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Dance Europe

Issue No. 266
Apr/May 2023
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Swan Lake

Dutch National Ballet opens its run of Rudi an Dantzig's Swan Lake on 22 March with nine different casts: Olga Smirnova and Costa Allen; Maia Makhateli and Jakob Feyferlik; Anna Ol and Young Gyu Choi; Qian Liu and Semyon Velichko; Maia Makhateli and Victor Caixeta; Anna Tsygankova and Giorgi Potskhishvili; Riho Sakamoto and Martin ten Kortenaar; Salome Leverashvili and Tim van Poucke; Jessica Xuan and Jakob Feyferlik; and Yuanyuan Zhang and Davi Ramos. operaballet.nl

Ballet Central
TOUR 2023

Ballet Central's 2023 repertoire includes: two ballets by Frederick Ashton - Monotones I and The Two Pigeons - the latter was premiered back in 1961 with Christopher Gable, founder of Central School of Ballet, and Lynn Seymour in the titular roles. This short film shows Isabel McMeekan coaching three couples in the final pas de deux from The Two Pigeons. Ballet Central is the performance company of Central School of Ballet and the tour opens in Dunstable on 4 May.

New Etoiles at Paris Opera

Hannah O'Neill and Marc Moreau were promoted to étoiles by José Martinez and Alexander Neef following their performance in Ballet Imperial at the Paris Opera on 2 March 2023. Photos Agathe Poupeney / OnP

English National Ballet announces first season under director Aaron S. Watkin LINK

Le Corsaire

Bayerisches Staatsballett first soloist António Casalinho and soloist Margarita Fernandes made their London debuts performing Le Corsaire at the Ballet Icons Gala @balleticonsgala  on 19 February 2023. This film captures the dancers in rehearsal at Pineapple Studios in the morning and excerpts from  their performance, which closed the gala, at the London Coliseum in the evening. Pianist - Jonathan Still With thanks to: Maina Gielgud and Olga Balakleets.

Ballet Icons Gala

Under the direction of Olga Balakleets, this year's Ballet Icons Gala took place at the London Coliseum on Sunday 19 February featured some of today's leading ballet dancers from around the world. The gala opened with The Royal Ballet's Yasmine Naghdi and Reece Clarke in a pas de deux from MacMillan's Manon and closed with Bayerisches Staatsballett's Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho making their London debut in Le Corsaire, aged 17 and 19 respectively. Photo GALLERY.

Francesco Gabriele Frola

English National Ballet principal Francesco Gabriele Frola in rehearsal for Prince Siegfried's Act I variation in Derek Deane'e production of Swan Lake.

Balanchine
at the Paris Opera

A Balanchine double bill opened at the Paris Opera on 8 February and runs at the Palais Garnier with different casts until 10 March. The curtain calls from the générale feature Lumila Pagliero, Paul Marque, Silvia Saint-Martin, Florent Marla and Thomas Docquir in Ballet Imperial and Dorothée Gilbert, Jérémy-Loup Quer, Bianca Scudamore and Rose Stojanov in Who Cares? operadeparis.fr

Prix de Lausanne

Congratulations to the winners of this year's Prix de Lausanne. Millán de Benito from Spain and Fabrizzio Ulloa Cornejo from Mexico shared the first place. Additionally prizes were awarded to: Sangwon Park (South Korea); Julie Joyner (USA); Seehyun Kim (South Korea); Alecsia Maria Lazarescu (Romania); Ana Luisa Negrã (Brazil); Keisuke Miyazaki (Japan); Emily Sprout (Australia); Giuseppe Ventura (Italy) and Soo Min Kim (South Korea). www.prixdelausanne.org. GALLERY OF FINALISTS and report by AMANDA JENNINGS

Paul Marque

The Paris Opera étoile talks about his journey that began with jazz dance classes and the challenge of dancing the world's most famous ballet.

