This year, as usual, the XI International Ballet Festival DANCE OPEN takes place in St. Petersburg. The organizers prepared unique program that includes three different ballet galas. On April 14 the BAD BOYS of DANCE show premieres in Russia. The performance will be held at the Opera and Ballet Theatre of St. Petersburg Conservatory. The dance company was founded by dancer Rasta Thomas and today their show is one of the most famous dance shows in the world, connecting ballet and acrobatics. Recently they performed at Carnegie Hall in NYC with Sir Elton John for a Rainforest charity event. DANCE OPEN showed them in Russia last year in its Annual Dance Open Gala of International Ballet Stars. This year DANCE OPEN is bringing the company to Russia with a full show.Next day a Gala Tribute to Natalia Dudinskaya (100th anniversary of her birth) takes place at the same venue. Students of the famous ballerina, who are now ballet dancers and choreographers in their own right are going to perform at the gala. Some of the world best ballet stars – Uliana Lopatkina, Vladimir Malakhov, Victoria Tereshkina, Yonah Acosta, Joseph Gatti, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev – will perform the choreographies that Natalia Dudinskaya made famous, such as the Dance of the Animated Frescoes from The Little Humpbacked Horse and The Venetian Carnival from Satanella. The program of the night will also include unique videos of ballet performances and photos from Dudinskaya’s personal archive.
On 16th April a Gala Evening of International Ballet Stars takes place. This Gala held at the Grand Concert Hall Oktyabrsky is an important cultural event giving a rare opportunity to ballet audience to form their opinion about the level of this type of the art in the world, while they watch the best dancers from all over the world perform.
Among stars representing the best ballet companies such as New York City Ballet, English National Ballet or Bolshoi Ballet are also Czech dancers Jiří and Otto Bubeníček of Dresden Semper Oper Ballet and Hamburg Ballet, respectively.
Besides those gala programs master-classes for the students from different ballet schools will be held too. Students from the USA, Japan, Venezuela, Finland, Panama and Russia have already applied for participation in the master-classes 2012.
Annually the world ballet stars, the leading dancers of major world ballet companies and students of ballet schools come to St. Petersburg to participate in the DANCE OPEN Festival. For the last several years the Festival has launched a unique programme which includes film presentations, research and practice conference, photo exhibition, etc. This ballet forum has become interesting not only for the professionals but for the large audience, for people of different social status.
Source: www.danceopen.com
Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species