Zum World Ballet Day am 2. November 2022 veröffentlichte das Staatsballett Berlin ein Video des letzten öffentlichen Trainings, eine Kombination aus Training und Probe. Die Ballettmeisterin Nadja Saidakova leitete das verkürzte Balletttraining und assistierte Marcia Haydée in der anschließenden Probe mit dem Ersten Solisten David Soares.
I was lucky that even in time of Covid Pandemic to talk to outstanding artists.
„I’m ready to put all the energy I can to make sure the world of ballet can and will still flourish.“
„For me, it’s really rewarding to give back and help train the next generation of up and coming professional dancers. It‘s inspiring as I feel like I can remind myself of things you tend to forget about in your daily professional routine.“
https://balletloversblog.com/2021/06/30/what-dancers-are-doing-in-the-summer-break/
„By playing the right rhythmical or melodic pattern to support the movement and constantly adjusting to what is the need of the dancer. Above all of this the music needs to be beautiful!“
More: https://balletloversblog.com/2021/05/20/meet-the-ballet-pianist-mladen-dabizljevic/
180 Minuten Tanz, traumhafte Kostüme und fantasievolle Bühnenbilder rund um den „Traumtänzer“ Don QUIXOTE, gespickt mit übersprudelnder Lebensfreude – ergänzt durch spanische Gitarrensoli. Viel Szenenapplaus und Standing Ovations am 3.12.2021 in der Deutschen Oper Berlin.
Mit seiner neuen Choreografie will der Spanier Víctor Ullate mehr Flamenco in das Ballett DON QUIXOTE bringen, aber trotzdem dem bewährten Original des Ballettklassiker Marius Petipa und Alexander A. Gorski treu zu bleiben. Das Staatsballett Berlin will ganz grosses Ballet zeigen. Mit viel Aufwand durch aufwändige Lichttechnik und bezaubernde Bühnenbilder von Roberta Guidi di Bagno wurde die reduzierten Fassung, die bereits 2018 gezeigt wurde, mit allen Finessen ausgestattet.
Weiterlesen „Don Quixote: Grosse Wiederaufnahme in Berlin“
I watched all the amazing youtube videos of Nadja Saidakova in June when I worked on preparing my interview with her. So many great ballet moments came up in my mind while remembering this outstanding prima ballerina dancing all the classical and contemporary leading parts with Staatsballett Berlin. As I loved them so much, I want to share them with all of you.
Her presentation was unforgettable as the tough Valkyries Brünnhilde in Maurice Béjart’s „RING UM DEN RING“, the lovely Tatjana in ONEGIN, her breathtaking Pas de Deux in “ IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHAT ELEVATED“ and her romantic interpretation of a young girl in „LE SPECTRE OF THE ROSE“.
Nach ihrer äusserst erfolgreichen Karriere gibt die Prima Ballerina Nadja Saidakova ihr Wissen als Ballettmeisterin beim Staatsballett Berlin weiter. In unserem Interview erzählt sie über ihre tägliche Arbeit.
Seit Sommer 2017 bist Du Ballettmeisterin beim Staatsballett Berlin, nachdem Du Deine aktive Karriere als Prima Ballerina beendet hast. Viele Ballettliebhaber wissen nicht so genau, was eine Ballettmeisterin eigentlich macht. Beschreibe doch bitte Dein Tätigkeitsfeld und erzähle uns über Deine Tänzerkarriere.
Als Ballettmeisterin coache ist vor allem Tänzerinnen und Tänzer und studiere das Repertoire mit ihnen ein. Jeden Morgen gebe ich ein 1.5-stündiges Training zum Aufwärmen. Danach studiere ich bis zum Abends verschiedenste Ballette mit einzelnen Solisten oder auch Gruppen ein. Da wir momentan Corona bedingt 8 verschiedene Gruppen haben, die über den Tag verteilt individuell proben müssen, haben wir viel Mehrarbeit.
Weiterlesen „Die Arbeit im Ballettstudio habe ich immer geliebt!“
Meine herzlichen Glückwünsche an Cathy Marston, eine der international renommiertesten Choreografinnen, und an Christian Spuck, unseren überaus geschätzten Ballettdirektor in Zürich seit 2012, der ab 2023/24 die Intendanz des Berliner Staatsballetts übernehmen wird.
