Modern Masters

Sadler’s Wells, London

10 Mar 2015 – 15 Mar 2015

Ksenia Ovsyanick and James Forbat in Petite Mort. Photo: © David Jenson
Ksenia Ovsyanick and James Forbat in Petite Mort. Photo: © David Jenson
Modern Masters honours the work of three of the most influential and creative choreographers of the 20th Century, and brings two new works to English National Ballet’s repertoire.
PETITE MORT
Created in 1991, Ji?í Kylián’s poetic piece, features six men, six women, and six fencing foils, symbolising energy, silence and sexuality. Performed to the slow movements of two Mozart Piano Concerti, the foils slowly become dancing partners, as the brutality of everyday life is revealed. Petite Mort is a quintessential Kylián masterwork, loved by our audience and our dancers when we performed it last year.
SPRING AND FALL
In the same year that Petite Mort was premiered, Hamburg Ballet’s John Neumeier, a new master of narrative and dramatic ballet, created Spring and Fall. Set to the Dvo?ák’s Serenade for Strings in E Major, it is a work for two couples and corps de ballet and takes its narrative from the tension in the music. Spring and Fall is not in the repertoire of any other UK company.
IN THE MIDDLE, SOMEWHAT ELEVATED
With In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, William Forsythe started a completely new school of choreography, deconstructing classical ballet and liberating a new generation of classical dancers to show off their abilities. Set against a bare stage it is danced by nine individuals culminating in a fierce display of technical and physical wizardry.

Swan Lake in the round 2013

“SWAN LAKE” in the round of the Royal Albert Hall

Swan Lake in the round

Zoë Anderson:“On opening night, Tamara Rojo’s Swan Queen had the charisma to fill the whole space”

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Lyndsey Winship, London Evenig Standard:“There’s pause-button control in her early white swan scenes as her demure Odette deliciously stretches out her phrases with elegant assuredness. Later you can feel the adrenaline rising in the room as she spins her way through the 32 fouettés, ending with a sweet smirk that seems to say: “Oh that? Easy.”

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Luke Jennings, The Observer, Sunday 16 June 2013:

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The Telegraph, Louise Levene“Critics spoiled rotten by a life of perfect sightlines in the front stalls found the encircling audience distracting and carped that the sheer size of the Albert Hall made it impossible for the artists to convey emotion. Anyone who has watched their idols from the back row of Covent Garden’s amphitheatre through a forest of craning heads will know that this is nonsense”.

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