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World Ballet Festival: Tokyo, August 2018


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2 hours ago, now voyager said:

With a roster including 7 of the dancers I cheerfully cross an ocean to see, as well as a number of others I like very much, crossing a continent as well seemed worth doing, especially as I remembered enjoying the last WBF.

Perhaps it was the result of being 3 years older now and even more brutal heat and humidity than usual for August in Tokyo, but both Program A & B had some real longeurs for me.  I've seen so many gala performances in my ballet-going life that I guess I don't derive much pleasure from a less-than-great performance of great, or at least good, choreography.    WBF for me had too much choreography not to my taste (even when performed by dancers I adore), excerpts from ballets that for me do not work well as excerpts and less-than-stellar performances of the usual things one sees at a gala.  There were of course several other pieces I did enjoy, but my absolute highlights from Program A were Alexandrova & Lantratov in Pharaoh's Daughter (how I wish they'd had a performance of the full ballet in Moscow last month!),  Gilbert and Ganio in Manon bedroom pas, Sarafanov in Tarantella and Heymann in DonQ, and from Program B, Novikova in Sleeping Beauty grand pas, Sarah Lamb in Apollo (though I don't even like to see it truncated, let alone excerpted), Badenes and Camargo in Taming of the Shrew, and Alexandrova & Lantratov in the Margot pas from Nureyev.  Just shows how tastes can differ.

 

I agree all the performances you mentioned were superb and I enjoyed them. And I have to agree that some of the performances were less than great, having too much artistic directors and not active dancers included. I think this gala would be more enjoyable if the program was one hour shorter, especially given the severe heat this summer.

 

Today was the final gala and Olesya Novikova in Swan Lake was such a stunner with beautiful lyrical lines. It is a pity she is not coming to the Mariinsky Ballet Japan tour this November-December. Other highlights were Lamb and Gomes in Romeo and Juliet Balcony, Eichwald and Bolle in Petit's Thais, Gilbert and Heymann in Grand Pas Clasique and Ganio and Bolle in Proust, Alexandrova and Lantratov in Laurencia, Ferri and Bonelli in Woolf Works.

Legends Ananiashivili and Lopatkina were in the audience. 

And of course the Funny gala was hilarious and worth the price of the ticket. (you can see glimpses of that in the instagrams of the participating dancers)      

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4 hours ago, Naomi M said:

 

 

 

Today was the final gala and Olesya Novikova in Swan Lake was such a stunner with beautiful lyrical lines. It is a pity she is not coming to the Mariinsky Ballet Japan tour this November-December. Other highlights were Lamb and Gomes in Romeo and Juliet Balcony, Eichwald and Bolle in Petit's Thais, Gilbert and Heymann in Grand Pas Clasique and Ganio and Bolle in Proust, Alexandrova and Lantratov in Laurencia, Ferri and Bonelli in Woolf Works.

Legends Ananiashivili and Lopatkina were in the audience. 

And of course the Funny gala was hilarious and worth the price of the ticket. (you can see glimpses of that in the instagrams of the participating dancers)      

 Thanks, Naomi.  I wish I could have stayed to see the gala!

I saw Novikova's full Swan Lake in Turin in December and thought it was exquisite.

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  • 1 month later...
On 15/08/2018 at 21:40, now voyager said:

... I saw Novikova's full Swan Lake in Turin in December and thought it was exquisite.

 

On 16/08/2018 at 17:58, capybara said:

Novikova - ooooooooooooooooooooooh! :)

 

        At last she danced it at Mariinsky:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8ttFrAz7k
https://youtu.be/GU6uQgg40gE
https://youtu.be/Q7MhksmUvGA
https://youtu.be/Ug_o01IJIAshttps://youtu.be/tY8ttFrAz7k 
https://youtu.be/AzkMQaJ-kh8

 

 

 

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On 04/10/2018 at 13:03, Amelia said:

 

I have to admit I had very mixed feelings watching her "Swan Lake", there were many signs of decay in her balletic craft. Some exquisite nuances here and there between vacuous, disjoint movements (was it a quail running away from a hunter, not a Swan queen?). Odile's variation, crumbling and disintegrating, palms of hands wooden stiff with terribly sticking out fingers, fouettes shaky, finished early, but worst of all, lack of coherent expression throughout.

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  • 3 years later...

It is going to be streamed ….

 

By popular demand from ballet fans in Japan and beyond, the 16th World Ballet Festival held in August 2021 will be available on demand from Monday 20 December 2021 until Monday 10 January 2022. The Festival was held with 24 world-leading dancers from prestigious companies such as the Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, The Stuttgart Ballet, Hamburg Ballet and so on, at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, with theater capacity limits and severe COVID-19 prevention measures. Even before the Festival started, we had heard from many international fans who were unfortunately not able to attend the performances that they would like to see the streaming, so we decided to film the performances.

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4 minutes ago, FionaE said:

It is going to be streamed ….

 

By popular demand from ballet fans in Japan and beyond, the 16th World Ballet Festival held in August 2021 will be available on demand from Monday 20 December 2021 until Monday 10 January 2022. The Festival was held with 24 world-leading dancers from prestigious companies such as the Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, The Stuttgart Ballet, Hamburg Ballet and so on, at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, with theater capacity limits and severe COVID-19 prevention measures. Even before the Festival started, we had heard from many international fans who were unfortunately not able to attend the performances that they would like to see the streaming, so we decided to film the performances.

 

Thank you. Great news

 

'Might want to move this to the World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, August 2021  

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