Auch wenn es sehr zu bedauern ist, dass Christian Spuck das Zürcher Ballett verlässt, freue ich mich schon jetzt auf viele Berlinbesuche, um die grösste Compagnie in Deutschland unter seiner Leitung zu bewundern. Mit über 90 Tänzerinnen und Tänzern kann er aus dem Vollen schöpfen. Was für eine fantastische Herausforderung für diesen äusserst kreativen Choreografen!
Christian Spuck © Roman Novitzky
Weiterlesen „Big news: Cathy Marston wird neue Ballettdirektorin in Zürich“A raked (or inclined) theatre stage is built on an angle that slopes upward and away from the front the stage, away from the audience. It improves the view, supports the illusion and help make choreographic designs clear. Raked stages are nowadays usually with a rake of 5 degrees or less. There are far more common today in Europe, with its deep theatrical traditions in the Middle ages. Almost all American stages have flat floors, except the Philadelphia Academy of Music and a few Broadway productions f.e. the version of the musical Billy Elliot.
Visiting professional dancers have been known to experience vertigo when they first set foot on raked stages. Balance is completely different. It takes a good deal of adjustment during the first few days on a raked stage, especially when turning. Even the risk of injury increases by three times for dancers on raked stages.
Weiterlesen „Why Are Some Stages Raked?“„… my language is DANCE. And my mission is to make people see, feel and relate, open their minds and to take their breath away…“
Quote of Ksenia Ovsyanick on https://www.ksenia-ovsyanick.com/
You are an outstanding dancer and artist who is looking for new challenges. What inspires you?
I really believe in the art form of ballet and dance. Aesthetically, dramatically, physically, culturally it has so much to offer, so what drives me is the desire to tap into as much of its potential as possible and to share it with people, get others inspired from it and with that to appreciate it.
I’m creating a small series for my blog to give my favourite dancers the opportunity to talk about their experiences, motivation and daily routines nowadays. As you all know, it must be so tough for dancers to train hard every single day in isolation and stay in top shape, not knowing when the next performance is going to be.
„I found that the biggest shock for me was that suddenly for us as artists the ground was taken out of under our feet. Without being able to perform we can not share our work, we can not inspire with our work the way we normally do anymore. And that desire to stay creative and relevant was my main motivation to look for all the new ways I could still be an artist. I jumped into every project I could think of.
From creating videos, collaborating with other dancers, composers, artists, singers, choreographers. It has really pushed me to develop in the directions I didn’t expect before. From learning to film, to edit, to create music and sound, to manage projects, collaborate in new and unexpected ways as a dancer or choreographer. It became incredibly important for me to search for and find ways to show how dance as an art form can be versatile and relevant and important to our culture.
I have to say eventually the training part also started catching up with me. And as the time went by, the harder it had become mentally to keep pushing myself. The biggest mental challenge was to realise that I cannot possibly keep the shape that I could have in the normal environment. Once I had accepted it though, it allowed me to look at it from a fresh perspective and realise I can choose to use this time differently. Rather than desperately trying to hang on to what I normally used to do and eventually give up completely for the lack of visible result, I can use this time to do things I didn’t have time for before. And I mean not only outside of ballet but also within. There are always areas of our technique that need improvement but we just don’t have time to prioritize working on it. Whether it is port de bras, feet, extension, arabesque, turns, alignment – now is a really good chance to zoom in on that particular area that you could improve.
By now there are so many online resources available to help with development of any area you want. You can follow classes of signature companies and dancers from around the world [i.e. go to Mariinsky classes to work on you port de bras, cuban classes to work on your turns and so on]. Im incredibly grateful to the ballet community for stepping up and offering so much support online! So I would say the key for me was to develop trust in myself that once back in full swing, with a bit of extra hard work we all will be able to get back all the stamina and strength and technique we hadn’t been able to practice in current environment. And meanwhile focus on developing specific areas of your techniques, that would allow you to be better dancer later. Plus focusing on that area also inevitably forces you to do some kind of training – as a result keeping your work and coordination going.
But as I said earlier, it is the lack of artistic output that became the most important question for me to resolve. And my way was exploring all the new ways I could bring dance to the audience. And it has become a very interesting year that got me to develop and push my abilities in the areas I didn’t think I could before. Im currently finishing working on a creation with Itzik Galili. The process we have started back in April, and hopefully coming to fruition shortly, but something that truly pushed my boundaries, my interpretive skills, learning to speak, to act and dance at the same time – completely out of comfort zone.
