Ballet under the heading "UD." The All-Russian Competition for Young Performers "Russian Ballet" ended at the Bolshoi Theater Competition at the Bolshoi Theater
Anyone who saw the first round screenings, to the best of their own exactingness, can decipher the neckline in the title both as “satisfactory” and as “depressing”. Any assessment of the general level of the passing ballet review will be fair. A solid four does not allow to put a fairly significant number of contestants without a bright personality and with elementary school gaps.
The coveted GRAN PRIX is unlikely to find an owner again. Unless, of course, a miracle happens, and someone, having overcome the debut excitement, will be able to conquer the jury with a brilliant dance technique, artistry and ... an attractive appearance (this is also a problem). So far, no one has even come close to the four winners of the main prize - Irek Mukhamedov, Andrey Batalov, Denis Matvienko and the first grand dame. Already at their first appearance on stage, the audience was breathless. It was not clear how, for example, a real ballerina chic appeared in this fragile bird girl Nadia from Perm? Where did the culture of her amazing huge step in ““ come from, which other ballerinas later transformed from academic ecarte to dashing leg tearing?
If at the second competition the success of a pupil of a provincial ballet school seemed to be an accidental exception, today the entire geography of the country is on the map of the review: Voronezh, Izhevsk, Yoshkar-Ola, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Perm, Syktyvkar, Ufa, Yakutsk and Moscow with St.- Petersburg. Not all participants will make it to the final, but the very arrival of envoys from remote regions is a visible evidence of the unprecedented popularity of the art of ballet in Russia.
This happens all over the world, as evidenced by participants in more than twenty countries, including those where ballet was not a priority. national culture. Therefore, rather interesting representatives of Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan can be called a revelation of the competition. Strong and numerous landings of participants arrived from Brazil and China, Japan and South Korea.
True, the emergence of numerous new ballet schools has created problems with quality education. First, not all teachers have the proper level of training. Secondly, most studio schools exist wholly or partly on private funds, and then the conditions are set by the students. The children wanted to dance Esmeralda, Kitri or Basil with Actaeon - the teacher agrees, and the mother pays. Takes aback, observing at the competition a clear discrepancy between the selected variations with the physical data of the performer and the degree of his mastery of technique.
However, no one is particularly ceremonious with technology, the freedom of replacement is amazing. And when you see three consecutive variations of Svanilda from “Coppelia” staged by A. Gorsky, but completely different in choreography, you understand great wisdom Medici.tv will start live broadcasting of the contest only from the second round. Otherwise, you can completely confuse both viewers and professionals, and, most importantly, you yourself will unwittingly become a propagandist of bad samples. classical ballet and bad taste.
There were a lot of rather weak, “C grade” participants in the first round both in the morning, when the younger ones competed (from 14 to 19 years old), and in the evening, where the older ones competed (from 19 to 27 years old). Although the division took place according to passport data, everything was mixed up on stage. Failures should not be attributed to natural excitement, an unusually sloping stage or floor covering: everyone was on an equal footing. And the one who had not so much stronger nerves as a better school performed better. And a lot of people have problems with it.
It is assumed that the main task of young artists of the younger group is to show the correct, “school” performance: the purity of movements, correct form, musicality, coupled with which a sense of style and artistry can manifest itself. Often something else prevailed - unworked feet, raised shoulders, “dirt” in small parterre technique, not to mention broken pirouettes and jumps without flying.
At senior group there is another noticeable problem. Many artists tried to overcome the shortcomings of the school base with spectacular stunts, among which were unthinkable revoltade-shifters in countless “Flames of Paris”, a clear calculation for external impression, excessive exaltation of each movement. Asians stood out especially, who uncompromisingly, in the spirit of martial arts stepped into the realm of classical ballet. As a result, I wanted to see beauty and spirituality on the stage, but instead a whole string of clumsy low bobbleheads similar to each other - spinners and jumpers passed. As if they are not ballet dancers, but circus performers in the arena. True, in the circus they do everything cleaner, jump higher and spin faster.
The result is natural: out of 127 participants, less than half made it to the second round, and only. 62 artists will continue to fight for medals.
Like any other, this competition is a mixture of explosive emotions. Even sport, with its obviousness of electronic scoreboards, gives rise to discrepancies, and even the art of dance, with its ephemeral and rigid adhesion of technique and artistry, is all the more a field for controversy. But it's too late to wave your fists: yesterday historical scene Bolshoi Theater international jury led by the Russian ballet icon Yuri Grigorovich announced the list of winners. They say they are not judged. And it is necessary and even useful to discuss the trends of the competition - the next one, if the situation is favorable, will happen in four years, during which time a lot can be improved in the kingdom.
