Photo gallery of Czech National Ballet’s triple bill: Rain, Vertigo and Cacti
The Czech National Ballet‘s triple bill Vertigo debuted in June and photographer Dasa Wharton was there to record it.
The contemporary programme featured Radu Poklitaru’s Rain, Alexander Ekman‘s Cacti and the piece from which the evening drew its title, Mauro Bigonzetti‘s Vertigo.
Rain
by Radu Poklitaru
music by Bach, Jacques Brel together with folk songs
The young, gifted and renowned Moldavian contemporary ballet creator RADU POKLITARU possesses a highly idiomatic style, blending classical elements and everyday gesture, traits of modern and national dances.
His 2007 choreography Rain is a philosophical account of a story depicting the fates of people who at the same moment involuntarily enter a single space.“
Vertigo
by Mauro Bigonzetti
music by Shostakovich
The Italian choreographer and currently Artistic Director of the Teatro La Scala ballet company, MAURO BIGONZETTI is a distinct contemporary dance figure, a creator of global renown.
The 2006 work Vertigo takes the form of a highly emotional duet, serving to express his personal visions regarding a relationship between two persons, a union in which the madness of love turns into physical vertigo.
Cacti
by Alexander Ekman
music by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Andy Stein and Mahler
The world-famous Swedish choreographer and stage director ALEXANDER EKMAN started his career as a dancer with the Nederlands Dans Theater II and was subsequently engaged at the Cullberg Ballet. He has risen to become a creator whose choreographies are characterised by fast-developing timing, humour and compelling transformations.
In Cacti, dating from 2010 and one of Ekman’s most acclaimed works, 16 dancers produce rhythms together with four musicians on the stage. With hyperbole and terse irony, it reveals the stereotypes of today’s Western civilisation, particularly the contemporary conceptual art, gleefully parodying its strategies and excesses.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
Czech National Ballet’s triple bill: Rain, Vertigo and Cacti is the ideal program for an evening of contemporary dance. The kind of program we the dance professionals wish to attend as often as possible. I liked the way the three works were exposed in Gramilano’s article with awesome pictures and accurate description of the dance makers and the works.
thank you Graham for another great article xx