A ballet evening comprising works by three young Polish choreographers. Robert Bondara’s ballet When You End and I Begin… to music by Paweł Szymański is the most interesting effect of the 1st Choreography Workshop at the Teatr Wielki (2009), during which dancers from the Polish National Ballet had the opportunity to stage and present their own choreographies. That is why the work was included in the ballet company’s chamber repertoire last season. Our soloist Jacek Tyski already boasts some choreographic achievements outside the Teatr Wielki. His ballet In Search of Colours, to the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, is a new work commissioned by the Polish National Ballet. The evening’s third choreographer is our former dancer Jacek Przybyłowicz, currently the ballet company director at the Teatr Wielki in Poznań. He produced his work, Alpha Kryonia Xe to music by the young composer Aleksandra Gryka, at Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki in 2006, and the Polish National Ballet revived it last season as part of the evening entitled Alpha and More, in which young Polish choreography confronts contemporary Polish music. [pch]

A pleasure in itself: to see the beautiful performance of Jacek Przybyłowicz’s Alpha Kryonia Xe to the music of Aleksandra Gryka once again. A double pleasure: to see Alpha together with a revival of Robert Bondara’s When You End and I Begin… – an etude set to Paweł Szymański’s Two Pieces for String Quartet, rightly recognized as the most mature proposal of the first Creations choreography workshop. A triple pleasure: to combine all this with the latest production by Jacek Tyski, In Search of Colours (to Grażyna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra). … Three choreographies, three musical styles, three different emotionalisms. One overriding quality: the integrity of expression through dance and music – even though this music is not quite tamed, not always easy to listen to, it is seemingly ‘non-ballet’ music. … We have been given three completely separate proposals testifying to the strong individualism of the authors and their great sensitivity to the language and expression of Polish 20th- and 21st-century music.     [Dorota Kozińska, Ruch Muzyczny]