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Keeping a company on its toes

The Slovak National Ballet choreographs its future
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By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
November 28th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
New directions out of Bratislava. The Slovak National Ballet embraces the new.
The Slovak National Theater Ballet

Where: Estates Theater
When: Sunday, Dec. 2, at 7 p.m.

Mário Radačovský just celebrated one year as artistic director of the Slovak National Theatre Ballet. In that short time, he’s debuted a new full-length ballet, celebrated the April opening of the new National Theater in Bratislava and dramatically revamped both the artistic and logistical goals of the company.  
The night of ballet he’s created for the company’s Dec. 2 performance at the Estates Theater in Prague is, Radačovský says, specifically intended to evince what can be done in just a short time of hard work.  “We try to show how much we’ve changed in the past year,” he said, and Prague can easily compare what the company has accomplished since its last visit.
Last November, the company performed the very classical ballet Le Corsaire at the National Theater. Since that performance, Radačovský has made a concerted effort to take the Slovak National Theater Ballet in a new direction based on its own recognized abilities. The comparably small company, he said, can’t compete on a classical stage with the Russian powerhouses of the Bolshoi and the Kirov — which largely informed the 20th-century track of Slovak dance. With those two companies and innumerable others touring what the Russians do best, Radačovský saw a niche for something the Slovaks may do better — new works that draw on traditional ballet but created and performed by young, ambitious talent.
“I think our strength is more neoclassical,” Radačovský says. “We’re trying to create our own repertoire with new choreography.” At home in Bratislava he made this statement with Warhol, his original ballet based on the life of the pop-art icon (of Slovak ancestry), and he assembled a program of short Slovak choreography to perform in other cities. “This program is ours,” he stated. The evening features four works, three created by Radačovský.
Bolero is his take on the famous music by Ravel. The intoxicating composition has inspired pieces by numerous choreographers (most may remember one in particular created for ice dancers), but Radačovský has married the sensually combative cadence with that most refined mode of competition — chess. His ballet is a portrayal of black versus white, man versus woman contrasting in an onstage game.
His other two featured short choreographic pieces deal in different ways with interpersonal relationships. Change, set to music by Rossini and Bach, takes on the shifting nature of personalities and interactions over time — appropriate for its creative impetus, the 85th anniversary of the Slovak National Theater Ballet in 2005. Meeting with Swan hits closer to home, as Radačovský choreographed the work with his fiancé, Canadian ballerina Anik Bissonnette. The music for this piece is from Tchaikovsky’s second act of Swan Lake, and is influenced by the legendary ballet, “but in a contemporary way,” Radačovský explains. This interpretation brings out emotions not found in other, more strictly classical productions, he adds.
The fourth work of the night is When Dying Means Lying, choreographed by Slovak National Theater Ballet dancer Igor Holováč. The ballet is an off-beat love story, exploring what intense passion can do to a person. “I loved it from the day it was created,” Radačovský says. “My wish is to have the company build its reputation in this direction,” he says. Radačovský wants to encourage his dancers to create new works and continue pushing traditional ballet boundaries, and eventually lessen the reliance on Radačovský’s own choreography, phasing in original works from within the company.
Beyond this new artistic approach, Radačovský has also changed the Slovak National Theater Ballet’s focus, looking beyond the borders of Bratislava. Touring programs like these that highlight the company’s talent is important, he says, both to give back to Slovaks and to share the country’s cultural heritage abroad. “I put this evening together for a very simple reason,” he explained, “because we want to travel. I think it’s very important for people in Slovakia to see us, to see we’re not an arrogant company,” Radačovský says. The people who fund the company through their taxes, after all, shouldn’t have to travel to Bratislava to see where their money goes. It’s necessary to give back to taxpayers.”
Beyond Slovakia, Prague shines as a gleaming opportunity in Radačovský’s mind. “The tradition between the National Theater Ballet of Prague and the Slovak National Ballet is so long, in both friendship and competition,” he says. “The Czech Republic is historically like our big brother … but we are partners in dance.”
Radačovský and his equal at the Prague National Theater Ballet, Petr Zuska, have an agreement to visit each other’s theaters for guest performances at least once a year, though Radačovský hopes for closer collaboration on choreography and productions in the future. “Up to now it’s very nice,” he says. “But I think there’s so much more opportunity between the two theaters.”
    

Brooke Edge can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (28/11/2007):

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