Before the end of the season: what to see in the theater in June and July?
We are boldly opening the doors to summer and closing our theatre season with these events:
June 20, 6:30 p.m. — A. Adam’s ballet «Giselle»
«Giselle» is not a sweet peasant girl, but a wretched child of a great modern city. Like her classical prototype, she dreams of true, great love. Yet a young girl’s dreams are shattered when Giselle comes face to face with the abyss that divides our world into rich and poor. However, unlike her predecessor, in this modern version Giselle is granted no blissful passage into an idealized world of departed souls. What awaits her is genuine hopelessness. A little girl from the city’s outskirts, Giselle will try to remain human in spite of the trials that befall her. And although this story ends tragically, the viewer will believe in the strength of the human Spirit, which lifts us up in the hours of fate’s heaviest blows.
Where: ICCC October Palace
June 27, 6:30 p.m. — an evening of one-act ballets to the music of P. Vasks: Underground and the premiere of «FRIENDS»
In creating the production «UNDERGROUND» in 2008, Radu Poklitaru took as his foundation Jean-Paul Sartre’s phrase «Hell is other people,» which became the source not only of the idea but also of the depth of feeling that lies at the heart of this ballet. Yet this ballet is not about the biblical hell. It is a story about people who have been driven underground by war. In the enclosed space where they are forced to remain together, their emotions reach extraordinary peaks: love intersects with hatred, joy mingles with despair. There, every moment leaves the question of whether they will ever be able to return to the surface. And that is precisely why their «now» is so much more important than their «later.»
At the heart of the production «FRIENDS» is a story imbued not only with the sorrowful present of war, but also with moments of light in life — love, friendship, warmth, jealousy, despair, mysterious touches, flickering hope, and all that life is made of. Four people — two women and two men — will live through Pēteris Vasks’s breathtaking music in dance as sincerely as the distance between the stage and the auditorium, between the cosmos of theatrical existence and everyday life, will allow them.
Where: Kyiv Opera on Podil
July 4, 6:30 p.m. — the two-act ballet «The Little Prince» to the music of W. A. Mozart and Ukrainian lullabies
At the center of the production «The Little Prince» is the story of the Little Prince, of his understanding of the value of the relationship between two individuals, where each journey to a new planet is a profound comprehension of the essence of personality. It is a tale of the superiority of simple things and values over the vanity and complexity of the «world of grown-ups,» of the importance of childhood as the principal period of human life. The Kyiv Modern Ballet production reminds grown-ups that, amid everyday affairs and the accumulation of material possessions, they forget about the spiritual sources that play such an important role in the formation of personality.
Where: ICCC October Palace
