Modern Ballet Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Seagull. Music: Sergey Rachmaninoff Alexandrinsky Imperial Ballet Theatre (established 1756)
Schedule for Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Seagull. Music: Sergey Rachmaninoff 2022
Choreography: Boris Eifman
Orchestra: Symphony Orchestra "Congress"
The Seagull was produced by Boris Eifman as a tribute to the 30th anniversary of his theater. Building on Chekhov’s original text, the choreographer staged a ballet performance telling about a conflict between generations, about the price of success, about collision of old and new artistic forms.
This ballet by Boris Eifman is a meditation on creativity and on possible ways of how art should develop. At the same time, it is about the many faces of love, about disillusionment and loneliness of an artist. These ideas were important for Chekhov and his heroes, and they have not ceased to be so for today’s generations. The Seagull ballet by Boris Eifman has demonstrated that this choreographer, famous for his audacious interpretations of classical literature, ventures to experiment even with such a complicated writer as Anton Chekhov.
The Seagull is in its own way an innovative production within Eifman’s already established artistic style. The ballet accumulates and synthesizes the decades-long experience of Boris Eifman in the field of staging choreography and inventing new forms of plastique, thereby combining seemingly incompatible dance styles that range from neo-classic to hip-hop. In this ballet, the inner psychological story is rendered using clear choreographic forms, which undoubtedly demonstrates a transition to a new stage of Eifman’s artistic evolution.
“We have kept the main philosophical ideas of Chekhov’s play The Seagull but taken the action from a country manor to a ballet hall where a fashionable choreographer (Trigorin) clashes with a bold ballet innovator (Treplev), while a young dancer (Zarechnaya) competes with the company’s prima (Arkadina). Our performance concerns the burning problems of art development, the search for new forms, the true and alleged values, love and career.
At first glance it may seem that the ballet version of The Seagull is rather different from the literary work upon which it is based, but a closer look reveals tight links between the ballet characters and Chekhov’s play.
The four main characters and their exceptional lives, both artistic and personal, are expressed in our ballet by emotional and plastic means, which in our opinion reflects the spirit of Chekhov’s work and the essential understanding of the theatre itself.
We try to keep the experience and expertise of Trigorin and combine them with Treplev’s passion for innovations.”
Boris Eifman
“The ballet’s many pas de deux, combative trois, and quartets reveal tangled relations through ingenious, spectacular tangling of bodies avd limbs – Eifman’s forte. At one point Zarechnaya (the beautifully unaffected Maria Abashova) executes an arched one-handed handstand on Treplev’s thight. The amorous Trigorin jacknifes in her into his arms. And, whether acting as anxious mother, jealous lover, or reigning ballerina, Arkadina (the astonishing Nina Zmievets) wields her wire-thin limbs like daggers and snares. To show that she definitively bests Zarechnaya, Eifman assembles the corps de ballet into a two-person-high circular pyramid with Arkadina gloating at the top.”
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice
“As always, what saves the ballet from appearing overwrought are Eifman’s strict, formal discipline and his powerful sense of design relating figures in space. The characters’ psychological dependence is reflected in acrobatic duets of imprisoning complexity. The ballet studio ensembles in ‘The Seagull’ have a wondrous energy, however, and Eifman’s young dancers, led by Nina Zmievets, Dmitry Fisher, Maria Abashova and Yuri Smekalov, are gorgeous.”
Robert Jonson, The Star-Ledger
“Instead of slavishly adapting the classic Russian drama for the ballet stage, the choreographer elicits its central dilemma: trying to create new artistic forms in a world that may not be ready for radical change.”
Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune. March 26, 2007
“Boris Eifman's ‘Seagull’ soars with brilliant dancing and stagecraft.”
Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times. March 19, 2007
Schedule for Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Seagull. Music: Sergey Rachmaninoff 2022
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