An Interview with Igor Kolb

Igor Kolb. Source: Mariinsky.ru Copyright Mariinsky Theatre ©.

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook or if you have been reading our posts here you will know that, ballet-wise, the past two weeks have been “all about the Mariinsky in London”, their stylish dancing and the impressive array of performers they have fielded to wow us in the classics Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet and in sexy Balanchine.

We were particularly impressed with the very charismatic Igor Kolb, a 32 year old principal dancer, now in his 13th season with the Mariinsky. Igor’s artistry is remarkable, he’s blessed with an expressive handsome face, strong dramatic skills, effortless and fluid dancing and a beautiful line. His naturalistic Romeo left us at the edge of our seats and dying to know where all this dramatic juice comes from. We were delighted when he agreed to spare a few minutes between rehearsals to talk to us:

How do you cope with the mix of different roles on tour?

IK: It’s very interesting for me to dance a mix of roles on tour because they are all different roles from different eras. If I were to do Swan Lake every day it would be in some respects easier but psychologically, just impossible. Having said that, as a dancer you always want to make something more interesting out of the same role, even when you’ve danced it for a long time.

How long have you been with the Mariinsky and when did you become a principal dancer?

IK: This is my 13th season with the company. I started dancing principal roles very early, Prince Désiré from “The Sleeping Beauty”, the central adagio in Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony, and the poet in Chopiniana [Les Sylphides] so in a way the appointment to principal a few years later was a mere formality as I was already dancing all these big roles from the start.

You began your career dancing in the classics but how have you matured into a more dramatic dancer – the critic Jeffery Taylor said last week your Romeo was “heart-piercing” – lately?

IK: I really like the theatre, I go when I can in St. Petersburg, old plays new productions, I go see them all. I also like cinema and literature too [Igor is currently reading Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov]. Maybe it’s because I am a bit older now but I refused to dance Romeo initially. I had Zeffirelli’s Romeo in my mind’s eye and in this film there is a pretty girl and a pretty boy [Leonard Whiting]. I used to look at myself in the mirror and did not feel I was like that at all, the movie is like a beautiful fairy tale and I was definitely not like the boy in that film!

But then there was the [Baz Luhrmann] more recent version with Leonardo DiCaprio and I did not like him in the role. I started to compare both versions and that’s when I began to think maybe I could tackle the role. I understood that I just had to be myself, that I should behave as if I would behave in that situation. I am not as naïve as the boy in the first film, naivety is such a difficult thing to show on stage. For me it’s the tragic side that comes more naturally and I want people to believe in me. If you go onstage and you are not convincing then people can feel it, and as a dancer you can feel when the audience does not believe you, it shows in their reaction, in the atmosphere. Here I felt people were looking forward to seeing me as Romeo, as the London audience knows me already.

What are your favorite roles & your dream roles?

IK: I like everything that I do in the Mariinsky repertoire, I am very lucky because I haven’t had to dance things I don’t enjoy! Of course there have been roles that I have tried and did not like as much but then the Company is ok if I don’t want to revisit those.

Outside the Mariinsky repertoire there are very many dream roles, of course. I would like very much to work with Mats Ek’s wife, Ana Laguna. She came to see me perform as Romeo and I was so glad as I greatly admire the Ek piece she has danced with Baryshnikov. Other than Ana and Mats Ek, I would love to work with Jiří Kylián.

How about MacMillan roles?

IK: Yes, very much. Manon for instance is one of two ballets I only danced once in my life  [the other being Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony which the Mariinsky is set to perform again next season]. I debuted as Des Grieux at the Bolshoi theatre just as the Mariinsky’s performance rights for this ballet were expiring so that was a double tragedy for me, onstage and backstage, as I knew I could not do it again!

Igor Kolb in Swan Lake. Photo: Gene Schiavone ©. Source: geneschiavone.com

Do you think there is a right balance at the moment between old and modern repertoire at the Mariinsky?

IK: I think the old repertoire, ie. Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, are like the calling cards of the Mariinsky theatre, they are the face of the theatre and that tradition should not change even though there might be other versions in other companies. It’s our tradition, like tea in London. When you look at Balanchine for instance, all companies around the world are expected to dance his works in exactly the same way as the NYCB. I think it’s fine if done in small chunks but if overly done it feels like everyone out there is eating the same dish over and over again.

How important is it to have new works created for the company?

