Latest news with #DutchNationalBallet
South China Morning Post
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong Ballet's Frida is a visually powerful production, if lacking in clarity
Hong Kong Ballet's latest production, Frida, explores the life and art of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Advertisement The full-length work by choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa was developed from a one-act ballet, Broken Wings, which she created for the English National Ballet in 2019, and the retitled two-act version for the Dutch National Ballet followed in 2020. Frida is not a narrative ballet as such. Instead, Lopez Ochoa offers a series of snapshots of key moments from Kahlo's life, interspersed with interludes featuring characters from her paintings. This kaleidoscopic concept would have worked as a one-act ballet, but a 90-minute production needs more clarity and structure to keep the audience engaged. This is a powerful production visually, full of striking, flamboyant images and there is some good choreography – the first duet for Kahlo and Rivera is outstanding; the scene where she miscarries, her body twisting into terrible contorted poses, is gruesomely dramatic. However, while Kahlo's admirers will enjoy the references to her paintings, their symbolism and the way Dieuweke van Reij's ingenious costume designs bring them to life, those not familiar with the paintings are likely to be left bemused. Advertisement Kahlo channelled her suffering – physical and emotional – into her art. She had a limp from childhood polio, and horrific injuries from a traffic accident when she was 18 left her struggling with pain and disability for the rest of her life.
New York Times
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Olga Smirnova, a da Vinci of Ballet, Settles Into a New Life, New Rep
Frantic corrections filled the main studio of the Dutch National Ballet on a recent afternoon. A new Shakespeare adaptation, 'Lady Macbeth,' was about to go onstage, and the choreographer, Helen Pickett, and her assistants crisscrossed the room to deliver last-minute changes or tweak the positioning of an arm. Then Olga Smirnova, a former star of the Bolshoi Ballet, stepped forward for a solo, and the room went still. With her back turned, Smirnova reached behind herself slowly. Her supple arms and fingers unfurled with a quiver, instantly conjuring Lady Macbeth's tangled emotions. 'It's like watching da Vinci work,' Pickett said with a contented sigh after the rehearsal. Until 2022, Smirnova's blend of technical mastery and dramatic intensity made her one of Russia's most in-demand ballerinas, with a vast repertoire of leading roles at the Bolshoi and the prestige that comes with it in her country. Then, weeks after country invaded Ukraine, she announced she would leave it all behind and join the Dutch National Ballet. In a post to the messaging app Telegram, Smirnova, who had a Ukrainian grandfather, wrote that she was 'ashamed of Russia' and opposed the war 'with all the fibers of my soul.' While a number of foreigners who worked in Russian ballet companies departed around the same time, Smirnova remains the most high-profile Russian dancer to have publicly made the move. Image Olga Smirnova and Timothy van Poucke rehearsing 'Lady Macbeth' at the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam. Credit... Jussi Puikkonen for The New York Times The personal cost has been significant, Smirnova, 33, said in an interview in Amsterdam. Three years on, she still has 'very little contact' with her former colleagues and friends in Russia. Her parents struggled to understand her decision; she has not seen them since the war began, although she's working to find a way: 'I still want to have my family as my family.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
