Sergei Polunin - current dance and other projects

[FionaM]

Sergei will be on Sky Arts new ‘Play in a Day’ programme starting tomorrow, Tuesday 28th December 2021 at 9.30pm

 

It features Sergei Polunin and 2 young dance graduates Leigh Shaked (Arts Ed and Laine Theatre Arts) and Kamal Singh (ENBS) creating a new dance production in a day.

 

From Sergei’s IG:

“ Had great pleasure to take part in #SkyArts show "Play in a Day” — to join @k_kweiarmah and meet very talented young student dancers @leighshakedand @kamalsingh_art helping them to create and stage a new production in just 24 hours. 

Watch "Play in a Day" tomorrow at 9:30PM on @skytv “

 

Click through to his kIG post & story for some super images

https://www.instagram.com/poluninink/p/CX_Q8elqs5q/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

[Amelia]

 

Tuesday 28 December, 

Ch4 9 pm — Sergei Polunin in "Murder on the Orient Express"

[FionaM]

15 hours ago, Amelia said:

 

Tuesday 28 December, 

Ch4 9 pm — Sergei Polunin in "Murder on the Orient Express"

thank you for this alert!

 

And at the same time as Sergei Polunin creating dance with 2 young graduates on Sky Arts new programme ‘Play in a Day’ 

Tuesday 28 November 2021

9.30pm

 

Trailer …  aka ‘Love letter to graduates’ … by producer Kwame Kwei-Armah (who is also artistic director of Young Vic) 

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CYB_wqpBPK5/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

[FionaM]

A montage of most of Sergei’s dancing projects in 2021 … clips taken from his YouTube or public news channels.

 

Obviously most performances were solos due to the pandemic and complications with group rehearsals and travel.  Nevertheless he managed to perform on stage to live audiences 30 times (by my count), some 10 of which involved other dancers … Rasputin, R&J, Nutcracker, Sky Arts’ Endlessness, SACRÉ with Paradox.  
 

And then there were other projects not in this montage … dance music videos, fashion shoots, movies & film festival appearances, TV judging, interviews, masterclasses, events marketing his book publication, … and no doubt other things we are not told about yet.  And on top, managing all this.  Plus the extra work of the many cancellations and postponements of shows.  He’s a busy man.  
 

There were a number of opportunities to see Sergei in UK during 2021:

- September: interview and book signing at Wimbledon Bookfestival 

- October: Dance & Conversation event at the Palladium.  Performances of Bolero, Paradiso and TMTC.

- October: Sky Arts ‘Play in a Day’ recording at Alexandra Palace (this was free!)

- November: on TV as a sitter in ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’

- December: Johan Kobborg’s R&J with Alina Cojocaru at the Royal Albert Hall

- December: on TV in the making of ‘A Play in a Day’
 

 

[FionaM]

Dancer … the documentary about Sergei’s life to age 26 is now on Netflix UK

 

https://www.netflix.com/title/80105465?s=i&trkid=13747225

 

The follow-up … Dancer 2 … is in production with Dutch director Anton Corbijn, who is famous for gritty photography and music videos  … Johnny Cash, Depeche Mode, U2.   Movies he has directed include The American (George Clooney), A Most Wanted Man (John Le Carre story), Life (about James Dean).   

[FionaM]

News that the Sevastopol Ballet Academy’s production of Nutcracker will be touring to Sochi in March for 3 performances with Sergei and Zhanna Gubanova (Stanislavsky leading soloist) in the lead roles. 

https://www.instagram.com/sevastopolballetacademy/p/CZOqMHwrNsu

Edited January 28, 2022 by FionaE
Correction to leading soloist … higher rank than first soloist

[Vanartus]

…has he made any statement yet?

[Angela]

 

This is from December 2018, he deleted the Instagram account later. What do you expect now?

 

[Vanartus]

An update on his position 

[Jan McNulty]

He doesn't seem to be in IG or Twitter.

 

You could always ask him - I am sure there will be a contact button on his website.

[Angela]

26 minutes ago, Vanartus said:

An update on his position 

 

I'm sorry, Vanartus, of course I know what you mean. Mine was a rhetorical question. I don't think someone who sees a tattooed picture of Putin every morning when he looks in his bathroom mirror will change his views about him.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Angela
typo

[bridiem]

2 minutes ago, Angela said:

 

I'm sorry, Vanartus, of course I know what you mean. Mine was a rhetorical question. I don't think someone who sees a tattooed picture of Putin every morning when he looks in his bathroom mirror will change his views about him.

