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For the lucky few in close proximity to the lovely city of St Petersburg, here is some performance information from the Mariinsky:
THE RUSSIAN PREMIERE OF BALLETS BY WILLIAM FORSYTHE
3rd March 2004,5th and 7th March as part of the IV International Ballet Festival MARIINSKY
The Mariinsky Theatre is staging an unprecedented premiere - for the first time ever, a Russian ballet company will be performing ballets by WILLIAM FORSYTHE.
WILLIAM FORSYTHE can justly be called the true heir of George Balanchine, the 20th century's greatest choreographer, and, via Balanchine, of Marius Petipa - and thus of the great dance traditions of the Mariinsky Theatre. Forsythe, who set the course for the development of ballet at the close of the 20th and start of the 21st centuries, had previously never been to Russia. A planned installation by the Kremlin walls was forbidden by the authorities in Moscow. In 2002, he came to St Petersburg for the first time where he and four dancers from the Frankfurter Ballett amazed the public at the MARIINSKY ballet festival with the work Artifact-II. One year later, a group of Mariinsky Theatre dancers travelled to Forsythe's studio in Frankfurt. At last, the Mariinsky Theatre and Forsythe came to an agreement to stage three of his famous ballets at the Mariinsky Theatre.
STEPTEXT
Choreography: William Forsythe
Music: J. S. Bach, Partita No. 2 BWV1004 in D minor, Chaconne
Set, costume and lighting design: William Forsythe
William Forsythe's Assistant: Aaron Watkin
THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF EXACTITUDE
Choreography: William Forsythe
Music: Franz Schubert, Symphony Op. 31 in C major
Staging and lighting design: William Forsythe
Costume design: Stephen Galloway
William Forsythe's Assistant: Noah D. Gelber
IN THE MIDDLE, SOMEWHAT ELEVATED
Choreography: William Forsythe
Music: Thom Willems in collaboration with Lesley Schtuk
Set, costume and lighting design: William Forsythe
William Forsythe's Assistant: Katryn Bennets
At the Mariinsky Theatre, William Forsythe's ballets are being rehearsed by Ulyana Lopatkina, Diana Vishneva, Irma Nioradze, Darya Pavlenko, Elvira Tarasova, Natalia Sologub, Sofia Gumerova, Nadezhda Gonchar, Tatiana Tkachenko, Andrian Fadeyev, Igor Kolb, Andrei Merkuriev, Leonid Sarafanov, Anton Korsakov and many young dancers of the Mariinsky Ballet Company.
The name of the ballet In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated came about by absolute chance. Katryn Bennets, head coach of the Frankfurter Ballett and Forsythe's assistant for the staging of In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated at the Mariinsky Theatre, recalls &uqot;The scene-painters were to have made a large number of golden objects for the world premiere in Paris. However, they only managed to make a few small 'trifles'. As a result, the enraged Forsythe hung two golden cherries in the middle of the totally empty stage - not very high up, just off the floor. And hence the name of the ballet: In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. By the way, the staging at the Mariinsky Theatre will be using those very same cherries:" William Forsythe has slightly altered the name of the ballet In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated for the Mariinsky Theatre premiere: the Russian title of the work is Where the Golden Cherries are Hanging.
WILLIAM FORSYTHE was born in New York in 1949, and studied dance at the University of Jacksonville in Florida and later at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. He began his dance career with the Joffrey Ballet before he moved to Europe in 1973, joining the Stuttgarter Ballett, first as a dancer and later (1976-1981) as a choreographer.
In 1976, Forsythe staged his first ballet - Urlicht - a duet to music by Mahler, which was a resounding success for the choreographer. Forsythe began to create works for the Stuttgarter Ballett, the Basel Ballet, the Bayerisches Staatsballett, the ballet company of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Joffrey Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater.
A defining moment in Forsythe's creative life came with his collaboration (at the invitation of Rudolf Nureyev) with the ballet company of the Opйra de Paris, where he staged his famous In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated for rising star Sylvie Guillem.
In 1984, Forsythe was appointed Artistic Director of the Frankfurter Ballett. The twenty years his career has spun have seen the creation of such important works as Gänge (1982), Artifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb's Theorem (1991), The Loss of Small Detail (1991), Eidos:Telos (1995), Endless House (1999) and Kammer/Kammer (2000).
Forsythe's ballets are in the repertoires of the world's leading dance companies, among them the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, London's Royal Ballet and the ballet company of the Opйra de Paris.
The production is being staged
with the support of KULTUR-STIFTUNG DER DEUTSCHEN BANK
<small>[ 05 March 2004, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Catherine Pawlick ]</small>
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Author, "Vaganova Today: The Preservation of Pedagogical Tradition" (available on amazon.com)
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