Eric Gauthier

Gauthier Dance It took only a few years for Eric Gauthier to make it from charismatic audience favourite with the Stuttgart Ballet to internationally sought-after choreographer and artistic director of Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart. Gauthier Dance premiered in January 2008 with SIX PACK which turned out to be the start of extraordinarily successful years. The Company does not only present pieces by internationally known choreographers like Mauro Bigonzetti, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Itzik Galili, Paul Lightfoot/Sol Léon and Hans van Manen, but also Gauthier’s own choreographies, among those Ballet 101 (2006), M.M. (2009), Orchestra of Wolves (2009). In 2011, Eric Gauthier was awarded for his choreographic work with Deutscher Tanzpreis Zukunft, a prize which is given to outstanding young artists. His work is characterized by inventive ideas, humor, and amenability, and therefore enthuse a wide audience. Gauthier’s creations are being shown in theaters worldwide, such as the Marinskij Ballet St. Petersburg. In addition, he choreographs for the Staatsballett Berlin, the Stuttgarter Ballett, the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam or Het Nationale Ballet Amsterdam. Eric Gauthier is in great demand as a dancer and choreographer all over Germany and the world. In the summer of 2015 Eric Gauthier presented the first COLOURS – International Dance Festival, thus bringing his vision of a biennial dance festival to life. Over three weeks the Theaterhaus Stuttgart became a house of the dance world, enthusing thousands of people all over the region. In October 2015 he was nominated as «Director of the year» by the Magazine «Dance Europe».

Yuri Burlaka

Meritorious artist of Russia Artistic director of the Bolshoi theatre Ballet (Russia) 2009-2011 Born in Moscow in 1968. Completed his training at the Moscow Ballet School (Pyotr Pestov’s class) in 1986; in the same year he became principal soloist with the Russian Ballet Company where his repertoire included: Title role (Nutcracker), Franz (Coppelia), Prince Desire and the Blue Bird (The Sleeping Beauty), Albrecht (Giselle), James (La Sylphide), Pierre (Halte de Cavalerie), Zephyrus (choreographic suite Dances of the hours from the opera La Gioconda), Rothbart and Pas de trois (Swan Lake), Shah Zeman (Sheherazade), Time (Cinderella - Vyacheslav Gordeyev version), solo parts in Chopiniana, Paquita and other parts in the classical repertoire. From 1993-96, he studied at the choreographic faculty of RATI (V. Gordeyev's course); in 1999, he graduated with distinction from the Moscow State Academy of Ballet as teacher-choreographer. Since 2003, he has been studying as a post-graduate at the Moscow State Academy of Ballet; in the same year, he was appointed senior teacher at the Academy's faculty of choreography and ballet studies in the Classical Legacy and Ballet Repertoire discipline. He participated in productions of evenings of old choreography for which he revived fragments from the ballets of Mikhail Fokine (Chopiniana, Dances of the Enchantress Naina from the opera Ruslan and Ludmila), of Alexander Gorsky (The Humpbacked Horse, Raymonda, dances from the opera Samson et Dalila, Coppelia, La Fille mal gardee), of Marius Petipa (Harlequinade, Halte de Cavalerie, Naiade et le Pecheur, La Bayadere, The Humpbacked Horse, Le Corsaire, Paquita, La Sylphide, Esmeralda), of the Legat brothers (The Fairy of the dolls) and others. He researches into old choreography and 19th century ballet music. He is a member of the International Minkus Society. In 2000, he published (co-author with German Pribylov) the piano score of the surviving musical numbers from Paquita and the notes of Marius Petipa’s choreographic text. He is the author of the text-book Music Arrangement for Lessons of Classical Dance (1999) and the methodics manual The Classical Legacy and the Ballet Repertoire of the 18th-20th Centuries (2007). He became a ballet master in Bolshoi theatre in 2008 and then became its Artistic Director from 2009 to 2010.

Carla Fracci

Director of the Balettodell'Opera di Roma Ballet (Italy) Carla Fracci, one of the most famous and most successful primadonnas of 20th century, was born in 1936 in Milano, Italy. Fracci studied at La Scala Theatre Ballet School starting in 1946. She graduated to La Scala Theatre Ballet in 1954, where she was promoted to soloist in 1956, and to principal in 1958. Other ballet companies she appeared with include: the London Festival Ballet (1959 & 1962), the Royal Ballet (1963), the Stuttgart Ballet (1965), and the Royal Swedish Ballet (1969). She was a principal guest artist with American Ballet Theatre from 1967. Her career highlights include Nijinsky, Giselle (American Ballet Theatre), Complete Bell Telephone Hour Performances: Erik Bruhn 1961-1967. She was known for her performances in Giselle, dancing in with partners such as Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Henning Kronstam, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Erik Bruhn. She danced in many classics and added the main man's role in ballet Hamlet to her repertoire (choreography: Beppe Menegattiho, music: Dimitrij Shostakovich) in famous The Elizabethan Theatre. Her dance is a realm of fairy-tales, gentle and smooth, while her movements are ethereal, sometimes dramatic, with unique and extraordinary expression.

Ivan Nagy

Artistic adviser to the Hungarian State Opera House Ballet (Hungary) Ivan Nagy, one of the great names in dance during the twentieth century, was born on 28 April 1943 in Hungary. He trained first with his mother going on to perform with the Budapest State Opera Ballet. Frederic Franklin spotted the young man when Nagy won a silver medal at the International Ballet Competition at Varna in 1965. As director of the National Ballet of Washington at the time, Franklin invited Nagy to appear as a guest artist with the company. He went on to perform with the New York City Ballet and became a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre in 1968. He became one of American Ballet Theater's most popular stars in the 1970s as an acclaimed partner to great ballerinas. He danced with all the great ballerinas of his day including Margot Fonteyn and Carla Fracci, but it perhaps with Cynthia Gregory, Gelsey Kirkland and Natalia Makarova that he formed his most famous partnerships. Max Waldman’s iconic photo of Nagy and Markarova in Swan Lake is a fixture in dance shops everywhere. He said that he was always “a little in love with my partners”. He retired when he was just 35 in 1978. With his wife, ex-London Festival Ballet ballerina Marilyn Burr, he re-staged many repertoire ballets all over the world. He collaborated with the Ballet de Santiago, becoming its director in 1982, and brought them to New York in 1986 for their American début. He worked hard to whip the company into shape. He was the Artistic Director of the Cincinnati/New Orleans Ballet until 1989. He was also director of the English National Ballet for a short period, and 15 years ago he retired to Mallorca. He died in Budapest where he was working with the Hungarian Ballet Company.