Saint-Petersburg Eifman Ballet

Keeping in line with the mission to promote Russian contemporary ballet art, Eifman Ballet Company has been actively engaged in touring all over the world. Boris Eifman’s desire to draw his spectators into inexhaustible world of human passions, to establish live spiritual connections with the audience, to amaze it with brilliance and dynamism of body language — all of this determined the success that accompanies the theater’s performances at the leading venues of the world for decades. While creating his own style, Eifman worked at various dancing systems. The theater became an artistic laboratory for him. The choreographer does not limit himself by the frames of a pure ballet performance, since the most important thing for him is theatricality. His productions are unforgettable shows, that reveal new forms and principles of dance. Boris Eifman has created his own theater — a theater of unfettered emotions.

The Batsheva style is focused, explosive, and feral.

Their moves managed to be both fluid, and violently precise at the same time.

Indeed, it is this wild side of Naharin's choreography that makes his own company so appealing. To say that they have a rawness to their movement is not to imply lack of training, but rather a kind of primal attack in even the most lyrical of places.

The Young Ensemble is unquestionably one of the most magnificent collections of dancers […] Any choreographer should feel fortunate to work with such an ensemble.

Batsheva Dance Company

“It is a privilege to grant dancers at the very start of their careers the ability to become our creative partners. We hand them the Gaga tool box, our ongoing research of many years, and we make it available to them for immediate use. We watch them go beyond their familiar limits on a daily basis to become great interpreters. Often the young dancers of the Ensemble show me fresh, new ways of looking at my own work.” — Naharin's Virus, by Ohad Naharin. Batsheva — The Young Ensemble was founded by Naharin in 1990 when he joined the company as Artistic Director; out of an interest in nurturing creative processes, mentoring young dancers, and developing young audiences in Israel. Its unique framework comprises independent choreographic support, rigorous studio training, domestic and international touring, and an exemplary school outreach program. The temporary nature of the program’s two-year structure colors it with a wide range of emotions, inspiring the dancers to make the most of their experience and make a significant impact on both their own practices and the execution of Naharin’s choreography. Each year nearly 400 dancers from around the world travel to Batsheva’s home at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv for Ensemble auditions.The Batsheva senior company is composed almost entirely of Young Ensemble graduates.

What defines us is the sense of contemporary and classical ballet mixing together, a sense of adventure and curiosity of new ways of living the art form, a spirit of innovation but based on tradition.

Dance Open 2020: «MODERN MASTERPIECES», choreography: William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, George Balanchine

Dance Open 2018: «Made in Amsterdam»

Dance Open 2015: «Back to Bach»

Dance Open 2014: «Hans van Manen.Master of movement», choreography: Hans van Manen

Dutch National Ballet

Over the past almost 60 years, Dutch National Ballet has evolved into one of the world’s foremost ballet companies. With a unique and wide repertoire, a tradition of innovation and 80 dancers from all around the world, the company plays a leading role in Dutch cultural life and serves as a cultural ambassador for the Netherlands around the globe. Since 2003 Dutch National Ballet is led by artistic director and choreographer Ted Brandsen, a former dancer of the company and, from 1998 to 2002, artistic director of West Australian Ballet. Dutch National Ballet is regularly invited to perform at prestigious international venues and festivals around the world. Its repertoire is a mixture of the classical story ballets, highlights of twentieth-century ballet and contemporary works from highly acclaimed choreographers like Hans van Manen, David Dawson, Krzysztof Pastor, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Shen Wei, Jorma Elo and Martin Schläpfer. In 2013 The New York Times ranked the company in the top five dance institutions in the world, and Süddeutsche Zeitung ranked the group in the top three in the world. Full-length classical and romantic ballets are an integral part of the company’s repertoire, many of these being productions especially created for the company, such as Swan Lake (Rudi van Dantzig), The Sleeping Beauty (Sir Peter Wright), Giselle (Rachel Beaujean and Ricardo Bustamante), Cinderella (Christopher Wheeldon), Nutcracker and The Mouse King (Toer van Schayk and Wayne Eagling), Don Quixote (Alexei Ratmansky), and Coppelia (Ted Brandsen). Furthermore, Dutch National Ballet brings its audiences highlights of twentieth-century ballet, from the repertoire of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, from the beginning of the century, to works by Sir Frederic Ashton, Jerome Robbins, William Forsythe, John Neumeier and other important choreographers from around the globe. Extra emphasis is laid on the work of George Balanchine, with over 30 works by this twentieth-century innovator of academic dance in Dutch National Ballet’s repertoire. But Dutch National Ballet offers more than a cross-section of dance history. Ever since it came into existence, the company has made an important contribution to the emergence and development of young choreographic talent and thus to a contemporary Dutch style of choreography. In recent years choreographers like artistic director Ted Brandsen, associate artist David Dawson, young creative associates Juanjo Arqués and Peter Leung, Ernst Meisner, Wubkje Kuindersma and Remi Wörtmeyer have created many new works for the company. Dutch National Ballet not only invests in talented choreographers, but also strongly believes that young talented dancers should be supported and challenged to achieve their full artistic potential. In 2013 the Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company was founded: a stepping-stone for young dancers to make the leap from the Dutch National Ballet Academy (the official school of Dutch National Ballet) and major international ballet academies to Dutch National Ballet. www.operaballet.nl

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This company has a good reputation and great working capacity. I can see that they are working with pleasure. And furthermore — they understand why they are on the stage and what are they doing it for.

