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A Czech-Hungarian rhapsody

Student dancers hit Prague's stages
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January 3rd, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The Estates Theater will host the oldest modern dance festival in the country, with guest company Ballet Theatre Gödöllö from Hungary.
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Balet Praha Junior

When: Sunday, Jan. 6, at 7
Where: Estates Theater

By Lucie Rozmánková
Staff Writer
International Dance Week is an ambitious project by Antonín Schneider, director of the Taneční Centrum Praha, and his wife, Vlasta Schneiderová. Schneider, himself a former member of the Charles University Dance Company, felt a strong urge in communist Czechoslovakia to develop modern dance through dance education. His idea was to establish a professional ballet academy, which would be open to contemporary and Western influences, rather than to the then-prevailing Russian influences.
The idea finally turned into reality when Schneider established the Taneční Centrum Praha, a private ballet academy in the early ’90s.
One of the annual school activities of TCP has been the International Dance Week — a festival of workshops for students with various Czech and international teachers. The workshops then led to performances by the students, presenting the work inspired by the workshop exercises. First of all there are several performances presenting the Balet Praha Junior throughout the country, including Brno, Český Krumlov and Františkovy Lázně, as well as Prague. Prague will also host an evening presenting work from various ballet schools from Bratislava, Moscow, Spain, Košice, Ostrava and Brno at Divadlo ABC Jan. 13. 
As many other ballet academies, Taneční Centrum Praha established its own dance company from the best students, offering them performance experience and drawing on their youthful energy and enthusiasm. Balet Praha Junior’s name is homage to the famous company Balet Praha established in 1960s by choreographers Pavel Šmok, Luboš Ogoun and programming director Vladimír Vašut. It was the first and the only ballet company with a contemporary repertoire in the communist era. The company became eventually known as the Prague Chamber Ballet. 
This year’s opening performance at the Estates Theater will present Balet Praha Junior and the visiting Hungarian company, the Ballet Theater Gödöllö, featuring the Hungarian prima ballerina Aleszja Popova. Taneční Cetrum Praha has a long-term relationship with Gödöllö’s artistic director and choreographer Attila Egerházi. Half the evening’s programming will present Egerhazi’s work. The two companies’ relationship will also be seen with the Balet Praha Junior presenting Hungarian Dances on Brahms music and Carioca.
This Hungarian mix will be further spiced up by a new piece of Spanish choreography by Ramón Oller. His Violeta is considered the highlight of this year’s lineup. Taneční Centrum Praha managed to develop a further relationship with the renowned Spanish choreographer, who resides at Barcelona’s Metros dance company (Oller recently presented his version of Carmen at the Joyce Theater in New York City).
Balet Praha Junior rehearsed excerpts from his Violeta during the summer workshop, and later this year the young dancers studied with his assistant Susana García to complete the piece’s 40 minutes. Violeta sounds like a very challenging piece with a harrowing story inspired by the life of a Jewish girl during World War II.    
Although the title International Dance Week suggests a weeklong event, the current festival has become significantly more extensive, and will last from Jan. 3 to Jan. 28. However, there is a distinctly larger annual professional modern dance festival called Tanec Praha with a completely different mission in the Czech Republic, the International Dance Week succeeded to develop through pure enthusiasm a nice tradition and a festival devoted to dance students. 
For dance enthusiasts interested in discovering new talent, or who are intrigued by this Czech/Hungarian/Spanish collaboration, there should be much to celebrate.
Lucie Rozmánková can be reached at lrozmankova@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (3/01/2008):

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