A modern choreography evening

The prime dancer Denys Matviienko and soloists of the National Opera of Ukraine will present two modern ballets in one evening, Radio and Juliet which is already well-liked by the Ukrainian audience, and the premiere performance of Quatro.

“When I decided to add Radio and Juliet to our theater’s repertory, it was as an experiment,” the leader of the ballet troupe dancer Denys Matviienko stresses. “At the time, Kyiv dancers were unfamiliar with modern ballet. The preparations for the performance, though, made it clear that Ukrainian artists perform modern choreography excellently! The nation’s foremost theater must be modern and set the trend for the ballet community throughout Ukraine. The capital city opera’s repertoire has included many fine classical ballets, but we live in the 21st century, in a world where theater must be modern. I am convinced that Quatro’s performance is well-suited to become the latest addition to the National Opera’s repertoire. By the way, we gave Quatro a try with the original cast in Kyiv in June 2012, and the performance was a great success then. Radio and Juliet has only recently appeared on the Kyiv theaters’ billboards, but it has already acquired quite a following here. I think the Ukrainian audience will appreciate Edward Clug’s new production, too.”

Let us recall that Quatro was created by Clug, who serves as dancer, choreographer, and artistic director of the Slovenian National Theater’s troupe, in 2010 at the suggestion of two creative family couples, Denys and Anastasia Matviienko, and Leonid Sarafanov with Olesia Novikova, the latter pair based in St. Petersburg, Russia. Clug used music by Milko Lazar for this performance. One reviewer described his impression of the show as follows: “The movements’ intonations are changing every second, forming a complex plastic melody. The dancers’ plastics seem to be pulsing, impressing the audience with a variety of shades of emotions. Quatro’s world is the world of megapolis with its nervous rhythms, conflicts and unpredictability.”

Soloists of the National Opera of Ukraine Kateryna Metiolkina, Yelyzaveta Cheprasova and Yevhen Lahunov will join Denys Matviienko to perform Quatro for the first time on December 6.

The choreographer Clug’s Radio and Juliet brought together Shakespeare’s love story with the music by RADIOHEAD, one of the most successful modern alternative rock scene participants. Unlike in the classic adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, the choreographer plunged the characters in the emotional world created by Shakespeare and shown by dancers through modern plastic techniques and RADIOHEAD’s ‘soundtrack.’ Denys Matviienko, Yulia Moskalenko and Yevhen Lahunov will play leading roles.