Le Corsaire

José Martinez first created his production of Le Corsaire for the Rome Opera Ballet in 2020, and the production was also staged in Ljubljana for the Slovenian National Ballet later that year. A new production of the ballet has now found its way to Tallinn, where it was premiered by the Estonian National Ballet in December. Martinez oversaw the staging, assisted by Agnès Letestu, just prior to taking up his new role as Director of Dance at the Paris Opera. This film shows clips from the production and four of the leading characters talk about their roles and what it was like to work with Martinez and Letestu.

Lorenzo Trossello

English National Ballet's new junior soloist dancer made his debut with the company dancing Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake. The Italian dancer talks about his journey from Crova to London in this film which also includes footage from a Swan Lake rehearsal with Trossello, Erina Takahashi and James Streeter.

The Sleeping Beauty

LONDON The Royal Ballet opened its run of The Sleeping Beauty at the ROH on 16 January with sublime performances by Marianela Núñez and Vadim Muntagirov as Aurora as Prince Florimund. The February/March cover of Dance Europe features Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell who will dance on 8 February and 4 March. Performances continue until 6 June. roh.org.uk PHOTOS

The Sleeping Beauty

AMSTERDAM The last photo gallery of the year is very evocative of 2022 in that the two leading dancers both chose to leave their very successful careers behind - Olga Smirnova resigned from the Bolshoi and Victor Caixeta from the Mariinsky - when Russia invaded Ukraine. Smirnova and Caixeta secured new contracts as principal dancers with the Dutch National Ballet. PHOTOS

Promotions in Munich

Following the performance of Alexei Ratmansky's Tchaikovsky Overtures by the Bayerisches Staatsballett, director Laurent Hilaire announced the promotions of António Casalinho to first soloist and Caroline Bastos to soloist from 2023. Photo © Maina Gielgud

Tchaikovsky Overtures

Bayerisches Staatsballett presented the world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's Tchaikovsky Overtures at the Nationaltheater in Munich on 23 December. The new ballet has designs by Jean-Marc Puissant and further performances take place on 26 (mat & eve) and 27 December. Pictured - Shale Wagman in Elegy. PHOTO GALLERY

José Martinez

This interview was filmed in Tallinn where José Martinez recently staged his production of Le Corsaire for the Estonian National Ballet. The former étoile returned to the Paris Opera as its new Director of Dance, succeeding Aurélie Dupont who stepped down in the summer, in December. 

PHOTO GALLERIES

The Royal Ballet
The Nutcracker

Estonian National Ballet
Le Corsaire

Paris Opera
Swan Lake

English National Ballet
The Nutcracker

Olga Smirnova

We are very happy to announce that Olga Smirnova has been voted at the Dancer of the Year 2022 by the readers of Dance Europe following the initial nomination by Valentina Bonelli in the annual Critics' Choice. Currently a principal dancer with Dutch National Ballet, Olga is pictured on the front cover in Grand Pas Classique, which she performed in the company's 60th anniversary gala. She is also featured and in a filmed interview, in which she talks frankly about leaving the Bolshoi and her new life in Amsterdam in the Dec/Jan issue of Dance Europe.

Xander's Story 

After 12 years of living and dancing in St Petersburg, Xander Parish left his career as principal dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet - and much else behind - due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After many months without performing, he joined the Norwegian National Ballet and also taken on the directorship of a project, Reunited in Dance, launched at the Segerstrom Center in California in November. Included in this filmed interview is a short excerpt from Juliano Nunes's new ballet Canvas.

Laurent Hilaire
After relinquishing his post at the Stanislavsky Theatre, the former Paris Opera étoile  talks about his new role as director of the Bayerisches Staatsballett

Ingrid Lorentzen
Norwegian National Ballet's artistic director contemplates a decade of achievements and challenges.

Grete Sofie Borud Nybakken
The Norwegian National Ballet principal  talks about the adversities she has overcome in a film which show shot excerpts from her performances in Onegin, Giselle and Hedda Gabler - a ballet which was created on her.

One Year in Munich
After graduating from the Conservatório Internacional de Ballet e Dança last year, António Casalinho and Margarita Fernandes were engaged as soloists with the Bayerisches Staatsballett. In this short film they recall the ballets there have performed since joining the company.