Dancing to perfection: Russian ballet stars; Ballet Manila co-featured

“Today’s Stars of the Russian Ballet” executed to perfection a series of pas de deux from standard classics: La Fille Mal Gardee, Romeo and Juliet (Balcony Scene), Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire, Flames of Paris, Swan Lake, Giselle and Don Quixote.

The dancers displayed an impeccably magnificent technique. The ballerinas conveyed airy lightness and exquisite grace, their arms in delicate fluid motion, heads in strikingly beautiful angles. Arabesques invariably had extensions ending in vertical lines; often, raised legs, from a standing position, would likewise end in the same lines!

The danseurs were similarly superb. The grand jetés en tournant (barrel turns), and tours en l’air, both defying gravity, as also the dizzying, multiple pirouettes were fascinatingly light, buoyant, and incredibly controlled. No matter how swift the jetes and turns, danseurs firmly landed in varying positions, e.g., kneeling or prone on the floor. The seamless lifts left no traces of effort.

Le Corsaire featuring Jurgita Dronina and David Galsytan, Flames of Paris interpreted by Maria Mishina and Dmitry Zagrebin, and Don Quixote, danced again by Dronina and Galystan, were the most technically challenging. The ballerinas, in a series of fouettés, would do double and triple ones, and engage in other pyrotechnics. The danseurs, for their part, would execute what I had earlier described. Dronina stood out for her fantastic feat: she would do arabesques with her partner’s support; he would release her and she would hold her pose for what seemed an eternity!

In Giselle, Yana Selina, partnered by Mikhail Lobukhin, sustained throughout the wraith-like, ethereal grace of a spirit. In the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, the two dancers suffused the atmosphere with flowing lyricism. Again in their remarkable fashion, Mishina and Zabrebin danced in La Fille mal Gardee; Anastasia Isaeva and Yuri Mirov, in The Sleeping Beauty and The Black Swan.

The numbers, except one, were performed against plain, light-colored curtains to highlight the dancing. Only Giselle had a stage setting of elegant drapery and dim lights to depict a royal gathering. In one instance, a dark-hued curtain sometimes obliterated the figure of the black-costumed danseur. Another danseur turned his ballerina a bit too slowly in the tours en place.

But in sum, the Russians in the classics were stunning. Awesome! How did our own dancers fare?

One presumes that the Russian ballet stars chose to perform with Lisa Macuja because she is Russian-trained; further, members of her Ballet Manila likewise dance in Kirov’s Vaganova Method. In fact, in Lisa’s years with the Kirov Ballet, she was already portraying principal roles.

At 45, Lisa, to no one’s surprise, matched, both in technique and artistry, the much younger visiting ballerinas. Moreover, “The Rebel” with Rudy de Dios offered Lisa a chance to emote, to express deep sadness and grief whereas in the series of pas de deux, except in Giselle and Romeo and Juliet, the Russian dancers, besides their immensely overwhelming technical brilliance, offered little more than endearingly charming smiles. Further, Lisa, in the course of the dance, carried De Dios on her back for a length of time in an unprecedented tour de force.

Candice Aldea and Jean Marc Cordero of Ballet Philippines were likewise a match for the Russians in the latter’s own contemporary ballets: “Two Pieces for Het” danced by Ananyan and Zhembrovsky, to choreography of Dutch Hans Von Manen, and Wie Lange Noch also performed by the duo to choreography of R. Pastor.

Augustus Damian’s propulsive, often abrasive “Evacuation” with its acrobatic touches seemed more compelling than those interpreted by the foreigners, with Candice and Jean generating more excitement.

Tony Fabella’s imaginative “Dancing to Czerny” and Damian’s “Reconfigured”, executed with marked precision and vigor by Ballet Manila’s ensemble, were a refreshing and welcome change in the series of pas de deux. In the Coda, the ensemble partially repeated its two dances while the Russian ballet stars did their own thing, thus creating riotous, tumultuous movement that left the audience — this filled Aliw Theater to the rafters — in frenzied applause and wild, thunderous clamor. Each number, in fact, had received that kind of acclaim!

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Vorobiev headed the guests. Principal sponsor, the Society for Cultural Enrichment, has Helen Ong as president.