Modern ballet, timeless classics and dance “trips”: where to go to Dance Open

2019 in Russia will be the "year of the theater." This means that by April we will all be pretty good at drama-opera-ballet, and having encountered friends on the street, we will discuss not the weather, but the last premieres. But even if this is not so, the number of theater festivals will definitely increase at times. Posters will be filled with the names of Western directors, and the announcements with the promises of “unique /unforgettable /for the first time in Russia /never before)” impressions. As a result, the temptation to quit everything and buy a ticket for a performance will arise much more often. But if in the case of the choice of a dramatic production one can at least roughly orientate oneself in the plot and short description, then with ballet everything is much more complicated. Ballet is difficult to describe in words, because it speaks a different language - the language of the body. Moreover, it is precisely on ballet that one can most often experience the very feeling of “here-and-now” aesthetic pleasure for which people, in fact, go to the theater. Therefore, you have to either trust the occasion and do your best to get pleasure, or really get pleasure. And then we return to the Dance Open.

Every year this festival brings to St. Petersburg those who are creating the history of modern ballet right now, and every time there is not a single “passing” performance on the poster. The secret is that over the 18 years of the existence of Dance Open, the experts involved in its program have learned not only to negotiate with groups whose tour schedule has been planned for decades to come, but also to select performances not for themselves and a couple of “special connoisseurs”, but for the audience, and the audience is different. This means that at the Dance Open you can see not only modern choreography, contemporary and avant-garde productions at the junction with performance art, but also classics with filigree fouetté and pas de chat. In addition, a series of master classes for those who are not only interested in but also in ballet are held every year in the framework of the festival, and in the final, participants in the educational program - students of world ballet schools aged 7 to 20 years - perform in the traditional Gala of the Young Dance Open stars, perhaps in the most touching and emotional event of the program.

Source: https://kudago.com/spb/news/dance-open- 2019-guide /