Sunday 7 March at 20.00 CET, there's a chance to see the students from the Rome Opera Ballet's school in La Bayadère Divertissement with choreography by Ofelia Gonzalez and Pablo Moret (two of the school's teachers) based on Petipa's original. It is a suite of the most well-known dances from Petipa's ballet, performed mainly by students in their final years at the school. It was created for the students for their 2016 Summer Performance at Rome's opera house, Teatro Costanzi.
It will be streamed free of charge on the theatre's YouTube channel:
This is the first of four titles that will be added to the Digital Theatre programme in the coming weeks. They are all shows that have been staged during past seasons with the school's young dancers. After La Bayadère Divertissement comes Alessandro Bigonzetti's Concerto in Oro on Sunday 11 April, Alessandra Delle Monache's A Midsummer Night's Dream on Sunday 2 May, and Mauro Bigonzetti's Turnpike on Sunday 6 June, all at 20.00 CET.
Laura Comi – a former principal dancer with the company and now the head of its school – says,
The titles have been chosen from the vast repertoire produced in recent years. The titles are very different from musical, technical, stylistic, and scenic points of view. I believe that taking part in the Digital Theatre initiative is an important opportunity to make the work we do at the Rome Opera School of Dance known to a new audience. This is why the four ballets in the programme involve dancers of all ages, from the youngest to the oldest.
In the professional training of our students, performances are a fundamental part. The study of technique that they practice and refine every day in the dance studio is not an end in itself, but at the service of artistic interpretation. Being on stage is an exciting goal that our students achieve together with their teachers.
PREVIEW:
Photos: La Bayadère Divertissement by Ofelia Gonzalez and Pablo Moret, Summer Performance 2016, photos by Yasuko Kageyama-Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
