Press Release: Natalia Osipova's Pure Dance includes return to London

[Jan McNulty]

Friday 28 June 2019

Natalia Osipova 
Pure Dance
Sadler’s Wells, EC1R 4TN
Tuesday 22 - Saturday 26 October 2019
Performances: Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 2:30pm 
Tickets: £15 - £85
Ticket Office: 020 7863 8000 or www.sadlerswells.com
 

Following performances in New York, Lyon and Sydney, and its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells in 2018, Natalia Osipova’s Pure Dance returns from Tuesday 22 - Saturday 26 October 2019.

 

Produced by Sadler’s Wells, and commissioned for the theatre’s 20th anniversary, Pure Dance is a hand-picked programme of dance works exploring both contemporary and classical ballet repertoire rarely seen in the UK.

The eclectic programme includes an original solo for Osipova created by Yuka Oishi, Ave Maria, following Oishi’s win of the Rolf Mares Prize for Outstanding Creation of the Year alongside Orkan Dann in 2012. Special guest, American Ballet Theatre Principal David Hallberg, performs a specially-commissioned solo In Absentia, choreographed by Olivier Award-winner Kim Brandstrup.

Osipova and Hallberg perform two duets over the course of the evening, including a pas de deux from Antony Tudor’s The Leaves Are Fading, one of the last works by the British choreographer; as well as Valse Triste, a new commission by artist in residence at American Ballet Theatre, Alexei Ratmansky.

Dancers Jason Kittelberger and Jonathan Goddard complete the company. Kittelberger, who performed alongside Osipova in her eponymous programme for Sadler’s Wells in 2016, appears in Israeli choreographer Roy Assaf’s Six Years Later – now extended for this year’s programme. Goddard joins Osipova in Flutter, a new work by Rose D'Or and Golden Prague award-winner (for BalletBoyz’ Young Men) Iván Pérez, set to music by Nico Muhly.

 

The return of Pure Dance to Sadler’s Wells follows a busy summer for Osipova. Alongside performing the Pure Dance tour, she appeared in Arthur Pita’s The Motherwith Goddard at Southbank Centre, and a film of her dance career, Force of Nature Natalia, was premiered on 6 June, followed by UK-wide cinema release and broadcast on Sky Arts TV.

 

Osipova comments: “I am thrilled to return to Sadler’s Wells – where it all began – with Pure Dance. Following its international tour, the show has grown and expanded, with the dancing elevated to new heights. It will be particularly exciting to perform a newly extended version of Roy Assaf’s Six Years Later, which explores an encounter between two people following six years of separation.”

A Sadler’s Wells Production

Co-produced with New York City Center

The Monument Trust supports new commissions at Sadler’s Wells  
 

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Sadler’s Wells

Sadler’s Wells is a world-leading creative organisation dedicated to dance in all its forms. With over three centuries of theatrical heritage and a year-round programme of performances and learning activities, it is the place where artists come together to create dance, and where people of all backgrounds come to experience it – to take part, learn, experiment and be inspired. 

 

Its vision is to reflect and respond to the world through dance: enabling artists of all backgrounds to create dance that moves us and opens our minds, and sharing those experiences with the widest possible audiences – to enrich their lives and deepen their understanding of what it means to be human.

 

Audiences of over half a million come to Sadler’s Wells’ three London theatres each year, with many more enjoying its touring productions at venues across the UK and around the world, and accessing its content through digital channels. Sadler's Wells commissions, produces and presents more dance than any other theatre in the world, embracing the popular and the unknown. Since 2005, it has helped to bring over 170 new dance works to the stage, many of them involving its 16 Associate Artists, three Resident Companies and four Associate Companies – the most exciting talents working in dance today. 

 

Sadler’s Wells nurtures the next generation of talent through a number of artist development initiatives and reaches over 30,000 annually through its learning and engagement programmes.

 

Located in Islington, north London, Sadler’s Wells’ current building is the sixth to have stood on site since entrepreneur Richard Sadler first established the theatre in 1683. The venue has played an illustrious role in the history of theatre ever since, with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Opera having all started at Sadler's Wells.

Sadler’s Wells is to open an additional mid-scale venue in east London in 2022. The new space will be at the heart of the East Bank project, a new cultural and education district in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, which will also include BBC, UAL’s London College of Fashion, UCL and the V&A in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. As well as a 550-seat auditorium, Sadler’s Wells’ new venue will include a choreographic centre and a hip hop theatre academy, the first of their kind in the world to be run by a theatre.

www.sadlerswells.com

About Natalia Osipova

Natalia Osipova is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She joined the company as a Principal in autumn 2013, after appearing as a Guest Artist the previous season as Odette/Odile (Swan Lake) with Carlos Acosta. Her roles with the company include Giselle, Kitri (Don Quixote), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Lise (La Fille mal gardée), Titania (The Dream), Juliet, Tatiana (Onegin), Manon, Natalia Petrovna (A Month in the Country) and roles in Serenade, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse and Tchaikovsky Pas de deux. She has originated roles in Wayne McGregor’s Tetractys and Woolf Works and Alastair Marriott’s Connectome.

 

 

From 1995 to 2004 she trained at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography and on graduating entered the corps of the Bolshoi Ballet, where she was promoted to principal in 2010. In 2011 she left the Bolshoi to join the Mikhailovsky Ballet as a Principal.

 

Osipova’s awards include Golden Masks for her performances in Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room (2008) and La Sylphide (2009), Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards (Best Female Dancer, 2007 and 2010) and a Benois de la Danse Award 

[Jeannette]

I'll be in London on business a week from now. Is this show recommended?

 

I'm definitely going to the mixed bill at the ROH but was wondering whether or not to tack-on this show.

[maryrosesatonapin]

24 minutes ago, Jeannette said:

I'll be in London on business a week from now. Is this show recommended?

 

I'm definitely going to the mixed bill at the ROH but was wondering whether or not to tack-on this show.

To help  you make up your mind, here is a review of her similar but not identical programme:
http://seenandheard-international.com/2018/09/in-pure-dance-osipova-can-seem-to-be-speaking-a-language-not-her-own/

 

I'm going as there are some great dancers, choreographers and (recorded?) music - but I don't expect to enjoy every minute of it.  It depends on your taste.

[Lizbie1]

There's a thread about last year's show, which was nearly identical in content I think, here.

 

 

[Jeannette]

Very helpful! Thank you, maryrose and Lizbie.

[Amelia]

The first interview in English: https://youtu.be/1JHScgksPvc 

[bridiem]

7 minutes ago, Amelia said:

The first interview in English: https://youtu.be/1JHScgksPvc 

 

What a lovely interview! Very funny that she considers preparing her shoes the hardest part of her job (not doing 32 fouettés, or dealing with injury or pain, or a million other things I might have expected her to say).