IK: We’d like someone in demand like Christopher Wheeldon for example to come over to create new work for the company, original pieces of work tailor-made for us. I think that in England it’s very good that the Royal Ballet uses the smaller theatre, the Linbury studio to get new work tried and tested. There’s also a similar project at the Wiener-Staatsoper, you see lots of different choreographers, see what you want to do, try different things out. Over in St. Petersburg we don’t have anything like that or like choreographic workshops.

When Marc Haegeman interviewed you a few years ago you mentioned having auditioned for the Mariinsky 6 times within 6 months, what is about this particular company that made you perseve?

IK: I studied ballet in Minsk and was not planning to go anywhere then as I liked the city and because it’s my country [Belarus]. Then I was invited to take part in the Vaganova Prix in St. Petersburg [where Igor took third prize], after which I understood that if I wanted to do something serious in ballet I ought to leave Minsk. As a result of the competition I was also asked to consider joining the Royal Ballet so everything could have turned out very differently! But I wanted to be close to home and to me the Mariinsky seemed like the top.

Speaking of the Royal Ballet, you danced Swan Lake with Tamara Rojo last year, how did you find dancing with her?

IK: It wasn’t difficult for us to dance together. Right from the first rehearsal we understood each other immediately, so it was in a sense, very easy for us and we danced together again last April in Tokyo, we did Roland Petit’s Proust (“Proust ou Les Intermittences du Coeur”) as part of the “Roland Petit Gala”. There might also be future opportunities to dance with Tamara again.

Tell us about Tokyo!

IK: I adore Tokyo, it’s my favourite city, along with London and St. Petersburg. I had a gala there ealier this year, Igor Kolb & Friends, where I danced Christian Spuck’s spoof “Le Grand Pas de Deux”, [Ukranian choreographer] Radu Poklitaru’s “Two on a Swing” a one act ballet he created for me and longtime Mariinsky principal Yulia Makhalina, as well as some more Roland Petit.

And the Japanese fans?

IK: I am so grateful to them, they spoil me when I am in Japan, they keep sending huge boxes of food, coffee, tea, sugar, everything, to the hotel, but lovely messages too. I always make a point of writing back to thank them, it’s pleasant that people take the time and it’s nice to feel that people appreciate me as a dancer, that they appreciate what I am doing as an artist. In Japan and England fans are really polite, very gentle. There was this lady over here, a long time ballet regular from Oxford, who knitted two matching vests with the initials IK, one for me, and the other for [soloist] Ilya Kuznetsov.

It’s a sharp contrast to St. Petersburg, the most difficult place to dance, the coldest public. It’s not just my opinion but people who work in the theatre generally feel that the public has changed, become more jaded. The tickets are now very expensive and it does not seem to draw the real enthusiasts anymore, they have been driven away, the theatre may be full but it’s now a very different crowd.

What’s in your Ballet Bag?

IK: When I came into the Mariinsky 13 years ago I did not even have a bag, only a towel, I was so badly off! But now I do have one and I carry around some knee tape, towels, a stock of fresh t-shirts and some foot rollers, plus any goodies that people give me!

With a big Спасибо/Spasibo to Igor from two appreciative and admiring Bag Ladies & kudos to Alice Lagnado for her impressive simultaneous translation skills!

Igor Kolb in a Nutshell:

He was born in Pinsk, Belarus (then Belorussia) in 1977 and started dancing at age 13. He attended the Belorussia State Ballet School in Minsk where he trained with Alexander Kolidenko & Vera Shveisova, and graduated as part of the 1996 class. During his final years at school, he was already dancing for the company in Minsk and under the tutelage of Kolidenko, he participated in the 1995 Vaganova Prix, where he won the third prize.

The prize brought him some deserved attention and motivated him to audition for the Mariinsky. It took him several attempts to obtain a contract, which he finally did just as he was graduating.

Arriving in St. Peterburg, Igor worked with Yuri Fateyev (though his current coach is Gennadi Selyutski) who helped him adapt his skills to the company’s style. Soon he was seen in principal roles, making his debut as Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty in June 1997, as Swan Lake’s Siegfried in 2000 and as Solor in Vikharev‘s reconstruction of Petipa’s La Bayadère in 2002. In 2003 he was promoted to Principal Dancer.

