I went to see Kyiv City Ballet last week for their gala performance in Southampton.
They're exiled and inevitably (somewhat) stranded in the former Warsaw Pact country Croatia after a stint in Paris.
There's a lot I noticed and ordinarily would wish to write about, but now isn't the time.
Kyiv City Ballet were sparse but dignified.
They were professional with a wide ranging and versatile repertoire.
There was nothing but effort, and from time-to-time unforgettable performances from a skeletal ballet company under pressure, surviving at first week to week, followed if lucky by month to month, and then inevitably we tell ourselves the years trundle or roll by-on-by.
Not once did they solicit maudlin sympathy or allow anger, jingoism or bitterness spoil their performance.
If anything was obvious, it was the absence of propaganda in either direction, and not its presence as it were.
The dancer in three images above, was not only extraordinary in a fluid and uncoiling manner, but the music for his sleeveless black-tunic performance has tested my sanity (help me out here please) trying to find it. I pulled my phone out to sound-search using Google Assistant but unsuccessfully.
I was hopeful it might be Le Spectre de la Rose (Carl Maria von Weber's Aufforderung zum Tanz - Invitation to Dance) or Elgar's Nimrod (Tribute to Peace) from the single-sheet concert program I subsequently located, but my hopes were skripaled early on and I've yet to find what I'm looking for.
Show must go on.
Update. I received a lovely email from Croatia and I have the music so I'll be sharing that and more.
