Oleksandra Liashenko and Pawel Koncewoj of
Polish National Ballet performing And the Rain Will Pass... Photographer: Ewa Krasucka
With four festival-exclusive performances directed and choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor, the PNB are a highlight of this year’s festival. Two of Pastor’s pieces are set to music by Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and the stagings feature internationally acclaimed dance soloist Rubi Pronk
Dance Salad Festival, celebrating its 18th anniversary in Houston and its 21st season since its inception in Brussels, promises a gathering of world-class performers. The multicultural presentation has received international recognition for its quality and innovativeness, and the festival’s broad international nature has made it a source of cultural pride for many in Houston's expatriate and ethnic communities.
The Polish National Ballet of the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw comes to the U.S. for the first time since 1980, and is featured on the festival programme alongside ballet companies from Barcelona, Madrid, Antwerp, Rome, Amsterdam and the Hague. Rubi Pronk, the internationally acclaimed solist, will be featured in two works by Krzysztof Pastor, and the programme also premieres a selection from the full-length Persona created by Robert Bondara, a dancer and rising choreographer of the PNB.
PNB has been under the directorial leadership of choreographer Krzysztof Pastor since March 2009. Pastor is also resident choreographer at the Dutch National Ballet, as well as ballet director of the Lithuanian National Opera Ballet.
Festival audiences are presented with U.S. premieres of three iconic Pastor works: a section of And The Rain Will Pass…, created in 2011 to the moving, dramatic music of composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki; Moving Rooms, created by Pastor for the Dutch National Ballet in 2008 and recently premiered by Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, set to music by Alfred Schnittke and Górecki; and Kurt Weill Suite, created in 2001 for the Dutch National Ballet. DSF presented a pas de deux from this major work in 2003, and ten years later Houston audiences see three major sections of the work.
And the Rain Will Pass... is Pastor’s personal artistic statement. Upon his return to Warsaw after years of living abroad, he saw in this city more scars and evidence of suffering than anywhere else. Pastor was inspired by images from literature and film, and chose the theme of rain after the poem Deszcze / Rain of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. The piece employs Beatus Vir, Quasi una fantasia and Kleines Requiem für eine Polka, two compositions by Górecki.
The world premiere of Moving Rooms was performed as part of the prestigious Holland Festival, was highly praised by Dutch critics and audiences. Pastor describes the piece:
[Moving Rooms] refers to moving changing spaces...legibly defined by light. It affects the relationships between the dancers, creates their emotions. This play of light and movement within a changing space is the essence of my ballet…it is a pure play of moods and emotions in a dynamic composition of lights.
In the Kurt Weill Suite, Pastor creates a multimedia show with a collage of dance images. Through the music of Weill, he encourages reflection on the social context of the composer’s era, the changing fate of an artist, surging symptoms of intolerance, and a constant longing for love. Two sections of this work presented in Houston are danced to a live music. An opera singer from Houston Grand Opera Studios is accompanied by musicians from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
The fourth piece performed at DSF is Persona, set to music by Arvo Pärt, and created by the young PNB choreographer Robert Bondara. Bondara questions the social autonomy of existing as a human being:
Human existence is inextricably linked to functioning within certain sociocultural norms. This makes it necessary to adjust to existing models, which allows people to avoid conflicts and gain benefits in the form of a sense of being accepted. Thus, people put on masks, trying to play different roles, adapting to the attitudes and behaviors expected of them. Jung called this phenomenon the persona."
Krzysztof Pastor (born 1956) began his ballet training with the Polish National Ballet School in his hometown of Gdansk. Pastor became a soloist with Le Ballet de l’Opéra of Lyon in France in 1983. From 1985 to 1995, he danced with the Dutch National Ballet. After creating pieces for the Dutch National Ballet’s workshop programmes, he was asked to choreograph a ballet for the company’s main programme in 1992. Pastor has since gained recognition as an international choreographer, creating nearly fifty ballets to date with ballet companies across the globe.
Robert Bondara is a dancer, choreographer and teacher with the Polish National Ballet. He graduated from the Feliks Parnell State Ballet School in Lódź in 2002. He joined the ballet company of the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw in September 2005, and has been a coryphée dancer in the PNB since 2009.
Two additional events run as part of the Dance Salad Festival: a special talk and a workshop session. Choreographers’ Forum: A Conversation, takes place on the 27th of March at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, at 7 pm. It provides a special opportunity to glimpse the creative process from some of the invited choreographers and see film clips of their work. This highly anticipated event is generously co-sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and a reception follows the Forum at the MFAH. During the Festival week, Artist to Artist Workshops are also held in various locations throughout the city so that students and professionals can learn from these invited master choreographers.
Dance Salad Festival showings take place on the 28th, 29th and 30th of March 2013, at 7.30 pm, at the Wortham Center, Cullen Theater.
For more information and ticket bookings, see: http://www.dancesalad.org
Thumbnail credits; Dancers from Polish National Ballet performing Kurt Weill Suite, photo by Ewa Krasucka.
Paulina Schlosser, source: http://www.dancesalad.org, teatrwielki.pl, 26.03.2013