2nd Days of Dance at the Teatr Wielki: 7-23 September 2010
Many leading ballet companies and dance theatres have performed at the Teatr Wielki. In 2009, with the inception of the Polish National Ballet, we decided to make these visits a cyclic event and organize the annual Days of Dance. These are held in September before the official opening of the season at the Polish National Opera. The second festival of dance at the Teatr Wielki will feature two ballet companies, four dance theatres, and young ballet artists - a total of more than 20 choreographies, from large-scale shows to small dance miniatures.
This year’s review focuses on a few themes we feel are important. We remember the 100th anniversary of the death of the father of classical ballet, Marius Petipa, by inviting you to see his famous Don Quixote in a new choreographic arrangement by Boris Eifman. We also remember the Chopin Year, showing how it was celebrated by Polish ballet companies, dance theatres, and Warsaw ballet school students. We touch on the difficult problem of ageing in dance (The Ruins of the Body, The Old Man and the Old Woman ), an art in which youthful energy and physical fitness are age-old and inalienable elements. We juxtapose the latest Polish dance theatre projects with our Belarusian neighbours’ exploration of this genre. Finally, with the Polish National Ballet’s two evenings from the previous season (Bach Dances, Alpha and More), we present new directions in the ballet company’s activity under Krzysztof Pastor’s leadership.
7 September, 7 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Polish National Ballet
ALPHA AND MORE
1. WHEN YOU END AND I BEGIN...
Choreography ROBERT BONDARA. Music PAWEŁ SZYMAŃSKI
2. IN SEARCH OF COLOURS
Choreography JACEK TYSKI. Music GRAŻYNA BACEWICZ
3. ALPHA KRYONIA XE
Choreography JACEK PRZYBYŁOWICZ. Music ALEKSANDRA GRYKA
8, 9, 10 September, 7 p.m.
St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, Russia
DON QUIXOTE, or THE FANTASIES OF A MADMAN
Choreography BORIS EIFMAN. Music LUDWIG MINKUS
11 September, 7.30 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Theatre of the Contemporary Choreography D.O.Z.SK.I, Belarus
BALLET EVENING
Choreography DMITRY ZALESSKY, OLGA SKVORTSOVA. Music COLLAGE
12 September, 7 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Daisuke Yoshimoto, Japan
THE RUINS OF THE BODY
Choreography DAISUKE YOSHIMOTO. Music JACEK OSTASZEWSKI, RADOSŁAW NOWAKOWSKI
14 September, 6 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Ballet School in Warsaw
DANCES WITH CHOPIN
Choreography MAŁGORZATA BOROWIEC, JOSÉ LIMÓN, ZOFIA RUDNICKA, JACEK TYSKI.
Music FRYDERYK CHOPIN
17 September, 7.30 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Theatre Institut in Warsaw
THE OLD MAN AND THE OLD WOMAN
Direction AGNIESZKA BŁOŃSKA. Choreography ANNA GODOWSKA. Music JULES BUSHELL
18 September, 12 noon & 7 p.m.
Polish National Ballet
BACH DANCES
1. THE KISSES
Choreography EMIL WESOŁOWSKI. Music JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
2. CONCERTO BAROCCO
Choreography GEORGE BALANCHINE. Music JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
3. THE GREEN
Choreography ED WUBBE. Music JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
4. IN LIGHT AND SHADOW
Choreography KRZYSZTOF PASTOR. Music JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Conductor MODESTAS PITRÉNAS, Orchestra & Chorus of the Polish National Opera
