Evening of Modern Ballet "Dancingly Yours": Sad Case. Trois Gnossiennes. Whirling. Études Tickets

At its programme entitled Dancingly Yours, the ballet company of the Hungarian State Opera presents a selection of the most popular contemporary one-act works.

The works by outstanding creators of the dance world, demanding breathtaking technique, portray the relationship and interdependence of men and women, offer a glimpse into an exciting yet unknown future, and depict finding your path on stage, where ballet itself also becomes a protagonist. With the combination of classical and contemporary, intimate and spectacular, melancholic and uplifting, the Hungarian National Ballet remains “Dancingly Yours”.

Sad Case

“Now in hindsight we realise that energy is everything. When we created Sad Case in 1998, so far in to Sol’s pregnancy, the hormones were jumping and emotions were high.  It is these hormones of laughter, madness and the trepidation of the unknown ahead that are the umbilical chord of this work,” says the British Paul Lightfoot, thinking back to the origin of the ballet. He and his partner, the Spanish Sol León share credit for the performance’s choreography and set and costume designs. Up until 2020, León worked as artistic consultant and Lightfoot as artistic director for the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), where they were responsible for bringing about sixty creations, including Sad Case, which is undoubtedly one of the pillars of their work. In it, surprising movements set to Mexican mambo music reflect the ongoing search for the tension between the satirical and the serious. The OPERA had long planned the staging of this irresistible modern piece for Hungarian audiences – and by way of it, the art of the world-famous Lightfoot.

Trois Gnossiennes

Built around the magically beautiful music of Erik Satie, Hans van Manen’s Trois Gnossiennes draws a picture of a unique relationship. This double portrait painted with sensitive brushstrokes flashes with images of trust, submission and dominance, and relativity and interdependence. Masterfully alternating between lyrical and grotesque elements and weaving together memorable human traits, van Manen depicts monologues and dialogue, as well as symbolic moments of a relationship rich in intimate profundities. The bravura elevation of simple poses to the level of acrobatics and the enigmatic and fantastic play with a living body that goes limp make this short but dense work an unforgettable one.

Whirling

Whirling, a pas de deux by András Lukács, a former soloist with the Hungarian National Ballet is set to the second movement of Tirol Concerto by Philip Glass's, one of the greatest masters of repetitive music. The nearly fluid movement, the infinite harmony among the dancers and the unique style of choreography make the scene both quite exhausting and complicated. In 2010, the Hungarian National Ballet commissioned Lukács to create an expanded version for nine pairs. Tastefully and thrillingly combining elements based on classical techniques with modern devices, Lukács primarily creates plotless choreographies that are highly expressive. In Whirling, along with the music, the spiralling movements of the dancing superbly illustrate a vortex of water: the water into which the suicidal Virginia Woolf casts herself to music once again by Philip Glass in the film The Hours.

Études

Études is a one-act ballet which poses a great challenge to ballet companies because its subject is the technique of classical ballet itself: the school, the everyday training and the assessment of understanding and skill. Perhaps this is why the famous American dance critic Arlene Croce dubbed this work an “anti-ballet”. Because, in a ballet, the perfection of skill in dance is traditionally presented to the audience through the content, and the arduous everyday practise usually remains hidden from the viewers. The dancer’s everyday work takes place in the ballet studio, where the “vocabulary” of dance is formulated inside each dancer’s body, which will later become the base for the performance of choreographies on the stage. The audience sees only the outcome. Danish choreographer Harald Lander, however, decided to initiate the viewer by presenting on the stage how a ballet exercise is constructed, and how the pure beauty of classical movements and steps triumph over even the laws of physics. Since the rediscovery of Études in Budapest, it has represented a tremendous opportunity for the company’s soloists and provided enjoyable, spectacular entertainment for the audience.