Igor is known for his impeccable classical style and admits feeling closer to the company’s classical repertory (Albrecht in Giselle, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty, Siegfried in Swan Lake, etc.). He was filmed in Fokine‘s Spectre de la Rose, which is available as part of the DVD The Kirov Celebrates Nijinsky (Arthaus-Musik 2004).

He does not have a regular partner at the Mariinsky, having danced throughout his career with Diana Vishneva, Svetlana Zakharova, Sofia Gumerova, Daria Pavlenko, Zhanna Ayupova. Some of his more recent partners include Alina Somova, Ekaterina Kondaurova, Yevgenia Obraztsova and Irina Golub.

Videos

• Igor dances Solor’s Variation in La Bayadère (Vikharev’s Reconstruction) [link]
• As the “poet” in Chopiniana, partnering Svetlana Zakharova [link]
• Igor Kolb and Diana Vishneva in the Paquita Grand Pas. Links to parts [1] and [2]
• As Romeo in Lavrovsky’s version of Romeo & Juliet. With Yevgenia Obraztsova. Links to parts [1] and [2].
• Igor Kolb and Ulyana Lopatkina, perform in Christian Spuck’s “Le Grand Pas de Deux” [link]
• Igor Kolb and Zhanna Ayupova in Fokine‘s Le Spectre de la Rose [link]
• As Siegfried in Swan Lake, partnering Royal Ballet Principal Tamara Rojo [link]
• As Albrecht, in Giselle, partnering Alina Somova. Links to parts [1] and [2].

Extract of Reviews and Praise:

Of his Solor in Vikharev’s reconstructed La Bayadère (Covent Garden, 2003)

They were, however, having to follow the superb act of Kolb. His huge jump and flaring line are pure Kirov, but it’s his unusual modesty that clinches his power. Kolb’s technical feats look all the more amazing because he never tries to juice up the audience before he whirls into action or hog the applause when he has finished. Judith Mackrell at The Guardian [link]

Kolb is an immensely appealing Solor, a honey of a warrior who declares his undying love for Nikiya yet falls under the spell of Gamzatti, the Rajah’s beautiful, scheming daughter. So appealing, in fact, that you almost forgive him. His dancing, meanwhile, is splendidly realised, strong and flexible. Debra Craine at The Times [link]

Of his Prince in Ratmansky’s Cinderella (Kennedy Center, 2005)

Kolb’s dancing is strong, clear, pure to the point where it might provide textbook illustration, and yet informed with grace.  He does a dutiful job of creating a character, but you can tell that his real raison d’être is to display the abstract beauty of classical dancing, step by step. Tobi Tobias at ArtsJournal [link]

Of his role in Ballet Imperial (Covent Garden 2005)

Ballet Imperial, which closed their Balanchine triple bill, looks back to Imperial Russia, its grand sweeping contours matching the massive chords of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2. It demands huge and virtuoso dancing, which of course the Kirov delivers, led by Igor Kolb, who has perfect lines, amplitude, power – perfect everything. Nadine Meisner at The Independent [link]

Of his role in Steptext (Forsythe Programme, Sadler’s Wells 2008)

Steptext, a quartet, sets out Forsythe’s stall. Here is the essence of his drastic style: the provocative blend of nonchalance and intense commitment in the moves; the impatience with the strict rules of classical technique; the annoying eccentricity in presentation (switching lights on and off, playing games with Bach). Igor Kolb brought muscular grace to his dancing, while Ekaterina Kondaurova brought assertive glamour to hers. Debra Craine at The Times [link]

Of his Romeo (Romeo & Juliet, Covent Garden, 2009)

…the evening’s saviour is Igor Kolb’s Romeo. His performance is passionate and breathlessly enthusiastic; Kolb just dances the steps as Prokofiev’s music tells him to and pierces all our hearts. Jeffery Taylor at The Daily Express [link]

Sources and Further Information

1. Biography written by Marc Haegeman, Igor Kolb’s Official Website [link]
2. An Interview with Igor Kolb, by Marc Haegeman. First published in Dance International, Fall 2003 and reproduced at For Ballet Lovers Only. December 2002 [link]
3. Wikipedia Entry for Igor Kolb [link]
4. Interview with Igor Kolb by Cassandra, at Critical Dance. August 2003 [link]
5. Danila Korsuntsev and Igor Kolb. Kirov Stars. Interview by Kevin Ng. Ballet.co Magazine, December 2000. [link]