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Dance St. Louis, the local presenting organization that brings so much world-class dance to the St. Louis area, scored another winner with the classic beauty of the St. Petersburg Ballet Theater, when the troupe took to the Touhill Performing Arts stage on Friday.
Dance St. Louis brings a range of dance styles to the area but last night the theme was classic. You cannot get more classical than ballet and traditionally, Russia has been home to the best in ballet.
St. Petersburg Ballet Theater is based in St. Petersburg, and was established in 1966 as Theater of Ballet in Russia. In 1969, the troupe was led by the much-honored choreographer and ballet master Leonid Jacobson.
Jacobson's signature work was the short opera, which he called a "choreographic miniature." To this day, the Troupe's repertoire includes 20 one-act ballets.
On this evening, the dancers offered and example of that work. Despite its name, it was not entirely ballet, but a mix of classic ballet and modern dance that grew more modern as the evening unfolded.
The program opened with one of the dance masterpieces of the 20th century.
Originally developed in 1907 by choreographer Mikhail Fokine as a dance to the music of Frederic Chopin, initially titled "Chopiniana," he later renamed it "Reverie Romantique" and it was later renamed "Les Syliphides" when Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe performed it in Paris.
Regardless of the shifting title, the piece straddles the centuries by having the formal dance beauty of 19th century ballet but no plot like a 20th century abstract ballet.
The stage was set like a winter woodland fantasy, with white trees against a blue backdrop. The dance is about a midnight encounter between a young man and a group of sylphs, fantasy creatures of the air.
The curtain comes up on a posed tableau of the dancers, forming a semi-circle around the man, in white tights with black vest, and a few dancers.
The ballerinas are all in white, with garlands of flowers in their hair and flowing skirts reminiscent of paintings by Degas.
The dance is a dream of classic, graceful moves, six alternating dances of large and small groups of dancers, set to Chopin's music. The opening Mazurka has the whole group in motion, followed by the dances by pairs and trios and solos.
The effect was simply hypnotic and the dancers leapt and twirled on toe with grace. Featured dancers were Maria Yakshanova, Alexandra Badina, Anna Borodulina, Yulia Prosyannikova, Alexey Petrov, Anastasia Shmakova and Elena Grineva.
After a short intermission, the St. Petersburg Ballet returned with a one-act version of Scheherezade, with music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The set was a simple curtain draped from the ceiling, as the ballet told the familiar story of a princess (dancer Anatstasia Lyubomudrova) spinning out a tale to keep the sultan Shahryar (Pavel Iakovlev) intrigued enough that he postpones her execution.
She weaves a tale of two young lovers, a princess (Maria Yakshanova) and a prisoner (Nurjan Kulibaev) she has fallen in love with, trying to escape her father (Sergey Davydov) and his cruel vizier (Alexander Abaturov).
As Scheherezade tells her tale she dances and the sultan dance, and then them step aside for the other dances to play out her tale.
The performance was a very energetic, athletic combination of ballet and modern dance, with dance steps and costumes that echoed the Central Asian steppes.
The dances keep a frenetic pace and really built the drama and excitement of the story with leaps and spins that sometimes brought spontaneous applause from the audience.
The dancers were excellent and Alexander Abaturov especially won long applause for his wonderful sustained spins and enormous leaps as the vizier.
For the final dance, the troupe presented a very modern interpretation of Bolero. The program notes remarked that Ravel's Bolero actually began as the score for a ballet for dancer Ida Rubinstein, who anted music with a Spanish flair. The work premiered in 1928 and is one of the most popular pieces of serious music.
Rather than using the expected Spanish theme, the troupe presented a very abstract version. On a bare stage lit by a single spotlight, the dancers all dressed in loose red pants, the women with red sports bras and the men bare-chested, marched with their heads down in a circle, occasionally moving their arms in synchronized jerky movements.
One male dancer in black pants performed modern dance steps with arms up-stretched, in the center of the moving circle in the spot light.
As the music built to its fevered pitch, the black curtains at the back of the stage parted to reveal first a shaft of red light and gradually a sunset like gradation of light from red near the floor to blue above.
Gradually dancers for the group one by one joined the black clad one in the spot light, and eventually relentless circling was broken up and the dancers re-arranged on stage.
While the dance was nicely done, it did seem a bit repetition and may have disappointed some of the audience expecting a return to more classic ballet.
Not only was the Touhill audience treated to the classic ballet of the Russian dance troupe but also the dances were performed to some of the most beautiful in classical music, the music itself was a kind of extra treat.
Although the music was recorded and one may have wished instead for live musicians, the musical selections still added to the enjoyment of the whole dance experience.
Once again Dance St. Louis has shown they know how to please an audience with this delightful experience for lovers of ballet.
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