The picture shows stills from the dance drama "Brothers Karamazov" and "Anna Karenina". (Photo courtesy of Shanghai Oriental Art Center) Draft: Li Jie
Elegant and mysterious, Anna dances, dancing with complex emotions from longing to despair, enveloping the audience into the world that stirs spirit and desire. The Eifman Ballet twice brought Leo Tolstoy's most moving women to the Shanghai stage, using the dance language of modern ballet to interpret a monument in the history of world literature. In September, the troupe will return to the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, this time with Anna Karenina, another Classic of Russian Literature, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
It is not uncommon for literary works to be adapted into ballets, Balanchine's reconstruction of Shakespeare's masterpiece "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a sensation, and the Shanghai Ballet has also adapted the British novel "Jane Eyre", but there are few choreographers like Boris Eifman who focus on adapting the thickest masterpieces in the history of literature. He chose the hard mode of the most difficult dance creation, the complex psychological depiction in literary works, which was transformed into a sometimes restrained, sometimes passionate, sometimes tense body flow in the dance he composed, and successively created works such as "Twelfth Night", "Don Juan and Molière", and "Anna Karenina" and "The Brothers Karamazov" are his masterpieces of tribute to Russian literature.
The original dance drama pays tribute to the literary masterpiece, and the complex and changeable inner drama tests the audience's understanding
Boris Eifman is one of the most popular choreographers in Russia and even Europe today, and his works are not only the inheritance and development of Russian dance aesthetics, but also the "upgrading" and "innovation" of this ancient art. "My work is all about drama or real-life characters with stories, controversies, and contradictions, such as Tchaikovsky, Don Juan, Don Quixote, etc. These stories are easy to resonate, allowing the audience to find an outlet for emotional catharsis from the longing, contradictions, pains, struggles, helplessness, despair and even death of the characters in the play. Eifman no longer adheres to the fairy tale and aesthetic construction of "Swan Lake", but pays more attention to and strengthens the theme selection and inner communication of ballet.
Under Eifman's guidance, the ballet company named after him advocated a unique, blazing original style. In 2015, Eifman Ballet conquered the Audience of Shanghai with three Performances of Anna Karenina. In 2017, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of August Rodin, the "father of modern sculpture", Eifman performed the Chinese premiere of the ballet Rodin in Shanghai. In September this year, "The Brothers Karamazov" will have its premiere in Shanghai.
The novel "The Brothers Karamazov" is a masterpiece of Russian literary giant Dostoevsky. Based on a true father-killing case, the story depicts the sharp conflict between the elder Karamazov and his three sons, presenting a tragic theme of intricate social, family, morality and human nature. Eifman made a new interpretation of this literary work, continuing the artistic tradition of "psychological ballet", behind the grand narrative, using rich ballet language to express inner drama. Sometimes calm as water, sometimes stormy, complex and changeable rhythms are a difficult challenge for dancers, and the audience's ability to understand is also a big test.
"Gao Leng" works also have a voice, and the art market needs to constantly explore and innovate
The dance drama "Anna Karenina" has been tested by the market in Shanghai, and the box office in Shanghai has been booming twice before, but "The Brothers Karamazov" is more "high and cold", and it is still unknown whether it can be recognized by Shanghai audiences.
"As a purely market-oriented theater, despite the pressure of operation, Dongyi will judge every year according to the situation of the existing audience and the future audience, and add a certain proportion of new works in the performance season, allowing bold trial and error." Lei Wen, general manager of the Oriental Art Center, told reporters that Eifman Ballet's strategy of "bringing the old to the new" is only one of the means for the theater to explore the market. Last season, Dongyi successively launched three immersive film symphony concerts such as "The British Patient", "Titanic" and "Star Wars: A New Hope", which successfully led to the trend of film symphony concerts. In the upcoming new season, Dongyi will also introduce poetic circus "Gorgeous Dreams, A Letter to Chekov" by the Fenz Pascal Troupe to enrich the artistic experience of the stage.
Experts believe that in the process of Shanghai moving towards the Asian Performing Arts Center, more and more theaters are committed to shortening the distance with the world's top art academies and troupes, and strive to become the "Chinese premiere" or even "world premiere" place of famous troupes; in the face of the audience, the theaters must also undertake social functions such as art education and cultural guidance while providing content services, and in view of the innovative needs of the gradual growth of the audience, the innovative ideas will run through the program production, marketing, service, and cultural and creative products. At present, it seems that many theaters in Shanghai have recently launched new measures such as "art exhibition integration" and "performance and exhibition integration", which are beneficial attempts to enrich the connotation of theaters and build public culture in diversified ways.
Related: Literary masterpieces that jump on the tip of the toe
Shanghai Ballet "Jane Eyre"
The ballet Jane Eyre, premiered in 2012, is based on a novel by British writer Charlotte Brontë, and is created by British choreographer Patrick, screenwriter Yu Rongjun and stage designer Jérôme Kaplan. The dance drama tells the emotional entanglement between Rochester, Jane Eyre and Bertha, with a nostalgic and sentimental flavor, but without losing its modern and fashionable feeling.
Monte Carlo Ballet 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
In 2005, The Monte Carlo Ballet's artistic director and choreographer Jean-Christopher Majoux completed his own A Midsummer Night's Dream. The show's plot, structure, choreography and musical use break the routine of any previous version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The costumes, styling, and choreography continue MaJo's fashion style, full of avant-garde colors.
Sydney Ballet Salome
Wilde's Salome is an eternal classic of aestheticism, while Australian choreographer Green Murphy's Salome with sydney ballet shows a very different temperament.
Green's infectious choreography, combining mike Askilly's percussion, coupled with the costumes of the famous costume designer Akira Isogawa, vividly expresses the troubles, temptations and fragility of the characters' inner world.
Hamburg Ballet "La Traviata"
Premiered in 1978, the ballet La Traviata was choreographed by Johann Neumeer, artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet, and was specially adapted for ballet star Marcia Heidi.
John's theatrical ballet combines classical and modern dance techniques to the fullest, and the portrayal of the psychology of the characters is extremely delicate.
Author: Xuanjing
Edit: Jiang Fang