The Washington Post: A group of Ukrainian ballet dancers who fled the war in their homeland and brought their talents together under the name United Ukrainian Ballet, based in The Hague, will perform at the Kennedy Center Feb. 1-5, the center announced Thursday. The group’s five-day run will mark its debut in the United States and its only U.S. appearances.
2 comments:
It is really wonderful that the Kennedy Center is bringing in United Ukrainian Ballet to perform. It seems like a wonderful celebration of the culture and a way to give these sixty Ukrainian dancers a great venue in which to perform. It can also hopefully raise awareness once again to everything that is going on in the Ukraine that is being sort of ignored mostly by the media these days. It is also very nice that Christine Shevchenko is joining in as a guest dancer since she is Ukrainian-born. It is incredible how quickly they were able to bring together dancers of all skill levels to form a touring company and I liked that this article was very open about those struggles when some of the dancers had not been able to take ballet classes, but they wanted to be included in this tour and how inspiring that was to all involved. I think this is also especially important because of the dancer who was recently killed in the conflict.
I think it is really cool that ballerinas are being brought all the way from Ukraine to perform in the United States, especially with the current state of the country. I also think that it is really cool that they are adapting Giselle to be a modern work. Rather than Giselle dying of heartbreak, she is dying on the battlefield in the Ukrainian war. I think that adapting this work to be more prevalent and tell a story that these dancers are currently living through will be very interesting, and very important to these people, as well as hopefully the audience. Art brings people together, so hopefully this performance will help the audience and the dancers connect. Maybe this specific showing of Giselle will help the people in the audience feel the emotions they’re feeling, and hopefully inspire them to act on what they’re feeling.
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