Prix Benois de la Danse
Martin Chaix, Marco Goecke, Jo Kanamori, Yuri Possokhov, and Maxim Sevagin
Bolshoi Theatre (Historic Stage)
Moscow, Russia
June 2024
by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf
On June 25th, the Bolshoi Theatre will host the annual Prix Benois charity gala and awards ceremony. It will be followed by a gala concert on June 26th during which laureates of previous years will perform. Prizes will be awarded to the best choreographer and the best female and male dancers. Below is an overview of the five nominated choreographers in alphabetical order. A report on the nominated dancers will follow.
| Martin Chaix, a former dancer with the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Leipzig Ballet, and Ballett am Rhein, has worked as a freelance choreographer since 2016. Giselle is his second piece for the Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin. Feminist movements (e.g., Femen, MeToo, and #TimesUp) inspired Chaix to create a modern interpretation whose characters reflect contemporary society. His Giselle meets Albrecht in a subway station somewhere in today’s Eastern Germany, but instead of dying upon discovering his infidelity, Giselle joins Myrtha’s gender-fluid street gang in an urban park. Myrtha facilitates Giselle’s self-discovery, which culminates in Giselle’s and Albrecht’s reconciliation. Chaix has both men and women dance on pointe. The music combines parts of Adolphe Adam’s original score and Louise Farrenc’s (1804-1875) symphonies. Thomas Mika designed the sets; Catherine Voeffray was in charge of the costumes. |
| Marco Goecke, associate choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and newly appointed artistic director of the Ballet at the Theater Basel, was nominated for In the Dutch Mountains, his first full-evening piece for NDT. It’s a typical “Goecke” in appearance and style—tense, odd, and enigmatic. For Goecke, “The Dutch mountains,” which do not exist in the flat country of Holland, are the stage floor, “which you always have to climb when you make a work.” Although the piece is plotless, the shoreline of a rough sea on the backdrop as well as the songs reminiscent of sea and nature by This Mortal Coil connect it to the Netherlands to which In the Dutch Mountains pays tribute. The music also includes compositions by Béla Bartók, Johannes Brahms, and the Amsterdam pop band Nits. |
| Jo Kanamori studied and danced in Europe before returning to Japan in 2002 where he took up the artistic reins at the Dance Department at Niigata City Performing Arts Center. He developed KAGUYAHIME, which he created for the Tokyo Ballet, over time. Act I premiered in November 2021 and Act II in April 2023. In 2023, Kanamori completed Act III and combined it with reworked versions of the previous acts to form the final piece. It’s accompanied by Claude Debussy’s piano compositions. KAGUYAHIME is based on Japan’s oldest surviving literary tale, which was written in the late 9th or early 10th century. Kanamori’s adaption tells the story of the poor bamboo cutter Okina who, thanks to the help of fairies, discovers a tiny princess in a bamboo stalk. He names her Kaguyahime meaning “princess from the Moon.” |
Once grown up, Kaguyahime falls in love with the orphan Douji. When Kaguyahime is brought to court, her beauty is admired by many suitors, including the emperor of Japan. Douji’s attempt to free Kaguyahime fails as does Okina’s plan to marry her away profitably. In the meantime, Kaguyahime’s former home, the bamboo grove, was destroyed due to avarice and a war between the villagers and the court chancellors breaks out. The warring parties see reason only when Kaguyahime’s soul, assisted by the fairies, ascends to her home, the moon.
| Yuri Possokhov regularly choreographs for the Bolshoi Ballet. His latest work, The Queen of Spades, interprets Pushkin’s eponymous short story for the ballet stage, a genre from which it has been previously absent. The story’s anti-hero, the Imperial army officer-cum-gambler, Hermann, tries to squeeze a card player trick out of an old countess by feigning interest in her young ward, Lisa. Lisa allows Hermann into the house where he confronts the countess so harshly that the old lady dies of fright. Her ghost seems to reveal the secret card trick to Hermann but ultimately fools him. Lisa abandons Hermann in disgust upon learning his true motives. He ends up a madman in an asylum. |
Valery Pecheykin, dramaturge at the Gogol Center Moscow, contributed an iridescent libretto with nuanced irony. The music of Tchaikovsky’s eponymous opera and his other compositions comprise the foundation of Yuri Krasavin’s score. Krasavin also included a countertenor who accompanies the countess’s ghost.
The main structure of Polina Bhaktina’s set is a giant cement-colored imperial hall whose crumbling stucco, arched galleries, and dim mirror on the backdrop are reminiscent of the collapse of an empire.
| Maxim Sevagin, artistic director of the Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre, was nominated for Class-Concert, a one-act ballet created for his own company. It shows all the ranks of a company in a ballet class sometime between the 19th and 20th centuries. They treat hard work with a sense of professional irony that turns everyday endeavor into a fun game. Inventive group patterns, female variations, and pas de deux climax in a virtuoso pas de deux danced by bygone stars Anna Pavlova and Enrico Cecchetti. In the final, all dancers demonstrate their prowess. Murky mirrors, elongated tutus, culottes, and vests designed by Vladimir Arefiev define the period as does the music by Daniel Auber and Jacques Offenbach. |
| Links: | Website of the Prix Benois de la Danse | |
| Website of Martin Chaix | ||
| Website of the Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin | ||
| Website of the Nederlands Dans Theater | ||
| Website of Jo Kanamori/Noism Company Niigata | ||
| Website of the Tokyo Ballet | ||
| Website of Yuri Possokhov | ||
| Website of the Bolshoi Theatre | ||
| Website of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre | ||
| Videos: | “Giselle” – Teaser | |
| “Giselle”- Excerpt Act I | ||
| “Giselle” – Excerpt Act II | ||
| “In the Dutch Mountains” – Trailer | ||
| “KAGUYAHIME” – Excerpt Act I | ||
| “KAGUYAHIME”- Trailer | ||
| The full version of “KAGUYAHIME” can be watched on MediciTV. | ||
| “The Queen of Spades” – Premiere | ||
| Open Reherasal of “Class-Concert”, June 9, 2023 | ||
| Photos: | 1. | Bolshoi Theatre © Damir Yusupov |
| 2. | Statuette of the Prix Benois de la Danse, design by Igor Ustinov © Benois Center | |
| 3. | Bolshoi Theatre © Damir Yusupov | |
| Editing: | Kayla Kauffman |
