Displaying items by tag: Yuri Possokhov

Happy ballets are alike; every unhappy ballet is unhappy in its own way. Joffrey Ballet brings their haunting production of ‘Anna Karenina’ to the Lyric Opera House for a brief revival. It’s easy to see why this new ballet was such a hit when it held its world premiere in Chicago back in 2019. It’s a remarkably succinct retelling of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel about an unhappy woman’s choice to leave her marriage shortly before the Russian revolution.

Devised and choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, this version of ‘Anna Karenina’ is for both those who have read the novel and those who haven’t. The plot is pared down to the most essential moments. That said, it’s impressive how much is included and how creatively certain scenes are staged, most notably a brutal horse race that closes the first act.

Possokhov’s choreography is sexually evocative and those familiar with the deeply psychological drama will surely recognize the emotions in the dance, especially between Anna and Vronsky, danced by prima ballerina Victoria Jaiani and Alberto Velazquez. Scenes move at a fast clip and are told through a blend of large props, minimalist projections, and soaring vocals. Those who haven’t read the book may miss some of the nuances, but the visuals make the plot clear.

Victoria Jaiani and Alberto Velazquez in 'Anna Karenina" at Lyric Opera House

With live orchestration by the Lyric Opera Orchestra and vocals performed by Jennifer Kosharsky, the original score by Ilya Demutsky leaps off the stage. The music is cinematic but like the choreography, the torment is conveyed through sharp, staccato sequences. In the novel, Anna refers to Vronsky as a murderer after they begin their love affair. Pussokhov’s staging faithfully captures the fact that Anna and Vronsky will never know a moment’s peace. The great irony of Tolstoy’s sweeping love story is that great passion does not always make for a lasting relationship.

‘Anna Karenina’ can be difficult for some readers as large swaths of the book take the focus off Anna and put it onto semi-autobiographical character Levin and his love interest Kitty. A lot of these sections are about the intricacies of Russian farming. Levin is a bit absent from this production as such, but through the contrasting choreography, Anna and Levin’s parallel search for true love is apparent.

This award-winning production returns to Chicago under considerably different political circumstances between Russia and the US. However, Joffrey Ballet honored the Ukrainian people with a moving tribute before the ballet began, demonstrating an awareness and solidarity the Ukrainian people.

Through February 26 at Joffrey Ballet Chicago. 20 N Upper Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606. www.joffrey.org.

All apologies to the teachers and professors who groomed me to be a ceaseless reader and sporadic writer — I never finished Anna Karenina. But while I never plowed through all 900 pages of Tolstoy’s novel, moments from the book have stayed with me. One of them is just a line, one seemingly effortless line among pages full of them, and what a line it is: “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”

As I reflect on the variety, the charm, and the beauty I was privileged to behold at the Joffrey Ballet’s world premiere of Yuri Possokhov’s production of his countryman’s classic, I realize I witnessed a whole world of light and shadow being created right there on the Auditorium Theatre’s stage.

The creation of that entire world was, most obviously, performed by Possokhov’s choreography carried out by the Joffrey’s outstanding company, of course. Victoria Jaiani’s Anna navigates said world in both light and shadow — beautiful but damaged, faced with reality but delirious. Her husband Karenin, towers over the stage, as portrayed by the magnificent Fabrice Calmels, as a stately, stern husband and father and statesman. Just as stately, while also boyish and beautiful, Alberto Velazquez’s Vronsky lures the audience just as he lures poor Anna. And parallel to the love triangle and tragedy that envelope those three is the love story between Yoshihisa Arai’s Levin and Anais Bueno’s Kitty. If the former affair gives us the shadow, then the latter relationship brings it into the light.

These lights and shadows do not flicker before us thanks solely to the dancers, however. No, the spectacle of sight and sound beyond the dancing are every bit as stunning. Tom Pye’s sets and David Finn’s lighting navigates from dusky railyards to sunny Tuscany, from opium dreams to canapé flings. Of the many delights dished out by the Joffrey’s Nutcracker, perhaps my favorite was its use of projections, and Finn Ross’ projections for 'Anna Karenina' equal those, coloring the story and conjuring spirits.

But from curtain to curtain, the visual thrills are always complemented and often eclipsed by Ilya Demutsky’s original score directed by Scott Speck. The Chicago Philharmonic’s accompaniment, shifting seamlessly from elegance to dissonance, while always both classic and contemporary, is joined by Lindsay Metzger’s mezzo-soprano — who literally joins the show by the end — to craft this world of light and shadow in multiple dimensions that quicken multiple sensations.

So join the Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre for Anna Karenina through February 24, as all of these world-class talents work together to shade and illuminate, to craft and create the variety and the charm and the beauty one would expect from a hefty literary classic written a century-and-a-half ago and half a world away.

The Joffrey Ballet closes its 2016-2017 Season with Global Visionaries featuring works of international ballet visionaries: Russian born choreographer Yuri Possokhov with The Miraculous Mandarin, Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman with Joy, and Colombian-Belgian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa with Mammatus.

The show opens with sexy, dark The Miraculous Mandarin. It’s a disturbing tale of a girl forced to act as a decoy by thugs, luring men into her room, only to be robbed and kicked out. The girl (immensely talented dancer Victoria Jaiani who moves with otherworldly grace and can possibly express just about any emotion with her body or even a subtle turn of the head) seduces men with her beauty, and then turns them over to her “friends” who finish the job. The wealthy mandarin (wonderfully performed by Yoshihisa Arai) is her last victim. He is cool and composed, like a Kung Fu master, but falls hard for the girl, and refuses to let go of her even when her deceitful nature is reveled to him. There’s nothing abstract about this performance: there’s an engaging plot, and all seven characters are extremely well developed; the brutality of the Chinese man’s murder is quite uncomfortable. Set to Bela Bartok’s score composed in 1918-1919, this “pantomime grotesque” was based on a magazine story of that time. Premiered November 27, 1926 in Cologne, Germany, it caused a scandal and was subsequently banned on moral grounds. Yuri Possokhov has created this work specifically for The Joffrey Ballet in collaboration with Cleveland Orchestra, which premiered in March 2016 in Cleveland. This is the Chicago premiere with Chicago’s own Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Joffrey Music Director Scott Speck providing live accompaniment on stage.

