“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”: Radu Poklitaru on metaphor-costumes and video set design in the comedy-ballet for Kyiv Modern Ballet’s 20th anniversary
On June 26 and July 3, the music of Johann Strauss will sound at the October Palace, but with a completely new accent. Choreographer Radu Poklitaru told ELLE.UA why the classical waltz turned into a contemporary comedy of situations and how the costumes and video projections reveal the characters’ true motives.
Strauss’s «On the Beautiful Blue Danube» has hundreds of stage interpretations. What became your point of departure for creating your own (different) «Danube»?
The very first and principal inspiration for my ballet «On the Beautiful Blue Danube» was, of course, the music of Johann Strauss. It is incredible: incredibly balletic, incredibly romantic. Yes, it is often called the «pop music» of classical music, but it is such an exceptional level that we are talking about immortal pop music, and it is not at all shameful to touch it when creating a large ballet performance.
I had never before staged a ballet-vaudeville, a comedy of situations, and I truly wanted to test myself in this genre. I very much hope that together with the dancers of «Kyiv Modern-Ballet» we have created a hymn to the love of life, to love and to optimism. I want to give the audience something bright, sparkling, effervescent, like droplets of champagne — a burlesque performance, a vaudeville performance.
You call the production a «comedy of situations». How does this play with genre work in the plastic language of ballet?
Judging by how many performances I have already created, I can assert: the comedy of situations as a genre is an incredibly fertile ground for a ballet production. It allows you not only to intrigue the audience with the intricate twists of the libretto, but also serves as an incredible basis for the birth of dances.
Ballet by its very nature is an incredibly emotional art: it holds little of the rational in its good manifestations and a great deal of the emotional in its finest ones. It is hard to find a stronger emotional foundation for a ballet performance than an entire web of romantic intrigues — interwoven, rejected, forgiven.
To be honest, I and the dancers of «Kyiv Modern-Ballet» simply revelled in the possibilities that opened up with every new plot twist of this comedy of situations.
The ballet’s set design is a separate language of the performance. What stories are «told» by Dmytro Kuriata’s costumes and Olha Nikitina’s video set design?
In this ballet I once again brought together our team, with which we did all our previous works, because why change and try to improve on something that is already fine as it is. The author of the costumes for «On the Beautiful Blue Danube» is Dmytro Kuriata, who has been in creative harness with me for many years. We met back on the project «So You Think You Can Dance», where he was for a long time the head of style at the STB television channel, and it was precisely from his masterful, lightning-fast pen that the sketches of my new miniatures emerged.
Olha Nikitina is also a gift of fate. On the advice of Kostiantyn Tomilchenko, I turned to her for the first time when I was staging «Viy». That was a trial project, and it immediately proved successful in terms of music, choreography and video projection. I understood that this was opening a new era in my, as yet modest, body of creative work. Since then Olha and I have worked in close tandem — she is the set designer and the author of all the video sequences.
Dmytro’s costumes and Olha’s video projection are two mutually complementary stories. The silhouette hints at what the character is concealing, while the video sequence transforms the space, emphasising the brilliance of the ball. Together they create a «second score» of the performance — the one the audience will read with the eyes alone.
What would you like the audience to take away from the auditorium after the final chords?
To be honest, I never set the audience any tasks. We, people of the stage, are a kind of «service staff»: our task is to do everything so that the audience comes and enjoys itself. Here it is only we who are obliged. The audience owes us nothing — neither to «take away» nor to «bring»; its mission is simple: to sit down in the auditorium and behold a work of art.
If we are speaking specifically about this ballet, then I dream that, after the final chords, a smile will appear on the spectator’s face. In our difficult times, that, for me as the author of the ballet, would be the highest reward.
The premiere opens a cycle of events marking your theatre’s 20th anniversary. What role does «Danube» play in this anniversary story?
It is frightening to think of it, but already in 2025 «Kyiv Modern-Ballet» turns twenty. What began as a patron-funded theatre has become the main work of my life. On the one hand, it is a cause for pride; on the other, a cause for reflection: twenty years — is that a lot or a little? We have created a great deal, travelled a long road and, like everyone, are now living in a difficult time.
Why «Danube» precisely on the eve of the 20th anniversary? Because I very much want to look to the future with optimism — both the theatre and the whole country. If we do not give this spark to ourselves and to the audience, then no one will give it. For me, the ballet «On the Beautiful Blue Danube» is a broadly smiling child that will take us by the hand and lead us into a bright tomorrow. I truly hope for that.
The premiere of the ballet «On the Beautiful Blue Danube» will take place on 26 June and 3 July at 19:00, ICCC «October Palace», Kyiv.
