Daniil Simkin og Yana Salenko, Paris 09, Foto: Tomas Bagackas

The applause wouldn´t stop at Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris on friday September 18th,  after the Don Quixote pas de deux by Marius Petipa, and with music by Ludwig Minkus, Brilliantly performed by the perhaps biggest male balletstar Daniil Simkin, together with his beautiful and very graceful partner Yana Salenko. 

Daniil Simkin, only 22 years old, has since september 2008 been solodancer at the American Ballet Theatre. After his fantastic breakthrough, which really started, when we enjoyed him at 21st. Centurys Ballet Star Galla performance at Champs Elysees in 2007. Which for Daniil Simkin was followed up by his participation in the same type galla in New York in february 2008, then he passed the audition to ABT, and I am shure that, if he manage to keep fresh, and are continuing in the same direction, we have got a new world dancing star, to follow in the footsteps of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev. I am not surprised that they are all Russian, because after the tuff ballet education they are going trough at many of the countries in the former East-Europes brilliant balletschools , it is only the very best which is surviving and a very few being stars. Daniil Simkin is from Novosibirsk and his partner Yana Salenko is from Kiev in Ukraine.  But I am happy to enjoy that there are more and more with this tradition as a background around in the “western” ballet world, as this performance also was a prove for, as it was not only Daniil Simkin, who was a great balletstar at this production by Sherwood Productions, under the artistic direction af Nadia Veselova-Tencer.

Daniil Simkin performed in the productions first part solo Ben van Cauwenbergh´s choreography Les Bourgeois to a chanson perfromed by Jacques Brel, and as the final number in the second part together with his beautiful brilliant partner Yana Salenko from The Ballet at the Berlin Opera the mentioned grand pas de deux from Don Quixote.

I love to be surprised, and the biggest happy surprise for me this special ballett evening in Paris was an other Russian couple, Polina Semionova and Dmitry Semionov both from Moscow. They are too Soloists at the ballettcompany by the Berlin Opera, in the first part of he program they performed the Le Corsaire pas de deux, professional and very well done, but the big surprise came in the second part, where they performed a choreography by Rolando D´Alessio, (As far as i know, he is Balletmaster at the Stuttgart Ballet), called “Come neve al sole” to music by Peter Schindler.

Dmitry Semioniv, Paris 09, foto: Tomas Bagackas

In this the two dancers completely showed another side of their talent, a side that we dont allways expect to find by the Russian dancers generaly, as they often are so very well classical educated

. In this little piece the dancers got the posibility to joke, give up, flirt, with each other – and indirectly with the audience. It is a small ballet hit, that I hope that many balletfans will get the posibility to experience.  

These four was not the only stars on stage.

From the Scottisch Ballet we enjoyed Sophie Martin (born in Cherbourg)and Adam Blyde performing the pas de deux from La belle au Bois Dormant in a great new type choreography by Ashley Page, which in a way combined the classical balletlanguage with a contemporary touch, which I enjoyed very much. In the second part they dance an Aria , an extract from In the Light and Shadow by the choreographer Krysztof Pastor to music by Johan Sebastian Bach.

Final picture in the Étoiles du 21e Siecle, Paris 09, Foto: Tomas Bagackas

From The National Ballet in Belgrade we enjoyed their danceur etoile Ana Pavlovic together with the  young (24 years old) solodancer Andrei Colcieru, which together performed a beautiful version of the pas de deux from Paquita, choreographie Marius Petipa, and a moderne piece I.V.E.K. to choreographie by Leo Mujic and music by Dietrich Buxtehude. 

From The Ballet at the Munich Opera we enjoyed Daria Sukhorova and Marlon Dino, in the socalled White pas de deux from second act of Swanlake, the traditional choreography by Marius Petipa, but here performed with great brilliance in a so slow tempo, which many dancers would have been hating the conductor to conduct, but for these two highly qualified dancers, it was not a problem, they performed the slow movements with wonderful autority and brilliance. The Swan costumes was “normal”, but the uniform type of costume for the Prince was elegant. Unfortunately, I dont know the costume  makers name. In the second part the danced from Raymonda the dreaming pas de deux to Marius Petipas choreography and Music by Alexander Glazounow, this, with their different solos gave them the posibility to show many good sides of their different talents.

Last but not least from Netherlands Dance Theatre two ballet parts, extraits from Bella Figura and Whereabouts Unknown, choreographed by Jiri Kylian, performed by two of the companys leading dancers Aurélie Cayla and Yvan Dubreuil. Kylian at his best, but in this connection it helped to show how wide and with how many variations there are in the balletworld.

Applaus after finale. Les Étoiles du 21e Siecle, Paris 09, Foto: Tomas Bagackas

Some of the music sounded great through the lautspeakers, and others not. I missed a small listing up of who were performing the music. According to the copyright law, a production is obliged to tell about it.

In this connection I am missing stars from the national ballet companies in all the Nordic and Baltic countries. They are there, they have as good a level, some of them even better, than some of them we have enjoyed in the galla this year and earlier
. Explore that part of the balletworld!