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In 2012 St. Petersburg festival DANCE OPEN is celebrating its eleventh anniversary. Again, the principals of the best international companies will gather together in St. Petersburg to show their artistry to the Russian audiences.
Besides the ballet celebrities, students from various countries will come to St. Petersburg to participate in the master-classes. This time the festival will receive applicants from USA, Japan, Venezuela, Finland, Panama and Russia. On 13 April the students will give their own performance at the Zazerkalye theater, this show will open the concert program of the DANCE OPEN.
On 14 April at the Theater of St. Petersburg Conservatory the audience will admire the performance of BAD BOYS OF DANCE with its Russian premiere - ROCK the Ballet. DANCE OPEN has presented BAD BOYS OF DANCE to the Russian audiences last year, having shown one choreography performed by this company at the final gala. This year DANCE OPEN is bringing to Russia the whole show of BAD BOYS OF DANCE.
This company was founded by Rasta Thomas, a dancer with the classical ballet background who mixed ballet and acrobatics in his work. Russian premiere will be held within the world tour of the company that started in Paris, continued all over Europe. After their only performance in St. Petersburg, the company will go to Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Rasta Thomas has created a dance show that connects classical tradition and gives a new meaning to the legendary American dance style. Today the company gives over 150 shows a year and every show is a hit with every crowd. Recently they performed at Carnegie Hall in NYC with Sir Elton John for a Rainforest charity event, as well as with Lady Gaga. Classical ballet background of the soloist and amazing tap technique create incredible effect, and make the audiences jump off their seats. The company also shows a video projection, prepared using cutting edge technologies. The performance of this internationally famous company will become a real breakthrough for the Russian audiences.
On 15 April the festival DANCE OPEN in cooperation with the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet has prepared one more surprise for the audiences: there will be held a Tribute to Natalia Dudinskaya- a gala honoring her 100rd anniversary at the Theater of St. Petersburg Conservatory. Students of Natalia Dudinskaya –who are now ballet dancers and choreographers – are going to perform at the gala. The world best ballet stars: Uliana Lopatkina, Vladimir Malakhov, Victoria Tereshkina, Yonah Acosta, Joseph Gatti, Ivan Vasiliev and others will perform the choreographies that Natalia Dudinskaya made famous. The program of the night will also include unique videos of ballet performances and photos from Dudinskaya’s personal archive.
"We will gather together- my classmate Uliana Lopatkina, choreographer Vasily Medvedev, Rita Kulik, Polina Rassadina, and I, to bring good memories about our beloved Natalia Mikhaylovna- says the director of the festival DANCE OPEN, Ekaterina Galanova. She adds : This will be a unique gala dance wise, full of inner spirit and warmth. Natalia Mikhaylovna, as choreographer, saved many fragments of old ballets, and some of them, like “Dance of the Animated Frescoes” from The Little Humpbacked Horse will be shown on 15 April. St. Petersburgers remember Dudinskaya very well, and it will be a wonderful gift for all of them."
The key event closing the festival on 16 April will be the gala of International Ballet Stars DANCE OPEN at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall.
St.Petersburg audiences will see the choreographies that make people sit at the edge of their seats, and will become testimonies of new moments of truth – watching the pieces created to celebrate the flash of inspiration and maximum of people’s abilities. As always, best of the best: Ashley Bouder and Daniel Ulbricht (New York City Ballet), Isabelle Ciaravola and Benjamin Pech (Paris Opera Ballet), Yonah Acosta (English National Ballet), Jiri Bubenicek (Dresden Semper Oper Ballet) и Otto Bubenicek (Hamburg Ballet), Maria Eichwald and Filip Barankiewicz (Stuttgart Ballet), Dinu Tamazlakaru, Iana Salenko and Marian Walter (Staatsoper Berlin), Elena Algado and Miguel Angel Corbacho (National Ballet of Spain), Joseph Gatti (Boston Ballet), Ivan Vasiliev (Mikhailovsky Theater), Denis Matvienko (National Opera and Ballet Theater of Ukraine), Anastasia Matvienko (Mariinsky Theater) will perform within the gala.
The gala will be followed by the Closed Ceremony of III International Ballet Award DANCE OPEN held at the Marble Hall of the Museum of Ethnography. The jury panel of the award consists of the directors of international ballet companies, and true gurus of ballet art. They will choose the winners from the participants of the gala in 7 nominations. The winners will receive a crystal replica of the mould of a great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova’s foot.
The ceremony is one of the most exquisite and elegant receptions of Saint-Petersburg. The awards to the dancers are given by the stars of Russian cinema and sports, in the past years there were Alisa Friendlich, Nikolay Valuev, Alexander Domogarov, Tamara Moskvina, Alina Kabaeva, Mikhail Boyarskiy, Eduard Hill.
The winner of the nomination “Public Choice Award” is chosen by the audiences, who vote after the concert leaving their tickets in the special polls.
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