19 September, 5.30 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Polish Dance Theatre – Poznań Ballet
CHOPIN FRESH FRUITS
Choreography ANDRZEJ ADAMCZAK. Music FRYDERYK CHOPIN
19 September, 7.30 p.m. (Chamber Stage)
Polish Dance Theatre – Poznań Ballet
BALLET EVENING
1. THOUSAND COLOURS
Choreography TAKAKO MATSUDA. Music FRYDERYK CHOPIN
2. CHOPIN DIFFERENTLY
Choreography KRYSTYNA MAZURÓWNA. Music FRYDERYK CHOPIN, KASPER T. TOEPLITZ
22 September, 8 p.m. & 23 September, 7 p.m.
Polish National Ballet
CHOPIN, THE ROMANTIC ARTIST
Choreography PATRICE BART. Music HECTOR BERLIOZ, FRYDERYK CHOPIN, MANUEL DE FALLA, SERGEY LAPUNOV, FERENC LISZT, FRANZ SCHUBERT, ROBERT SCHUMANN
Conductor TADEUSZ KOZŁOWSKI, Orchestra & Chorus of the Polish National Opera
Promotions for the Season 2010-2011
Ballet Mistress
ANITA KUSKOWSKA
First Soloists
MAGDALENA CIECHOWICZ
ALEKSANDRA LIASHENKO
VLADIMIR YAROSHENKO
Soloist
EWA NOWAK
Corypheés
ANNA LORENC
EMILIA STACHURSKA
KURUSZ WOJEŃSKI
JAROSŁAW ZANIEWICZ
BARTOSZ ZYŚK
New Dancers for the Season 2010-2011
Soloists
NATHALIE FERNANDEZ
ROBERT GABDULLIN
Corps de Ballet
ALICE BERTSCHY
JAKUB GUT
PAULINA JURKOWSKA
MARGARITA SIMONOVA
PATRYK WALCZAK
GEORGE WILLIAMSON
Guest Dancers for the Season 2010-2011
MARIANELA NÚÑEZ (Royal Ballet)
RUBI PRONK (Het Nationale Ballet)
THIAGO SOARES (Royal Ballet)
Guests Ballet Masters and Teachers for the Season 2010-2011
MIA ALON (Emanuel Gat Dance)
ROY ASSAF (Emanuel Gat Dance)
WENDY ELLIS SOMES (Royal Ballet)
STEVEN ETIENNE (Het Nationale Ballet)
TONY FABRE (Béjart Ballet Lausanne)
ANNA GRABKA (Hamburg Ballet)
NATALIA HOFFMANN (Het Nationale Ballet)
MICHAEL LÖHR (Emanuel Gat Dance)
PIOTR NARDELLI (Ballet du XXe Siècle)
MATZ SKOOG (English National Ballet)
MALIN THOORS (Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris)
ANDRZEJ ZIEMSKI (Ballet du XXe Siècle)
Polish National Ballet
Presents Chopin in St. Petersburg
The 18th Stars of the White Nights Music Festival in St. Petersburg began on 21 May. The festival was initiated and is managed to this day by the great conductor Valery Gergiev. Every day for a full two months, opera and ballet performances, concerts and recitals were held at the historical headquarters and the new concert hall of the famous Mariinsky Theatre. Also this time, the festival promises a veritable explosion of Russian and international vocal, ballet and instrumental talent during the planned premieres, concerts and repertoire performances by the hosts as well as guest performances by the Vienna Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. Most of the performances and concerts were conducted by Gergiev himself.
The only theatre appearing at this year's festival was the Polish National Ballet. The company presented their latest production, Chopin, the Romantic Artist, choreographed by Patrice Bart. Performances took place on 3 and 4 July at the Mariinsky Theatre, and were accompanied by pianists Krzysztof Jabłoński and Sławomir Wilk and the St. Petersburg opera orchestra conducted by Tadeusz Kozłowski. This was the effect of Poland's initiative to hold an international celebration of Chopin Year, but also of the intensifying collaboration between the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre as well as the personal contacts between director Waldemar Dąbrowski and Gergiev, the latter being an increasingly frequent guest of our theatre.
The Polish National Ballet's performances of Chopin were not the only Polish element in the programme of this year's Stars of the White Nights Festival. There was also other presentations related to Chopin: on 11 June leading soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre Ballet danced Jerome Robbins' famous choreography In the Night to the music of four nocturnes, and on 17 June Boris Berezovsky and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev performed Fryderyk Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1.
Before that, on 28 May, audiences were able to see an opera diptych, Rachmaninov's Aleko and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, in a production staged earlier at the Mariinsky Theatre, directed by Mariusz Treliński, with stage design by Boris Kudlička. Successive performances of the St. Petersburg version of Shchedrin's ballet Anna Karenina choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky took place on 24 May and 24 June, in a visual setting borrowed from our theatre. Finally, 4 June saw a performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens directed by Carlus Padrissa and conducted by Valery Gergiev; the producer is the Spanish theatre group La Fura dels Baus, and the co-producers are Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, the Mariinsky Theatre, and the Polish National Opera (the premiere performance at the Teatr Wielki will take place in January 2011).
