The Czech National Ballet presents is preparing a new premiere: Americana III, a mixed bill made up of choreographies of American provenience. George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and William Forsythe are an especially homogenous trio of artists who invented a truly unforgettable ballet style. The mixed bill Americana III is a constellation of three creators whose indelible footprints have been followed by all further generations of notable choreographers who have built their works on the principles of classical ballet. The three artists managed to transform this peerless dance technique into fantastic forms that amaze audiences and inspire their followers. Americana III contains prestigious titles that are of interest to ballet connoisseurs and the general public alike. As the summary of individual works shows, the audience will be afforded the opportunity to see the works of the “American choreographic classics” and listen to the attractive music created by celebrated composers.
Czech premiere: 25 October 2012 at the State OperaSecond premiere performance: 26 October 2012 at the State Opera + TALKING TO... Seminar on American neoclassical ballet -
11 October 2012, at 4 p.m. at the National Theatre New Stage The fourth instalment in the TALKING TO… series will be taking place at the New Stage to mark the occasion of the forthcoming Czech premiere of Americana III. Through the seminar, the audience will have the opportunity to become acquainted with American neoclassical ballet and compare the timeless choreographies created by the unforgettable George Balanchine, the unique William Forsythe and the Oscar-winning Jerome Robbins. George Balanchine was an inspired innovator. He transformed classical ballet into “neo-classicism”, sometimes also referred to as “American ballet”. He imbued ballet positions, poses and techniques with a new meaning drawing upon the “chic” classical dance aesthetics, whose style expresses the natural grace and magic of physical and motional proportions and lines. A special significance in Balanchine’s choreographies is afforded to musicality, groundbreaking owing to its perfect symbiosis with the ballet movement. George Balanchine founded the most distinguished classical ballet school, and he and Jerome Robbins formed the legendary New York City Ballet. In its time, the creation and work of the two artists and institutions represented an epochal innovation and an utterly modern conception of classical ballet. Initially, this conception wasn’t received positively by everyone, yet very soon it gained a recognition that in the history of 20th-century classical ballet can only be compared with that attained by Marius Petipa and his peerless adaptations of famous Tchaikovsky ballets. Quintessential traits of Balanchine’s choreographies were wonderful abstract compositions that served to make ballet more comprehensible, more natural and immensely evocative when it comes to expressing emotions without applying the mannerism of descriptiveness. Balanchine’s ballets possess the ability to communicate to the audience their spirited charge, yet they are also an attractive spectacle, displaying an infinite number of engrossing dance sequences and virtuosic interpretational performances. Balanchine’s most remarkable choreographies include Apollo, Leader of the Muses; The Prodigal Son, Jewels, Divertimento No. 15, Themes and Variations, Concerto Barocco, alongside more than a hundred other ballet works. Balanchine’s oeuvre inspired and his legacy was linked up by choreographers of such renown as John Cranko, John Neumeier, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, etc. Jerome Robbins is evidently the most renowned 20th-century choreographer owing to a peerless originality drawing upon the wide range of his talent. The diversity, brilliance, lyrical impressiveness and sense of humour are spellbinding traits by means of which he was able to markedly popularise ballet art. Robbins’s choreographic hallmark and conception were the first to break down the borders between bricks-and-mortar theatre and film, the classical and “commercial” arts, and established the unity for the single unconditional requirement for a precise professional artistic performance. His name is most frequently connected with the immortal West Side Story, for whose choreography and co-direction in the later film version he received an Oscar. He choreographed and/or directed the extremely popular Broadway musicals Fiddler on the Roof, Billion Dollar Baby, Peter Pan, Gypsy, etc. His ballets have met with great enthusiasm on theatre stages, including Fancy Free (1944), as well as his later works, which are still being performed worldwide (Cage, I Am Old Fashioned, Dances at the Gathering, Glass Pieces, Bells Are Ringing, Afternoon of a Faun, and many others). Robbins is undoubtedly one of the best-known figures of American theatre and his highly acclaimed creation has had an immense impact on the development of dance art. He was also a pioneer of the later, dynamically blossoming multimedia art. William Forsythe is a phenomenal figure possessing a singular style with which he has created and developed engrossing choreographic works based on distinctive conceptual structures blending the classical ballet technique (largely on tiptoes) with elements of numerous trends of contemporary art and thinking. His ballets combine spoken word, video art, sculpture, electronic sounds, as well as amplified voices of the dancers on stage. His fantastically creative oeuvre has not only been influenced by American classical ballet (Balanchine) but also by the idea of space-movement relations (Laban). Forsythe’s tenure in Frankfurt, Germany, was truly epoch-shaping, with his style being one of the most sought after in the world. Clear, comprehensible and sharply refined ballet sequences and motion structure are built and combined in absolutely unexpected ways and at the very border of the limits of the human body. Forsythe employs brilliant and effective elements of classical dance, which he imbues with different dynamics, co-ordination, directions, oppositions in the body and deviations from the axis. This gives rise to matchless tension and emotions in the audience. Forsythe’s most celebrated choreographies include In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, The Loss of Small Detail, New Sleep, Steptext, Figure of the Enemy, Firstext, etc.
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