Photo by Garrett Mynatt
Ballerinas watch him with wide eyes and eager limbs, itching to nail down the routine Kabaniaev, 46, is choreographing for the premiere of a contemporary dance and musical innovation. The ballerinas will share the stage with the chamber orchestra in March and April 2010, a first for not only Colorado State University, but a first for dance and live instrumental performances in recent years in the nation.
“It’s an updated modern recognition of the tradition [of classical ballet],” said Carol Roderick, assistant professor of ballet at CSU, and creator behind the collaboration. “As a classical ballet teacher and being so rooted in the past as I am, it validates the contemporary relevance of this art form and all of its forms. Basically you can have a modern representation of the opera house right here.”
And Kabaniaev – a world-renowned ballet dancer and choreographer – was recruited to bring the piece together for the debut next spring at the University Center for the Arts. In less than one week in late September, Kabaniaev, also the artist in residence for the dance department, selected dancers and choreographed the almost 20-minute routine from scratch, drawing from the ballerinas’ interpretation of his moves and his extensive background.
Born and trained in Russia, Kabaniaev attended the elite Vaganova School in St. Petersburg for 10 years, and emerged with the best knowledge in classical ballet but, according to him, little more.
“I studied very strict ballet and was thinking that classical ballet is just the best thing in the world and is just one, real thing, which exists,” he said. “I got the best ballet education in the world for free, but you never could cross a border in accepting and understanding different ideas. I was so lucky that I looked at this with more open eyes.”
As Kabaniaev reached his prime as a dancer, he was forced into the Russian Army at the height of the Cold War. Although he struggled and felt as if he was in “prison” while fighting in Afghanistan, Kabaniaev emerged more dedicated and focused to be the best ballet dancer.
“I didn’t have a choice. Russia is a very corrupt country and is a different world,” he said. “It was a tough time, but looking back I’m so happy I went through it because that made me an optimist for all my life. I always can compare what I have here to with what I had there, and it is now always a piece of cake.”
After the army, Kabaniaev continued to pursue his career and soon realized that the country he was living in was “not the best” because of the anti-American propaganda from the Russian government.
“I believed that America is a country of evil,” he described. “It is all perception. I was thinking, ‘These poor people, how they can live there?’ I was thinking, ‘How can people there survive?’ We had information like this. It now sounds unbelievable, and when I was already in the army I was starting to know that we do not live in an ideal world or the best country. And then OK, [I decided I wanted] to go if this is not the best country. I wanted to go to the best country and live a good life.”
Kabaniaev has pursued contemporary ballet since he left Russia in 1990, and found a different energy and career path in Germany. After several years expanding his ballet abilities, he finally moved to the United States. After, what he sees as a natural course in dance, Kabaniaev decided to start a career as a choreographer. He has won numerous awards and in early 2009, has created more than 30 pieces to be performed across the nation.
Photo by Garrett Mynatt
Ballet focuses on energy – how it is perceived, how it is used and how it is absorbed. Kabaniaev said he didn’t truly understand what energy was until he began to look outside of classical ballet, and now he chooses to create more free-flowing, modern masterpieces.
“The movement is like a stream of consciousness,” said Brittany Adams, a freshman dance and psychology double major, and one of the dancers in Kabaniaev’s piece. “Learning to dance someone else’s stream of consciousness is very challenging. The movement is freer, more modern and abstract than classical ballet, but still defined by ballet technique.”
Adams, along with eight other dancers who auditioned, were chosen by Kabaniaev because they “most understand my movements,” he said.
Kabaniaev’s goal is to showcase each dancer to the best of her abilities and let what the dancers can achieve help dictate his choreography. He uses movement and ideas from all areas in life and pulls together what he knows a body can accomplish in dance.
“The body is a world, and is a galaxy. It is an undiscovered planet,” Kabaniaev said. “I want to give [the dancers] as much as I think they can be challenged with, but not overwhelmed to where they won’t be able to do it. Your body is basically an undiscovered world and you do little step-by-steps to find out how else it can move.”
Dancer Julia Williams said that although learning from Kabaniaev was really intense, she knew that all of the dancers were picked for a reason, and that this was only to make them better dancers.
“He pushed us very hard and expected a lot from us,” said Williams, a freshman dance and human development and family studies double major. “We kept pushing though and eventually the movement became a part of our bodies.”
To understand the language of dance, and take something from nothing, Roderick couldn’t have asked for a better choreographer and feels this is why Kabaniaev is the best at what he does.
“Viktor’s like a good cook,” Roderick said. “He sees what’s in the cupboard, what he has to cook with, what his ingredients are, and whatever it is he finds – different numbers of dancers, different ages, experience, nationalities, whatever – he then makes his recipe with what he has.”
Tags: Volume 5 Issue 1