At Staatsballett we were lucky enough to get back on stage for 2 months at the end of August. It was a very special experience reminding all of us involved including the audience about the power of a live performance. The auditorium was only quarter full, audience seating with big gaps between each other, with feeling like they are alone there, yet these first shows back were emotionally charged on the stage and in auditorium more than ever. Inspiring, yet somewhere sad, but mostly genuinely happy to have that emotional connection through dance. The power we should make sure to remind the world the performing arts have!
I wish everyone out there in the dance field to stay strong, persistent and creative. Let’s make sure to remind the world that what we do is important and inspiring, so that as soon as opportunity allows performing world can thrive more than ever before!”
https://www.ksenia-ovsyanick.com/
Born 1989 in Tihvin, Russia
Nationality: British/Belarusian
Berlin Staatsballett 2016 – today
English National Ballet — 2008-2016
EDUCATION
Open University BA (honours) Business and Economics studies 2011-2017
English National Ballet School 2005-2008
Belorussian State Ballet College 1999-2005
AWARDS
Outstanding classical performance, National Dance Award 2012
Benois de la Danse 2013 best female dancer nomination
Prizewinner at the Beijing International Ballet Competition 2006
Prizewinner at the Prix de Lausanne 2007
Silver Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Harkov, Ukraine 2004
BIOGRAPHY
Principal ballerina with Staatsballett Berlin, russian-born Ksenia started her training in Belorussian State Ballet College, followed by winning a scholarship at Prix de Lausanne to come to English National Ballet School. Her career started with English National Ballet and over the years she performed on the stages around the world including: Opera National de Paris Palais Garner, Royal Opera House Muscat, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Royal Albert Hall London, Buckingham Palace, participated in gala performances in China, Singapore, India, Russia, Chile Greece, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, Denmark, Latvia, Belarus among others, as well as participated in Closing ceremony of Olympics in London 2012.
At the age of 20 she danced her first Giselle and was nominated for English National Ballet’s Emerging dancer award. In march 2012 Ksenia had a title role of Firebird choreographed on her in the world premiere of “Firebird” by George Williamson, which brought her the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for an outstanding performance.
In 2013 Ms Ovsyanick was nominated for “Prix Benois de la Danse” best female dancer award and in 2018 she won “Dance Open“ international Ballet Award in St. Petersburg.
Ksenia created roles together with current choreographers such as Nacho Duato, Liam Scarlett, George Williamson, Alexej Ratmansky, Itzik Galilli, Yabin Wang and performed ballets by Kenneth Macmillan, John Cranko, Jiri Kylian, George Balanchine, Serge Lifar and Wayne Eagling among others.
In 2016 she joined Staatsballett Berlin as Principal Ballerina, performing leading roles in Nacho Duato’s Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, the title role in ballet Erde created on her by Duato, as well as Rubies and Diamonds in Balanchine’s Jewels, Giselle, Onegin, Don Quixote, La Bayadere and others.
In season 2019/2020 also a Permanent Guest Principal Dancer with Polish National Ballet.
Das Staatsballett Berlin blieb dank eines effektiven Sicherheits- und Hygienekonzeptes spielfähig bis der 2. Lookdown in Deutschland kam. Die 91 Tänzer*innen arbeiteten davor in separierten Trainingsgruppen, eingeteilt nach den Produktionen, in denen sie auftreten. Sobald ein Ensemblemitglied positiv auf Covid 19 getestet wird, kann diese Trainingsgruppe sofort isoliert und untersucht werden. Für November mussten alle Vorstellungen abgesagt werden.
Alle hoffen, dass ab 5. Dezember der Betrieb mit dem Ballettklassiker GISELLE wieder aufgenommen werden kann.
https://www.staatsballett-berlin.de/en/spielplan/5-11-2020/kalender
Mehr über das Staatsballett in der Corona-Krise im Video. Hingabe, Disziplin und Weitertrainieren – das ist und bleibt die Devise des Staatsballetts!
Beitragsfoto Iana Salenko und Daniil Simkin in GISELLE ©Yan Revazov
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