 

I understood that he was having all his tattoos removed.

[FionaM]

This video uploaded earlier today explains … all his tattoos are being removed.  Procedures started during pandemic 2020.

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2022 by FionaE
Grammar

[Angela]

I still see Mr. Putin, this is from January 2022:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZEgEZCqxzE/

[AnticaFiamma]

8 minutes ago, Angela said:

I still see Mr. Putin, this is from January 2022:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZEgEZCqxzE/

Realistically removing all that ink will take years. Still, the removal is for aesthetic reasons not political 

[FionaM]

Re demanding ‘a statement’ …

I’ve no idea what he could say now that would not be criticised for being phoney, hypocritical, … ?  

 

I’m guessing Sergei’s in a lot of pain … his whole world has fallen apart.  I assume the many European performances this year will be pulled or at least postponed by the theatres.  
 

His father and grandmothers were (are?) in Kherson which is now surrounded or occupied.  His partner and children are Russian. Second baby due around now, or already born.  His own mother is with him I believe, but her partner is in Kyiv.  I’ve no idea where any of them are right now.  Or if they are safe. 
 

Sergei himself was barred from entering Ukraine some years ago (along with other Russian/Ukrainian dancers) because they were called to perform for Putin in Crimea.  At that time he was therefore stateless.  (Shades of being kicked out of UK  as his visa expired within 2 weeks of leaving the RB … after 9 years living, studying and working here.  That was not handled well.) 

 

Shortly afterwards Serbia gave Sergei (and Ralph Fiennes) Serbian citizenship for making The White Crow movie about Nureyev there.  Later he was also given Russian citizenship.  
 

if Putin loses this war somehow, then Crimea will be under negotiation and Sergei could well lose his rectorship of the school there and his directorship of the new theatre.  This will be heartbreaking, as he has put so much effort into the school, teachers, children, sponsorship, everyone and everything there … they all adore him.  
 

However this ends, Sergei loses. 
 

He has even persuaded the ministry of culture to build accommodation blocks in the new Sevastopol school so that families do not have to be split up when their pupils come to train there.  He knows from personal experience how mentally and emotionally damaging this is.  He did not see anyone from his own family for 5 years whilst at the RB School from age 13 to 17.  Imagine not going home at any holiday period for that long and at that age.  What were the RBS thinking?  
 

People who should know better were deceived by Putin, and I guess Sergei was too.  Plus Sergei is naive politically IMO.  He may think he is not, but anyone taking a job in Crimea?  I guess the Russian state machine was convincing about Crimea being a permanent acquisition.  We can hardly blame him for believing them.  
 

He’s in an unenviable position.  I hope he has strong people supporting him.  And some options for the future.  At the moment it is looking only bleak.  

 

[FionaM]

8 minutes ago, AnticaFiamma said:

Realistically removing all that ink will take years. Still, the removal is for aesthetic reasons not political 

exactly … 15 sessions and the Joker and Igor Zelensky on his shoulders, plus some of the other tattoos are substantially faded.  He’s got years of painful removal sessions yet.  
 

And he is very well aware of the damage that tattoo has done to himself and to his collaborators, as voiced in the video and other interviews.  Many projects have been cancelled … and that was before this war and the pandemic.  
 

Although he’d pretty much destroyed himself with that tattoo, he was rebuilding and there have been many interesting projects and performances since.  Now? Who knows.

[Lizbie1]

12 minutes ago, FionaE said:

People who should know better were deceived by Putin, and I guess Sergei was too.  Plus Sergei is naive politically IMO.  He may think he is not, but anyone taking a job in Crimea?  I guess the Russian state machine was convincing about Crimea being a permanent acquisition.  We can hardly blame him for believing them.  

 

That is a very odd way of excusing him - Russia's "acquisition" by military force of Crimea was contested then and remains so now. It has never been uncontroversial and remains unrecognised by many countries. An ethnically-Russian Ukrainian with family still in Ukraine has no excuse for not knowing this.

