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Bread and butter ballet

If it ain't broke don't fix it seems to be the motto of the Russian Festival Ballet, which will wheel out well-trodden classics. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BAROQUE ART

If it's spring, the sound of point shoes are sure to be filling theaters islandwide as the Russian Festival Ballet returns for what has become almost an annual rite of passage around Taiwan.

The company has developed a strong following here after more than a dozen visits. It opens its 10-performance run next Wednesday in Hsinchu County. In addition to the perennial favorites Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the company will be also performing A Midsummer Night's Dream, based on the William Shakespeare play. Taipei audiences will be able to choose from among all three, but ballet-lovers elsewhere will have to make do with just one.

The Russian Festival Ballet, formed in 1989 by premier danseur and choreographer Timour Fayziev, is filled with graduates of the Bolshoi and Stanislavski schools. Fayziev himself is a graduate of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography at the Bolshoi Theater.

The Russian Festival Ballet is not the Kirov or the Bolshoi, but it is a strong, second-tier company. It also has the advantage of being cheaper than the big companies, with tickets starting at NT$500 and a top ticket price of NT$3,000 for Taipei, NT$2,500 elsewhere, compared to the NT$6,000 being charged for prime orchestra seats for the Kirov's visits.

If it ain't broke don't fix it seems to be the motto of the Russian Festival Ballet, which will wheel out well-trodden classics. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BAROQUE ART

That price difference is a draw, especially if you are a dance student or the parents of ballet-struck little girls who might be dreaming of the day they can don a tutu and take to the stage themselves, or a young boy who sees himself soaring across the stage in a grande jete.

Fayziev has wisely restricted the company's repertoire to a handful of traditional Russian and modern classics that audiences the world over still clamor for, including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Giselle and Don Quixote. In recent years he has added Carmen and Romeo and Juliet to the line-up. Nothing earth shattering or particularly innovative, just well known tales that require a disciplined corp de ballet, some good soloists and competent principles.

The key to the Russian Festival Ballet's performances is their display of finely honed Russian technique — strong backs, terrific extensions — and a unity of style that comes from everyone having been taught the same way. Most of the big — and even some of the small — Western ballet companies are now filled with dancers from around the world. Great in terms of seeing terrific dancers, not so great if you are putting on a ballet that needs a unified corp for visual impact, such as Swan Lake.

Such displays of Russian virtuosity have become a staple on the calendars of local ballet aficionados, who are always hungry for more point-work, given the dominance modern dance has on Taiwan's dance scene and the paucity of local competition. The Kaohsiung City Ballet is the only Taiwanese company to perform year-round, but its well-attended annual tours alone can't fill the void.


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