The festival, which has been living since 1969, is almost ten years younger than its counterparts, the MIFF and the Tchaikovsky Competition, and although the motives for their creation were similar, the hosts at the ballet always had a lot to be proud of. The ballet competition was advanced: in 1969, the jury recognized the best luxurious couple from the Grand Opera Francesca Zumbo-Patrice Barthes, and the great Plisetskaya publicly said that there is sex in ballet. IN modern times The competition has largely lost its prestige, and the organizers of the current one restored it in a radical way, dropping 200 thousand dollars to two Grand Prix. Yes, and the dates helped: the chairman of the jury, Yuri Grigorovich, reached the milestone of 90 years, and the competition itself became the start of the official "Year of the Russian Ballet and the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa."
What is usual in the competition: young and not very artists dance either dashingly or accurately. There are, to put it mildly, problems with musicality (I don’t know which of the contestants will cope with Stravinsky in the near future) and with long breathing, which allows you to smoothly carry out the performance from beginning to end. About the cantilena of the dance, when the participant is dancing, and not gluing the gap between profitable steps, everything is also sad. But there is good news: at the end of this year junior group turned out to be much more interesting than the older one, which means that with the "Y generation" ballet theater will be interesting, and the digital revolution is not a hindrance.
The main trend is not new, for thirty years it has only been gaining momentum - among the applicants, the majority are dancers from Asia - China, Japan, South Korea and Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that have joined them. In spite of crying about the lack of men in the ballet at the current competition, there are many soloists, the podium in the male solo dance was taken by Marat Sydykov (Kyrgyzstan, 3rd place), Ma Miaoyuan (China, 2nd place), Baktiyar Adamzhan (Kazakhstan, 1st place). The ladies have the same solo hierarchy Lilia Zainigabdinova (Russia, 3rd place) and Evelina Godunova (1st place, Latvia), they decided not to award the second prize. The duet for men, in general, not too gallant, was a success for Wang Janfeng (China, 3rd place), Okawa Koya (Japan, 1st place) and the artist Mariinsky Theater Ernest Latypova (2 methods), his partner from the same Mariinsky Theater, neat Ekaterina Chebykina, received only a diploma - like the American Joy Womack from the Kremlin Ballet, who became famous for exposing the behind-the-scenes life. For women in duets, the third prize was shared by a Japanese and a Chinese woman, the first was not awarded, and the second prize will be taken to Kazan by the explosive Brazilian dancer Amanda Morales Gomez, who dances in the local theater. At the competition of choreographers, the landscape is monotonous: the second place was shared by the Russians Nina Madan and the tireless Andrey Merkuriev, the third and one of the first authors from China, the only memorable choreographer, the Chilean with the endless name Zuniga Jimenez Eduardo Andres, became another first.
At the end of this year, the younger group turned out to be more interesting than the older one.
Junior age group, quivering ballet people from 14 to 18 years old, pleased more. Ivan Sorokin, a native of the city of Syktyvkar and a student of an inconspicuous gymnasium there, has become a common favorite, for whom, according to rumors, the battle of prestigious ballet schools is already going on behind the scenes - everyone wants to finish his education and bring him to the theater under his own brand. Another favorite, on the contrary, supports the honor of the Moscow School - this is the young handsome man Denis Zakharov, learned with all care (first prize in a duet). Russian Liza Kokoreva and Korean Pak Sunmi shared the first place, the jury did not award the second prize. The third place was taken by Ekaterina Klyavlina. . Their peers in solo - the American Elisabeth Beyer, who won the first place, the Chinese Siyi Li and the embodied accuracy and tenderness of Subin Lee from South Korea, make you think that with all the competitive distortions in the podiums, there is both logic and justice.
Winners of different years
The Moscow competition glorified such stars as Francesca Zumbo and Patrice Barth, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Eva Evdokimova, Lyudmila Semenyaka and Alexander Godunov, Loipa Araujo and Vladimir Derevyanko, Nina Ananiashvili, Vladimir Malakhov, Maria Alexandrova, Alina Cojocaru, Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev and others . The change of generations in ballet is fast, and several winners of the competition managed to become members of the jury: Vadim Pisarev, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Julio Bocca.
origins
The origins of the Moscow ballet competition were the legends of Russian ballet Galina Ulanova, Igor Moiseev, Olga Lepeshinskaya. In 1973, the competition was headed by Yuri Grigorovich, who to this day, at the age of 90, remains the chairman of the jury. Member of the jury in different years included Marina Semenova, Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya, Vladimir Vasiliev. As well as representatives of the ballet elite of the world - legends french school Yvette Chauvire, Claude Bessy, Charles Jude, Alicia Alonso (Cuba), Birgit Kulberg (Sweden), authoritative critics Arnold Haskell (Great Britain) and Allan Fridericia (Denmark).
