gloomy and serious music of the 20th century in fact admired jazz music. Miroshnichenko collaborated with the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres, Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet, American Ballet School and New York City Ballet. In 2009 during the cultural surge in the city of Perm, he was invited to become the artistic director of the Perm Ballet. With this ballet company Miroshnichenko has accomplished several outstanding ballets with Swan Lake, Jester, Petrushka, Fountain of Bakhchisaray, Romeo and Juliet amongst them. Miroshnichenko plunges into work: "I am not managing the company from the office. As everybody, I come in the morning, get changed in a cubbyhole, climb the staircase and I have the same sweat, running nose and sore fingers". It goes without saying that under Mirishnochenko’s leadership the Perm Ballet has not only polished its mastery but also won global recognition. Today it is the brand and one of the leading ballet companies of Russia. Amongst the numerous awards of Miroshnichenko there are two Golden Masks for Searches in Modern Choreography (2012) and for Restoration of Dyaghilev Repertoire (2013).

Edward Clug is concerned with relationship of a man with the past, with time itself, in his work he uses individual experience of each dancer. Clug works, mainly, in direction of the research of human body and its possibilities.

In his own words

I'm sure that the core of art keeps unchanged, that audience come and ever come to ballet for the sake of high mastery and strong ideas which make the found of each proper production.

When I started, I did not have a background in choreography and I had some fears. And now, after many years of work, when embarking on a new project it is much more difficult for me to release the wealth of knowledge that I have gathered and feel free and open-minded, as when I was young. Here lies the paradox of my profession.

The experience of working with other companies lets me stay free and unbiased.

The work of choreographer is very versatile – you are the dancer, the director, the manager…

The talent is a great responsibility, especially, towards yourself. You really have to have it before you can start developing it. You need to sharpen it. One can’t rely on a talent only, but this is what makes out the most difficult task in our lives. However, to tell you the truth, it is even more important to make everything on time.

The meaning of the concept of “an ideal ballet dancer” changes a lot. There are no more strict rules. All depends on a particular dancer, on how he and his body could widen the existing perceptions about ballet.

For me the applauses are always something unreal. This is fantastic, you can share your ideas and your vision with the people and they react on it! This is the blessing.

When there are two persons on stage, this is already a history.

Edward Clug

When enrolling at the National ballet school in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) in 1983, the child of 10 years of age saw a way out from the repressive dictatorship of Ceausescu. After very harsh years during schooling, the communism regime collapses in 1989. Two years after in 1991 he completes his study and in September the same year he tries his chance at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor. He gets his first engagement and starts his career in Maribor as Slovenia makes its first steps as a newborn country after exiting Yugoslavia.Here he meets famous Slovene theatre director Tomaž Pandur, with whom he starts to collaborate as a dancer in his avant-garde productions. Noticing his creative potential Pandur asks him to create the choreography for the performance Babylon, which premiered in 1996. After his first choreographic experience, Clug embarks on a new artistic journey and in 1998 he creates his first independent project Tango, together with costume designer Leo Kulaš and set designer Marko Japelj, who became his constant creative team. Later in 2008 composer Milko Lazar joins the team in the project Pret-a-Porter and they continue to collaborate intensively ever since. In 2003 the newly appointed general director of SNT, Danilo Rošker assign him as artistic director of the ballet and Clug starts to lead the company towards new and distinctive directions. In 2005 he creates Radio & Juliet on the music of Radiohead, which became an international hit and drew the international attention to himself, due to his specific choreographic style. He starts to collaborate with other ballet companies around the world and equally succeeds in putting the Maribor Ballet ensemble on the international dancing map. The Ballet of the SNG Maribor participated in the largest theatre festivals throughout the world performing his choreographies: Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (USA), The Stars of the with nights festival in Mariinski theatre St.Petersburg, Festival of Firsts in Pittsburgh, Arts Festival in Singapore, Biarritz Festival in France, O Boticario di danza in Brazil, Dance Festival in Tel Aviv, Sintra Festival in Portugal, Festival Des Arts de Saint-Sauveur (Canada), Seoul International Dance Festival (Korea), at the Milan Teatro Piccolo, Dance Open Festival in St Petersburg and toured Netherlands, Italy, and the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. Trough out the years Clug has developed a strong relation with prestigious Stuttgart Ballet and Zurich Ballet where he has created several works and they plan new creations in near future. In recent years he also started a successful collaboration with the Netherlands Dance Theatre where he created several projects for NDT2 and NDT1. He was also invited to create new works for Royal Ballet of Flanders, Vienna State Ballet, National Ballet in Lisbon, Station Zuid Company, Croatian National Ballet in Zagreb, Croatian National Ballet in Rijeka, National Ballet in Bucharest, Aalto Ballett Essen, Bitef Dance Company Belgrade, Graz Tanz, Ukranian National Ballet Kiev, StaatsBallett am Gartner Platz Munich, Augsburg Ballet, Hessisches StaatsBallett Wiesbaden, West Australian Ballet in Perth, Novosibirsk State Ballet and Dortmund Ballet. This year he will create Faust for Zurich ballet and Petrushka for Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. He received several national and international awards for his work and was nominated for the Golden Mask award in 2010 for the project Quattro. He was distinguished with the highest Slovene prizes in culture, the Award of the Prešern Foundation in 2005 and the Glazer Charter in 2008. He was nominated in 2017 for the prestigious award Benois de la Danse for the Handman with Nederland’s Dance Theatre 2.

Ballet world looking for a chief choreographer may stop its search. He is found — and he is Boris Eifman

Boris Eifman People's artist of Russia

Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1999), laureate of the Theatre Award of Saint Petersburg "Golden Soffit" (1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2005), "Golden Mask" (the Award of the Theatre Union of Russia, 1996, 1999), Award "Triumph "(1996). In 1998 was honored with the highest ecclesiastical award for Russians — Order of "Peace and Harmony" for the “New word in Choreography” nomination. Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1999). Boris Eifman was born on July 22, 1946 in Rubtsovsk, Russia. Being considered as one of the best choreographers in the world, he made his first steps at dance staging at the age of 16. In 1977 he graduated from the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad State Conservatory. From 1971 to 1977 Boris Eifman was working as a ballet master at the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute (Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). In 1977 the choreographer got an opportunity to create his own theatre, that was named “The Leningrad New Ballet”, and later was renamed St. Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman”. Eifman Ballet was a unique phenomenon for that time because it was conceived as an author’s theatre, theatre of one choreographer. Theatre’s repertoire was impressing by its diversity: tragedy and physical comedy, Biblical parable and psychological drama, rock-ballet and fairytale… Also there was a great genre diversity of the productions: full-scale ballets in one act, chamber ballets and choreographic miniature. In his performances Boris Eifman approaches to the most complex aspects of human existence such as the quest for the meaning of life, strives for plumbing the mysteries of human’s mind.