Ballet for Life Benefiz Gala Berlin April 16, 2023

[Sabine0308]

Last Year in April, Iana Salenko and Alexandr Shpak from Staatsballett Berlin initiated a Benefiz Gala in favor of victims of the war in Ukraine. They promised they would come back. This time, the gala collects money especially for kids who lost their parents.

So here they are again with an impressive program, mostly contemporary works but what a lineup!

To name a few:

Juliette Hilaire, Caroline Osmont

Matthew Ball, Mayara Magri

Iana Salenko,  Marian Walter

Erina Takahashi, James Streeter

Yolanda Correa, Alejandro Virelles

 

More Info here:

https://linktr.ee/balletforlife?fbclid=PAAaarQIQz9cV17ZrA1mDIm_EgJPxk3BAWqdHiuAD6AKTSLJm3-qiCmOoiLiQ

 

Since my foot is better I can happily go with a friend and will write a report then. I look especially forward to see "In the middle somewhat elevated", danced by Correa and Virelles. I hope they rock it.

 

[FionaM]

Dust by Akram Khan … danced by James Streeter and Erina Takahashi is an incredibly powerful piece.  
 

I am sure you will love it @Sabine0308

[Sim]

1 hour ago, FionaE said:

Dust by Akram Khan … danced by James Streeter and Erina Takahashi is an incredibly powerful piece.  
 

I am sure you will love it @Sabine0308

I agree wholeheartedly.  It moves me every time I see it.  

[Sabine0308]

So my friend and I attended the gala last Sunday. The house was sold out. They had some printed programs available and posters, as well as little glas sculptures, and little cakes "for free" but we were asked to make a little donation (and we did of course).

After a wonderful introduction to the project, done my Alexander Shpak (demi soloist Staatsballett Berlin)  a brief speech from the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev and a PR person from Stroer company (they provided the many posters and advertising displays in Berlin), the ambitious program began. It consisted of contemporary pieces only, see pictures (taken from my program booklet).

My favorite pieces were Le Parc (Salenko/Walter), Body and Soul, the Dust Duet and Pacopepepluto, the latter with 3 almost naked male dancers, dancing to Dean Martin songs 😉, which lifted the mood among the audience a bit. Overall, the evening brought rather dark/grave pieces to the stage. All were excellent dancers, as you can see from the program.

 

I was a bit disappointed about "Infra", performed by Matthew Ball and Mayara Magri. My friend pointed out that Ball was merely in a supporting role rather than having a decent solo part.

 

Also, In the middle .." will always be the "Guillem piece" for me. I missed tension and the kind of cold passion from Yolanda Correa which is so essential for this piece, in my opinion.

 

I loved Body and Soul, a kind of "aggressive dialogue" between the 2 dancers from POB, Juliette Hilaire and Caroline Osmont. Bravo! This is the first Crystal Pite piece I saw live, and now I'm looking forward even more to next season, when Staatsballett Berlin will performher "Angel's Atlas".

 

The Dust duet was indeed very moving, so wonderful and heartbreaking performed by Erina Takahashi and James Streeter and brought me to tears. But I do think that it was important to know a bit about the story of this ballet. 

 

After the intermission, the pieces were less impressing. And unfortunately, the piece "Les adieux", danced by Iana Salenko and her husband Marian Walter, a new creation by Eric Gauthier, was a bit "too much" in its plot. In the end, Iana Salenko buried her husband in military outfit under an Ukrainian flag. Ah well.

 

All donations (tickets and the aforementioned programs etc) went to support Ukrainian children who lost loved ones, one or even both parents.

When all dancers came onstage for the bows, there was a strong feeling of solidarity and unity and support, between dancers and audience.

 

Well done, little yet sooo strong Iana Salenko and Alexander Shpak.

It was the second gala supporting Ukraine, last year they had "cooked" the program within 4 weeks right after theRussian  invasion had begun. It was pure classical then.

They promised to try and do a third gala, and I hope it will be a mixed program then.

 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Sabine0308

[Sabine0308]

[Sabine0308]

[Sabine0308]

 

Intermission

Edited April 18, 2023 by Sabine0308

[Sabine0308]

[Emeralds]

Thank you for the review, photos and reports, Sabine0308! (Glad to hear that your foot is better too.) Wonderful to hear that the show was sold out for this good cause.  

 

It sounds like a show that audiences who attend a lot of galas or charity benefits, and who may see the same Don Q/Le Corsaire/Swan Lake/etc pas de deux repeatedly would enjoy- something contemporary and different, to make it more interesting. Am sure of course that the audiences would be appreciative of any genre of work danced. When I attended Ivan Putrov’s fundraising gala for Ukraine in London, we were treated to wonderful dance and a variety of different choreography styles, but honestly, I would have been happy to pay just to see them do an arabesque or to walk across the stage. 

 

I like the look of the programme- I don’t see many of these works that often or at all (Dust is probably the one that London audiences have seen the most often in recent years; In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated used to be performed a lot in the late 1990s and English National Ballet performed it several years ago as well, but it’s not seen here much nowadays.)

 

Dust was created as part of a mixed  bill in 2014 with three choreographers (Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan) making new ballets to remember World War One. They were performed with another existing short ballet (George Williamson’s version of The Firebird) but at the revival in 2018 (the centenary of the end of World War One) they just presented the three newer ballets without Firebird.

 

The ballet Dust showed the effect of the war on the soldiers sent to the frontline, including digging trenches and the high death toll; the women who had to work in factories after the departure of so many men, including munitions factories where they had to help make weapons; the pas de deux (danced in the gala) has been described by Khan as exploring the relationship between the women and their loved ones at the front- they knew they were letting go of fathers, husbands, sons, who might be killed. Yet they were also making weapons that would kill others’ husbands, fathers, sons etc. In order for someone to live, someone else was putting their life on the line.(Most of that is taken from Khan’s own quotes to explain the complex theme better- hence the pas de deux is full of sorrow, ambivalence and conflict as well as tenderness.) James and Erina, like Marian and Iana, are also husband and wife. 

 

I would particularly have liked to see Pite’s Body and Soul, and to see Iana and Marian’s interpretation of the Le Parc pas de deux (I saw the Paris Opera perform the full length Le Parc shortly after it was created on them and thought it was danced very well, but didn’t find it as exciting as their other ballets eg Sleeping Beauty, Apollo, In the Night, etc that they were performing then.) But perhaps Iana and Marian might have had a fresh and interesting interpretation.

 

Well done to Iana Salenko and Olexander Shpak for organising this gala! 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Emeralds

[Sabine0308]

Thanks @Emeralds for the insights on Dust. It was briefly described in the Programm book, but since these were sold out quickly, I bet some people were at a loss a bit about the story.

As for Iana and Marian doing Le Parc, it's always additionally moving when you know that the dancers are partners in private life. And these 2 are special to Berlin.