Photo of Vladimir Yaroshenko as Fryderyk Chopin by Ewa Krasucka
Krzysztof Pastor's Ballets
in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Budapest, and Warsaw
Krzysztof Pastor, director of the Polish National Ballet, continues his regular collaboration with Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam as the company's resident choreographer. His latest large-scale production there, planned for June 2010, is the new full-length ballet Nijinski - Dancer, Clown, God [go to: 1 2 3], a tribute to the legendary dancer of Polish descent Vaslav Nijinsky (Wacław Niżyński), universally hailed as the "god of dance" of the 20th century. The Polish roots of both artists - the new ballet's choreographer and its protagonist - are strongly highlighted in the Netherlands in announcements of this world premiere. Pastor also wrote the script. The music collage for the production, designed according to the choreographer's directions, is the work of composer and arranger Bob Zimmerman, who used extensive excerpts from the music of Debussy, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss which once accompanied Nijinsky's ballets. The Holland Symfonia orchestra will be conducted by Matthew Rowe. The world premiere and the first series of performances of Pastor's new ballet are scheduled for 15-24 June 2010 as part of the Holland Festival at Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam. For the next season, Het Nationale Ballet has planned performances of Pastor's earlier ballets: Moving Rooms to music by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Alfred Schnittke (October-November 2010), and Dumbarton Dances to the music of Igor Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks concerto (February 2011).
Before that, on 21 May 2010, Hong Kong will see the latest premiere of another ballet by Pastor which is popular around the world, In Light and Shadow to the music of the Aria from the Goldberg Variations and Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major by Johann Sebastian Bach. The world premiere of this ballet took place at Het Nationale Ballet in 2000, after which the choreographer staged it with the Royal Swedish Ballet (2004), the Scottish Ballet during the international festival in Edinburgh (2006), and at the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Ankara (2007). Het Nationale Ballet also presented it during its tour of the Netherlands, France and Canada, while the Scottish Ballet has performed it in London, Glasgow and a few other British cities. Soon after the Chinese premiere by the Hong Kong Ballet, Pastor's Bach ballet will also be performed in Warsaw by the Polish National Ballet. The Polish premiere will take place at the Teatr Wielki on 25 and 27 June 2010, concluding the present season.
Krzysztof Pastor has also received an invitation from the Budapest Opera Ballet; the company asked the choreographer for permission to include the beautiful duet Wie lange noch? from the ballet Kurt Weill in their regular repertoire. The duet will be part of the ballet evening In the Vortex whose premiere is planned for 5 June 2010. Next to Pastor's piece to Kurt Weill's music, the evening's programme will include one-act ballets to the music of Schubert, Mahler, Max Richter and Philip Glass, choreographed by Robert North, Myriam Naisy, David Dawson, and András Lukács.
The Polish National Ballet, on the other hand, is getting ready for the premiere of Pastor's In Light and Shadow as part of the premiere ballet evening Bach Dances (25 and 27 June 2010), which will be repeated after the summer holidays. Next season's repertoire will also include revivals of Pastor's Kurt Weill (late October 2010) and Tristan to the music of Richard Strauss (February 2011), and the premiere of a new choreography by the Polish National Ballet's director planned for the end of March 2011 specially for the Warsaw company.
New Project by Warsaw's Young Choreographers
New choreographies by the Polish National Ballet's dancers were shown on the Teatr Wielki's chamber stage on 19, 20, and 21 March 2010, as part of the Creations 2 Second Choreographic Workshop. This time the featured choreographers were Eduard Bablidze, Robert Bondara, Michał Chróścielewski, Anna Hop, Jacek Tyski, Karol Urbański, and Natalia Maria Wojciechowska.
The idea of holding choreography workshops was brought to the Teatr Wielki by Krzysztof Pastor, the director of the Polish National Ballet. The guiding principle is to give dancers the opportunity for a choreographic debut as well as releasing the creative and organizational initiative of Warsaw’s ballet artists. They have been given free rein regarding the concept, preparation, and organization of this ballet evening using their own resources, with the possibility of taking advantage of the theatre’s costume collection and any necessary organizational and technical assistance.
Poster design: Łukasz Murgrabia / Adam Żebrowski
Star of the American contemporary ballet
“Holland’s sexiest ballet dancer ever”
is special guest dancer of the Polish National Ballet
in premiere performances of Krzysztof Pastor's “Kurt Weill”
on November 20th, 21st, 22nd 2009 and in the end of October 2010
Rubinald Rofino Pronk was born and raised in The Hague, Netherlands. He received his training at the Royal Conservatory of Dance and joined the Dutch National Ballet at 16, where he danced as a soloist and performed works by several leading choreographers such as William Forsythe, George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Frederick Ashton, Paul Lightfoot, Krzysztof Pastor, Sol Leon, and Jacopo Godani, to name a few. In 2006 he joined Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City, where he toured extensively and performed works by Dwight Rhoden and Ulysses Dove. His awards include the prestigious Alexandre Radius Prize for the best dancer of Holland and two nominations for the VSCD “Silver Swan” award for best performance of the year. „Elsevier” Magazine named him “Holland’s sexiest ballet dancer ever”. Pronk is also principal dancers with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company in New York City and guest artists with Dutch National Ballet.
Photo: Ewa Krasucka
