Recently, we had a meeting with the audience, as a part of educational project “Open Dialogues”. The director of NOVAT’s ballet company, Ukranian national artist Denis Matvienko took part in it. The main topic of the discussion was the upcoming premiere of Edward Klug’s “Peer Gynt”. The Slovenian choreographer proposed a version of Henrik Ibsen’s play, made on the edge, where drama meets ballet. “New plastic drama” or “wordless theatre” is actively seizes the main stages of Russia and Europe. Denis Matvienko, the director of the NOVAT’s ballet company, who plays the main character of the play, reckons, that this performance will reflect precisely what’s on the mind of the modern European choreography:
Novosibirsk is a theatre city; the audience here cares about artistic life. And we must have different performances in our repertoire. They don’t have to be numerous, but they must satisfy different needs of the audience.
Peer Gynt is created in modern european style, and I accept, that some might not like it. I’ve been working with Edward Klug for 12 years, and I can tell, his choreography is quite different from the classical one, and his works leave no indifferent spectators.
I’d call this type of performance a dramatic ballet. Edward Klug highlights the acting part of the performance, though the choreography is very interesting, but there’s few of it. It’s a full time two act ballet performance with a solid plot that tells you a story of one man. The producer even asked to make less grease-paint to emphasize the natural look: all costumes are made of organic fabric, the stumps are real pieces of wood, 20kg each, and we dance with them. We only have the dummy axe. The performance has very beautiful lighting. The trolls are really scary in the hole of the mountain king.
Our performance is really close to Ibsen’s play. Sometimes you get a feeling that the original story is told word to word. But I strongly recommend you to read the actual play before coming to the performance. The core of the story is the following: the protagonist is searching for something his whole life, trying to hunt down the magic white deer, but in the end of his life he realizes, that his destiny was not out there.
I assume, this performance will be interesting to the audience of all ages – everyone, who survived the loss of a relative, who ever experienced the soul rush. Some scenes of the performance are so realistic, they can blow your mind. But that’s why people come to the theatre – to feel the real emotions, to live what they see. Choreographers, dancers, musicians – we all aim to raise your emotions, to summon the emotional response. And I’m sure, while watching Peer Gynt, emotions of the audience will go off scale!
The premiere performances of “Peer Gynt” will be March 17 at 19.00 and March 18 at 13.00 and 19.00. Ticket are available at the box office of the theatre.