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The Belgrade Dance Festival is noted for the high artistic level of its programme coupled with Belgrade's charm as provided by its public. Having grown up on Bitef, Bemus and Fest, and always eager for genuine events, Belgraders unmistakably recognised the Festival as a new domestic-international event, and with the support of both local and international critics, have helped the Dance Festival become a leading event in the capital, which will be held this year for the fifth time from April 4th – 19th in the Sava Center, the Belgrade Drama Theatre and Madlenianum, with guest performances in Novi Sad and Niš.
This year's Festival will present a full evening of dance productions performed by the national ballet companies and dance troupes from Italy, Israel, Great Britain, U.S.A./China, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Slovenia. |
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Accompanying events will include master classes, exhibitions of dance photographs, discussions with artists, a film programme and presentations. In the high-quality and attractive programme of the 5th Belgrade Dance Festival, a special place has been given to the Milan ballet la Scala, which will perform in the Sava Center. This will be the first time that la Scala Ballet will perform in Belgrade.
Festival director and selector Aja Jung says:
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"The history of Milan's la Scala Ballet is tightly connected with the very history of the art of ballet. When the curtain recently went up in la Scala and Roberto Bolle and Svetlana Zakharova performed in Swan Lake I realized once more why this "Disneyland ballet" so rarely gives guest performances, actually why the rules are so strict and compromises out of question.
Last year, they gave a guest performance in London and went for a tour in Japan, while this year is reserved for the Paris Opera and their first performance in Belgrade. This will be the first ever performance given by Milan's la Scala in our region. My negotiations with la Scala have been continuing for almost seven years, from Riccardo Muti to Stefan Lisner, from the period of refurbishing until the beautiful building with its lavish stage reopened. |
What is most important is the fact that just as la Scala opens on April 4th in the Sava Center, the Belgrade Dance Festival celebrates its 5th anniversary. In its full ensemble that includes dance, technical and administrative corpus, they come with the performance Mediterranea, which is expected to be a new hit for choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti, and which the Belgrade public will see immediately following its Italian premiere.
As an international manifestation, the Belgrade Dance Festival was founded at the initiative of the International Dance Council, CID UNESCO Paris, ballerina and choreographer Aja Jung and the theatre director Nebojša Bradić, the manager of the Belgrade Drama Theatre, with the intention of presenting the most significant trends in today's modern dance to the Belgrade public, to intensify communications with artists worldwide and to introduce new artistic standards and aesthetics. Apart from a good responses from both critics and the public alike, the proof of their success in realising this task are two awards, one from the European Initiative and another from the "Jelena Šantić" Fund (2006), while UNESCO has recognised the Festival by honouring it with the title "Leading Dance Project in South-Eastern Europe" (2006) and the Festival has joined the World Dance Alliance (2007).
We asked Aja Jung how the programme of such an ambitious festival was being planned, and were the priorities and unacceptable compromises? "To ensure a top-quality programme, you have to plan at least a year or two in advance. So, the Belgrade Dance Festival has already agreed performances for April 2009 and 2010, and this year's final programme was known from the moment when the curtain dropped at the previous Festival.
"The Festival is a race that shouldn't discontinue. Actually, for its organisers the Festival lasts throughout the whole year. In the process of selection, my priority is to bring the best of the best to the Belgrade public. Actually, every performance shown at the festival is different, the premiere for our public a spectacle. It is important to create a relevant and intriguing programme because that is the prerequisite to get new admirers of modern dance and is crucial in ensuring a top performance. There is no place for experiments, but only for confirmed quality. Like when you choose a little black dress.
"The previous four editions of the Festival presented, among other names, the Mariinsky Theater Ballet from Sankt Petersburg, under choreography by George Balanchine, the Paris Opera Ballet under the production of William Forsythe, Rudolf Nureyev and Maurice Bejart, the National Dance Company from Madrid with production by the famed Nacho Duato, the Netherlands Dance Theatre with choreographies by Jiri Kylián, Paul Lightfoot and Sol León…"
Apart from the Scala, what is the main feature of this year's Festival?
"In accordance with its slogan, it will be ‘more than dance'! The premiere of Pret-a-Porter, produced by the Ballet from Maribor, the arrival of painter, dancer and choreographer Shen Wei, an artist who is the focus of interest of the most prestigious world stages and festivals, the possibility that Zaha Hadid, the first and only woman to have won the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, will come to Belgrade, with her city from the imagination … Then music by Heiner Goebbels, performed by a small Dutch orchestra, hypnotic moments and a snow-filled ball in the Israeli performance, and the unique humour of the Swiss Dance Center… If we look at the programme in the whole, we realise there is an entire generation of the most outstanding choreographers. It so happened that we have an entire team of interesting, established and internationally recognised artists of the middle generation, some of whom are very able managers of ballet companies and are still active dancers. In April, Belgrade will host Henri Oguike, Edward King, Mauro Bigonzetti, Guy Wiezman, Shen Wei, Mauro Astolti, Guilherme Botelho…
Thus, owing to the Belgrade Dance Festival, this spring our city will again be the world capital of dance, with the most outstanding companies and dancers from the whole world, and productions authored by the most distinguished choreographers of our time, which is in the contemporary world of dance the most persuasive argument and confirmation of value of an ensemble that deserves to perform on the most important world stages. On this map Belgrade has won its place in the last five years.
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