Reflections

Besides team Black Swan vs. team Mao’s Last Dancer, one of the most talked about dance topics of the last few weeks is Reflections, the Bolshoi/Orange County Performing Arts Centre collaboration. A number of Russian dancers are currently in California rehearsing for the project which will premiere early next year. When we spoke to Katya Krysanova last month she was planning to jump from a month-long intensive tour with the Bolshoi straight into it: “It is my holiday time, but you see, we always have to sacrifice something doing ballet. I think it is going to be a very interesting project and very helpful for me as an artist”.

Thanks to the power of social media, those of us not able to attend Reflections in person should have plenty to look forward to. Producer Sergei Danilian tweeted earlier this week that a film about the project is in the making, with focus on “the mystery of the ballerina and the process of creation of new dance”. His production company has a successful track record of dance productions for OCPAC (Kings of Dance, Vishneva’s Beauty in Motion) and the Ardani Artists Management website currently has a section dedicated to “Who is Who” in Reflections: a complete list of the ballerinas, danseurs and choreographers involved which reads like a total dream team.

Clockwise from left: Polina Semionova, Maria Kochetkova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Natalia Osipova, Ekaterina Krysanova. Credits: Enrico Nawrath / Berlin Staatsoper ©, Eric Tomasson / SFB ©, Mikhail Logvinov / Bolshoi Theatre ©, Damir Yusupov / Bolshoi Theatre © and Whitney Browne / NYIBC ©

According to the Bolshoi press department, the idea behind Reflections is to give ballerinas trained at the Moscow Academy of Choreography the opportunity to work with the best contemporary choreographers whose dance styles range from modern to neoclassical. Each dancer will be working with an individual choreographer: Natalia Osipova with Wayne McGregor, Katya Krysanova with Karole Armitage, Olga Malinovskaya with Lucinda Childs, Polina Semionova with Jiří Bubenicek, Maria Kochetkova with Jorma Elo and Yekaterina Shipulina with Aszure Barton.

The program will also include new works by Mauro Bigonzetti, Johan Kobborg and Yuri Possokhov, as well as pieces by Nacho Duato (Remansos), Susan Marshall and George Balanchine (Pas de Trois). Reflections with premiere in Segerstrom Hall (Orange County, CA) January 20 – 23 2011 and at the Bolshoi (Moscow) January 27 – 30. The project will also tour to London during summer 2011.

More on Reflections:

Ballerinas

• Polina Semionova (Berlin Staatsoper Ballet) – Interview for The Ballet Bag
• Yekaterina Krysanova (Bolshoi) – Interview for The Ballet Bag
• Maria Kochetkova (San Francisco Ballet) – Interview for Dance Pulp
• Natalia Osipova (Bolshoi) – Interview for Ballet.co Magazine (Ian Palmer)
• Yekaterina Shipulina (Bolshoi) – Mini feature for Russian TV – Part 1 & Part 2 (in Russian but plenty of performance extracts)
• Olga Malinovskaya (Ballet Estonia) – Biography at Ballet Estonia website

Media

Ardani Artists Management website
Press Release at the Bolshoi official website
Los Angeles Times article
Broadway World article
California Style Mag feature: The Russian Ballerinas are coming (incl. lovely candid shots)

Twitter

Ardani Artists Management – @Ardani
Orange County Performing Arts Centre – @OCPAC