 

I'm uncomfortable with some of the things I've read here about Russian artists needing to make their views known and a large part of that is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But there are some who have made no secret of their support for Putin and his previous actions in Ukraine (Gergiev, Netrebko and Zakharova are others) and they have some explaining to do if they hope to hang on to their careers in the West.

[Angela]

19 minutes ago, FionaE said:

We can hardly blame him for believing them.  

 

Anyone taking a job in Crimea recently occupied by the Russians is making a statement, I think.

 

[FionaM]

13 minutes ago, Angela said:

 

Anyone taking a job in Crimea recently occupied by the Russians is making a statement, I think.

 

Not necessarily within the Russian perspective as Crimea has been on/off part of Russia for centuries … see Catherine the Great.   I’ve been corrected myself a number of times about this by Russians.  We have a western perspective only.  
 

Of course re-taking it by force is never acceptable.  

Edited March 1, 2022 by FionaE
Add sentence

[Lizbie1]

9 minutes ago, FionaE said:

Not necessarily within the Russian perspective as Crimea has been on/off part of Russia for centuries … see Catherine the Great.   I’ve been corrected myself a number of times about this by Russians.  We have a western perspective only.  

 

And they have a Russian perspective only.

 

If you believe that the annexation of Crimea was wholeheartedly welcomed by its occupants, I have a bridge to sell you.

[FionaM]

🤣

[Scheherezade]

9 hours ago, FionaE said:

However this ends, Sergei loses.

You might find, Fiona, that there are those who may view your championing of Sergei as somewhat disingenuous, if not a little over-invested. 
Whilst I fully support your right to state your views, and although it does seem, from what you say, that he has done some good works, I do feel that our sympathies in this terrible war should lie with those who, through no choice of their own, have lost their loved ones, their homes, everything that they have ever known and cherished. As far as I am aware, this is not true of Sergei. 

[FLOSS]

I am sorry I know that this is a site for the discussion of all things ballet but I refuse to see the fall out from invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of a single dancer however talented he may be. I am sure that the whole situation is pretty awful for Polunin but so it is for thousands , if not millions of unnamed Ukrainians who are suffering the same uncertainties and fears for friends and families with the additional threat of immediate physical injury and an uncertain future.

 

As far as I am aware Polunin is nowhere near the war zone and not under immediate physical threat himself. If he were to lose his position in Crimea it would be a professional setback. It would not be a career ending event would it? I am pretty sure that he will be able to pursue a very satisfactory career in Russia whoever is in charge there and whatever the eventual outcome of current events. If, in the future, he is not as welcome in the West as he once was that will be entirely as a result of the decisions he has made as to where his allegiances lie. We read a great deal of criticism of the way in which dancers were , and to some extent still are, treated more like children than adults when it comes to career choices. Perhaps we should treat Polunin as an adult in this? He  decided quite early on that he wanted to take charge of his career. A little later on he decided where his political loyalties lay and chose, of his own free will, to give his allegiance pictorial form,other major artists merely chose to be vociferous in their support for the present Russian regime.

 

The problem is that in Russia now, as in the past, there is no real dividing line between the world of politics and the world of the private citizen. If someone is put in charge of a state institution or given a prestigious state award it is safe to assume that at the very least the recipient's face fits politically, until the contrary is proved. It is wilfully naive to see a man like Gergiev as a mere private citizen who happens to be a gifted musician when it comes to his post at the Marinsky. The politics may not interest many of us but that does not mean that they do not exist or that support of the regime is not an essential element in most of the arts appointments made there.

[FionaM]

As far as I am aware his father and grandmothers, his first ballet teacher and classmates and presumably friends of his parents are all in Kherson which we hear is taken over by Russians.  

 

Sergei is in unenviable position… he did not start this war.  

 

This thread was meant to be about his projects only.   I did not start the discussion about whether he could, or should make a statement.  Whether I am over-invested is my issue.

 

Yes I follow his projects closely and report on them here when relevant.
 

I only try to explain his wider connections in Ukraine, Russia and Crimea so that others might take a more empathetic view of the position he now finds himself in.  
 

No one needs to follow this thread if they do not wish to know what he is doing.   I cannot comment on what he thinks or feels.  I do not know him personally.  
 

I also add some news I heard today via an ex-Russian living in USA … 

 

… 15 years of jail is promised to everyone in Russia who spreads “fake information “ about how the “special operation” is going.  The media is not allowed to use the word “war”.