The Perm ballet is justly considered as one of the best ballet companies in Russia. And the unattainable level of Russian ballet makes it even one of best companies in the world.

The artistic style of the chief choreographer Alexey Miroshnichenko is especially notable by a comprehensive and intelligent approach to selecting ballet repertoire.

Tchaikovsky was born in a neighbouring town; Diaghilev, the innovator and founder of the Ballets Russes, had his roots in Perm; and Miroshnichenko is an embodiment of this interconnected tradition.

A visit to Tchaikovsky Perm Company night is enough to remind you about passion for ballet.

Dance Open 2024: Yaroslavna, choreography: Alexey Miroshnichenko

Dance Open 2023: Sevagin / Samodurov / Pimonov, choreography: Maxim Sevagin, Slava Samodurov, Anton Pimonov

Dance Open 2019: Nutcracker, choreography: Alexey Miroshnichenko

Dance Open 2017: Cinderella, choreography: Alexey Miroshnichenko

Dance Open 2016: Romeo and Juliet, choreography: Kenneth MacMillan

Perm Ballet

The history of the Tchaikovsky Perm Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet is one replete with iconic figures and genuinely miraculous coincidences that to a great extent have defined the current image of the company and the high position it rightfully occupies in the choreographic “table of ranks”. It is interesting to note that there was a Diaghilev involved in the founding of the theatre. No, not the world-famous impresario and innovator, although he too played his part. It was his grandfather, Pavel Dmitrievich Diaghilev, who made a significant contribution to the building of a stone theatre in Perm. Then his grandson, with his unique biography, charted a new ballet itinerary across the globe: Perm – Petersburg – Paris. In the nineteenth century, the theatre’s spiritual patron was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, all of whose operas and ballets have been performed on the Perm stage at one time or another, and this fact became grounds to add the composer’s name to the theatre’s official title in 1965. In the middle of the twentieth century, the tragic events of the Second World War paradoxically played into the hands of the Perm muses. The generous city in the Urals hospitably welcomed the legendary Kirov Ballet and Vaganova Academy in evacuation. Thousands of bonds, not only professional but also amicable, unusually emotional, and personal, were formed between the ballet worlds of Leningrad and Perm in those tragic years, gifting the latter the famous Vaganova training system and Petersburg virtuosity, enriching the ballet company with a new vocabulary. Even now, seventy years later, those bonds, imbued with warmth and gratitude, are reflected in the way the stars of the northern capital – dancers, choreographers and directors – eagerly travel to work in Perm. The mixed prescription of the Vaganova method of ballet training and the Moscow school of performance has also not gone to waste. To this day, Perm boasts a successful choreographic college, the graduates of which are in demand on the world’s most renowned stages. The Perm theatre has a strong reputation as a “creative laboratory”, where new ideas are birthed, and its own original style is shaped. It was Perm Ballet that was the first in Russia to perform the works of the great twentieth-century choreographer Georges Balanchine, and later the choreography of Jerome Robbins. It is the only stage in Russia where Jiří Kylián’s Svadebka, William Forsythe’s The Second Detail, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliette as choreographed by Kenneth Macmillan are performed. A new chapter in the history of Perm Ballet began in 2009, when Alexey Miroshnichenko, a choreographer whose style is defined by a panoramic intellectual approach to movement on stage, was appointed to head the company. Although Perm Ballet’s key repertoire is undoubtedly the masterpieces of world ballet – Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, La Sylphide, Le Spectre de la Rose – the company’s calling card has become adaptations of the works of great choreographers of the 20th century not previously familiar to Russian audiences. Another unique feature of Perm Ballet is its ability and readiness to work meticulously with rare material. For example, in 2011, ninety years after its premiere, with set designs very close to the originals, Sergei Prokofiev’s Chout was once again presented to the world. In 2020, the ballet company was taken over by the Petersburg choreographer Anton Pimonov, a graduate of the Vaganova Russian Ballet Academy, who began his career as a soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre. The Petersburg spirit can be glimpsed in his productions in the way that they strictly conform to classical canons while striving for new forms. At Perm Ballet, it is unlikely that he will seek compromise. It is more probable that the two polities will clash, and such tension is always beneficial for art. In 2023 Alexey Miroshnichenko came back to his post of the artistic director and presented the ballet Yaroslavna based on the plot of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. The company can boast numerous prestigious international and Russian awards, including several Golden Masks. For many years it has been said confidently that the theatre has managed to turn Perm into Russia’s third mecca for ballet. Since 1973, the company has had an active touring schedule all over the world and has managed not only to travel all through Europe, but also to visit Australia and New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, China, the United States, Thailand, Egypt, India, Nicaragua, Bahrain, Oman, and even Cuba.