Watch as Dominik Slavkovský, Ballet Zurich, makes the best of quarantine – on his new ballet floor.
How do you train in times of corona?
When working in the theatre we always get driven by new guest classes that usually take place for about two weeks and we get a choice from variety of teachers here in Ballett Zürich and it‘s actually incredible that this time we can just go online and take a class from different teachers everyday by our taste 😀.
I found Raffaela Renzi, Louis Bennett or François Petit with whom we’ve had experience from our theatre already and now they are also giving good online “do at home” classes almost every day. Also, Norwegian Ballet gives a class on their FB page which is open for their dancers. I like to slip in and join for a tendu or two 😀.
Few people know that ballet requires special floors to protect the dancers joints, particularly for jumps. Tell me about your new ballet floor which Ballet Zurich provided to all dancers of the company?
Ballett Zürich was kind to provide us with a ballet floor at home, which is great for bar exercises so that we don’t slide out of our 5th position, but of course, for jumps there would be a necessity for another different type of floor under this one, since I don’t want to have my neighbours come knocking at my door 😀. But for the time being this works very sufficiently as it is.
In addition, I make a little run or exercises outside. I do some yoga with many choices of free online classes out there too and I got a suggestion for “Yoga with Adriene” from my colleague Raffaelle Queiroz. And I recommend it! And to feel completely free I go and do this on the roof of my building with the view of Uetliberg. Relaxing and efficient.
The motto of my balletloversblog.com right now is #stayhome and watch ballet! Have you also caught up with any ballet or dance performances online?
I watched Betroffenheit by Kidd Pivot. It’s amazing. Next is going to be Ekman’s Midsummer Nights Dream and his Swan Lake! I‘ve seen the Swan Lake a few times already and I loved it. I also watched midnight Raga from Marco Goecke on the NDT website and The Statement by Crystal Pite. So much to see. Also, once our Nutcracker and Mouseking (24th April – 26th April) and Romeo and Juliet (8th May – 10th May) come around online it will be nice to watch – since we are always in the show we never get to see the overall look of it. That makes me excited too.
Anything else to share?
Overall, it sounds like we’re making the most of these times with these bizarre circumstances, but for everyone out there I do miss working, or getting inspired by my amazing colleagues. We do miss being together in the studio, working on something new and exciting and we do miss performing for our audience. Stay healthy, psychologically too 😀. The best way for that would be to follow our shows online! Isn’t it?
Dominik Slavkovský is from Slovakia. After training at the Bratislava Dance Conservatory, he danced for five years in the ballet of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, most recently as a demi-soloist. He has been a member of the Ballett Zürich since the 2014/15 season. He has appeared in numerous choreographies by Christian Spuck, including the title role of Woyzeck, Drosselmeier in Nussknacker und Mausekönig, Coppelius in Der Sandmann and as Paris in Romeo und Julia. He has also danced in choreographies by George Balanchine, Uwe Scholz, Alexei Ratmansky, Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Nacho Duato, Marco Goecke, Edward Clug, James Kudelka, Vladimir Malakhov and many others. He showed his choreographies How to save the world and Conspiracy as a part of the Junge Choreografenseries.
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