[FionaM]

3 hours ago, FionaE said:

 

… 15 years of jail is promised to everyone in Russia who spreads “fake information “ about how the “special operation” is going.  The media is not allowed to use the word “war”.

I don’t know if this is true.  No idea what to believe out of Ukraine, Russia or the West.   

[Sabine0308]

Speaking of Ukraine, ballet dancers and their fate, picture from Ana Sophia Scheller's Instagram :

the principal dancer at the National Opera of Ukraine and honored artist of the Ukraine: Oleksii Potiomkin, living in Kyiv, did change his ballet-costume for military gear. 

This.is so.wrong.😭😭

Edited March 2, 2022 by Sabine0308

[TSR101]

I don't mean to add any petrol to the fire here, but this is a Polunin thread. So whilst there are millions of Ukrainians who are more worthy of our thoughts right now, on this thread, it is only fair that the topic of debate is Polunin and if people want to discuss it, the impact of the war on Polunin. 

 

I have always felt this forum has been a bit harsh on Polunin, the dancer. Whilst he isn't the dancer he was and I feel sadness when I see him perform of thinking what he might have been, I think some people wish he was worse a dancer than he is, as almost a form of penance for all the stupid and horrible things he has said and done in the past.  

 

With regards to Ukraine, Polunin took his Putin worship to the extreme via the tatoo. His allegiance to Russia over Ukraine, the land of his birth, has been continuous - he continually performs there when others boycott it. That is a choice because he could easily choose to dance elsewhere, unlike most dancers he has had many doors open to him in the past. However, I do think he is in an extremely unenviable position, of his own making. With his past history the doors of the west will be closed to him even more so than other Russian dancers, so it would be extremely hard for him to now try and distance himself from the Russian regime, even if he wanted to. 

 

Separately, on the points on Crimea above. It has always had a very close connection to Russia - it was the only area of Crimea that has seen high percentages in favour of joining Russia (even 20/30 years ago it was around 50% in favour). However, that is resolve through the ballot box and diplomacy. It doesn't excuse military action. So even if you believe it should be Russian, as you would think Polunin must, then there is still every reason to boycott it. 

[Naomi M]

Sergei Polunin’s Japan tour is canceled after being postponed twice. The reason is noted with japan’s strict border control in the time of the pandemic, but this month it has gradually opened the doors and next week dancers of Stuttgart Ballet will perform in a gala. No more quarantine is required now. (Tourists are not allowed yet) 

 

https://sergei-polunin.srptokyo.com/

[FionaM]

The PoluninInk team includes Russian dancers and crew as well as other non EU nationals.  Some may not be able to fly at all due to the war, and others probably don’t have the accepted vaccinations to be exempt from quarantine under current Japanese entry requirements

 

Depending on your vaccination status and where you are travelling from, you may be subject to up to 7 full days of quarantine and/or self-isolation following your arrival. Further details can be found in the section on vaccination status below, and on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

Edited March 11, 2022 by FionaE
Extra info

[annamicro]

Polunin cancelled the Rasputin shows planned in April in Milan due to an injury.

I am sincerely sorry for the injury (also because it coukd be serious: the link says he thinks to be back in 2023!), anyway it couldn't have been  more timely.

Maybe in 2023 the Putin tattoo will not be on his chest anymore. Or maybe we all will be Russian...

 

https://www.danzaedanza.com/it/news/polunin-free-al-tam.html

Edited March 13, 2022 by annamicro
Typo

[zxDaveM]

36 minutes ago, annamicro said:

Maybe in 2023 the Putin tattoo will not be on his chest anymore. Or maybe we all will be Russian...

 

 

or small piles of carbon dust

[capybara]

1 hour ago, annamicro said:

Polunin cancelled the Rasputin shows planned in April in Milan due to an injury.

I am sincerely sorry for the injury (also because it coukd be serious: the link says he thinks to be back in 2023!), anyway it couldn't have been  more timely.

Maybe in 2023 the Putin tattoo will not be on his chest anymore. Or maybe we all will be Russian...

 

https://www.danzaedanza.com/it/news/polunin-free-al-tam.html

 

 It says that Sergei has sustained an achilles injury - which sound serious - but I think that the 2023 refers to him returning to the Arcimboldi Theatre rather than to the stage more generally.