Here comes Joy! Alexander Ekman’s piece is original and playful, its delightful silliness reminiscent of a circus show. It opens with the stage brightly lit and slippery, crowded with dancers acting like happy children on a playground: they run and slide around, walk upside down, dance and act out while wearing suits. When prompted, everyone strips down to flesh colored underwear and things get even less serious. There’s a pack of gorgeous female ballerinas dropping their shoes on the floor in unison, like some bratty toddlers. They are childish and gracefully feminine, all at the same time. A very young audience member sitting next to me (she was around four-years-old) found the sketch very entertaining: she laughed the entire time. Joy is a ballet/ mixed media of sorts, with voice narration and the dancers having speaking parts. It’s unexpected, whimsical and energetic; a pure joy. Set to a mix of modern music featuring selections from Grammy-nominated Brad Meldau Trio, experimental rock band Django Django, Tiga’s pop hit Shoes, and Moby.

The final part of the event, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa‘s Mammatus, is a stimulating twenty-minute abstract piece featuring twenty dancers in a series of ensembles and duets. Right away, there’s a thunder on the stage, then the music begins ("Weather One" by composer Michael Gordon). The music is sharp and urgent, the frantic forceful strings giving it that old world quality. The costumes (designed by Dieuweke Van Reij) are stylishly black, enveloping dancers’ hands and making them look animal or bird-like. The dancers’ movements are precise and fast, there isn’t much emotion here, just breathtaking fluidity of ever changing shapes and positions. Towards the end, a dance pair clad in all white comes in; their dance is sensual and full of grace. Is it possible that the contrast between the colors and the styles of dancers allude to the duality of our reality: the good and evil, the light and darkness, the emotion and thought?

Joffrey’s Global Visionaries is being performed at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University: April 26-May 7, 2017. For more show information, or to purchase tickets, click here.  

You could attribute this week’s hot and humid temps to Chicago’s ever changing fall weather, but anyone who saw the Joffrey Ballet’s performance of “Russian Masters” will definitively tell you it was this performance that brought the heat wave into the Chicago city limits.

“Russian Masters” featured four pieces: “Allegro Brillante” choreography by George Balachine, “Adagio” and “Bells” both choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, and “Le Sarce du Printemps” choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. Of the four performances, one will leave you hot under the collar, while the others will simply leave you hot and bothered.

“Allegro Brillante” and “Bells” were beautiful ballets within their own right. For those who don’t know ballet, Balachine is essentially the father of American ballet. In one word, his style can be described as classic. Picture a ballerina in your mind and the way she would dance, yep that’s the style. Flawless, graceful, lithe techniques, clean lines, beautiful and elegant duets, that is a Balachine ballet and “Allergro Brillante” shined on stage, bringing the audience into its gentle embrace. “Bells,” choreographed by Yuri Possokhov was equally graceful and beautiful. Set to seven Rachmaninoff compositions that included some flawlessly executed duets it was all in all was just a good performance, not one that left you wanting more. It is evident within “Bells” that Possokhov is clearly at his best when it comes to duets.

His choreographed duet “Adagio,” performed by husband and wife team Victoria Jaiani and Temur Suluashvili left the entire audience in heat. It is my claim that Jaiani and Suluashvili’s performance required the theater to turn the air conditioning up. Their performance was filled with fiery passion and sensuality, with intricate skills and lifts that would leave a cirque du soleil performer impressed. They were the only performers of the night to receive a standing ovation and once you see the performance live, you too will be ready to jump from your seat and yell “Bravo!”

Cut to the final performance of the night.

Now forget everything you know about ballet, the tutus, the pointy toes, and the gorgeous ballerinas. All of the stereotypes in your head will be torn down and stomped on (almost literally) during the course of this performance. The final piece of the evening was “Le Sacre du Printemps” (Rite of Spring). A brief history: when “Le Sacre” first premiered in Paris in 1913, the performance shocked the sophisticated Parisian audience so entirely that they literally rioted in the theater. That’s right folks, rioted. Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s haunting music set the audience on edge with loud drumming and bassoons, while Vaslav Nijinsky’s jagged, raucous, and barbaric ‘dancing’ depicting a virgin sacrifice, caused the audience to get so angry that they began catcalling and jeering at the performers, drowning out the orchestra music. In retrospect, it is apparent that Parisians paying to see a beautiful, graceful ballet were not prepared or welcoming to such an avant guarde piece.

While there was no rioting in Chicago on Thursday night, there was plenty of seat shifting, awkward glances from neighbor to neighbor, and an overall uncomfortable air from the audience. But that really was the point of the whole performance. Even in today’s society, with all matter of modern art forms around us, “Le Sacre du Printemps” still leaves audiences questioning what exactly it was they saw. Was it art? Was it ballet? You be the judge.

“Russian Masters” truly was one of the best compilations the Joffrey has put on since I have been in Chicago. The juxtaposition of soft, classical ballet in the first three performances against the brutality and harshness of "Le Sacre du Printemps" highlighted the wide range of talent that the Russian masters possessed. Hurry down to the Auditorium Theater as the show ends on September 22^nd. Dasvidaniya, comrades.