Thuringian State Ballet
| Thuringian State Ballet | |
|---|---|
| Founder: | Walter Bruno Iltz (Gera Ballet) Kay Kuntze |
| Founded: | 1922 (Gera Ballet), 2013 |
| Hometown: | Gera & Altenburg |
| Members: | 22 dancers, 1 ballet director, 2 ballet masters, 2 repetitors, 1 art. org. colleague |
| Technology: | neoclassical ballet |
| Intendant: | Kay Kuntze |
| Venues: | Theater Gera |
The ballet company of Theater & Philharmonie Thuringia was named the Thuringian State Ballet on January 1, 2013 . It is the largest company in the Free State. The main venue and headquarters of the international company are the stages of the city of Gera . At a gala at the turn of the year 2012/2013, the institution previously known as Thuringia Ballet was awarded the title of State Ballet.
The motivation for founding the State Ballet was the financial consolidation of several Thuringian ballet institutions planned by the Thuringian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture .
ensemble
Kay Kuntze is the managing director and general manager . Ballet director and chief choreographer is Silvana Schröder . The classically and modern trained company, made up of 22 dancers from 14 nations, is the youngest and smallest state ballet in Germany after Berlin and Munich . The Thuringian State Ballet presents its performances both on the stages of the city of Gera with the stage in the large house, the stage in the park and in the concert hall, as well as on the stages of the Altenburg State Theater with the stage in the large house and in the boiler house.
In addition, the ensemble will also guest and perform in other theaters in Thuringia and Germany.
history
The history of the ballet in Gera began in the 1923/24 season when the first attempt was made to introduce dance as an independent art form. Richard Strauss' “Josephs Legende” was performed three times as part of a Strauss concert. Anni Schwanninger (Switzerland) and Iril Gadescow (Metropolitan Opera New York) were hired for the leading roles. In the following seasons there were always dance evenings. The ballet experienced an initial boom through the engagement of Yvonne Georgi, a student of Mary Wigman. Georgi was initially only engaged for one solo evening. She remained for the entire season 1925/26 as a soloist and director of the dance ensemble. Their first dance evening to music by Felix Petyrek, Darius Milhaud, Egon Wellesz and Igor Stravinsky celebrated great success, also with guest performances in Berlin, Leipzig and Hanover. In the 1930s, more and more dancers made guest appearances in Gera, who as innovative personalities also had a strong influence on international development. B., Gret Palucca, Mary Wigman and Harald Kreutzberg as well as the Indian ballet Menaka.
It was not until 1937 that there was another attempt to establish dance as an independent art form. Ballet evenings were created under the direction of the choreographer Wilmo Kamrath. His successor, Inge Ziegler, continued to lead the dance group in his favor. Every year she brought out a multi-part dance evening. In the first years after the war, the dance group consisted of 10 to 12 women, but very few of them had completed professional training. The dancers were often reinforced by a movement choir and the children's ballet as well as the ladies and gentlemen of the choir. In 1950/51 the Gera audience experienced the first full-length narrative ballet of the own ensemble with “The Devil in the Village” (Fran Lhotka).
After Inge Ziegler's departure, Alice Uhlen von Gregory took over the management in 1952, an experienced choreographer with classical training. She increasingly aimed for classical training for the ensemble. Only one season remained of Gregory, in which a multi-part dance evening and the ballet “The Magic Shop” based on music by Gioacchino Rossini and Ottorino Respighi were created. The company worked for the next three seasons under the solo dancer and choreographer Heinz Lieker. During this time works such as "The Creatures of Prometheus" (Ludwig van Beethoven) and "The Lovers of Verona" (Leo Spiess) were created.
Stage dance soon attained a new quality under the direction of Ruth Wolf, who worked in Gera from 1956 to 1962. The dance group gradually became a ballet company. Ruth Wolf resolutely improved the structure of the ballet. The result was a men's ballet with 6 to 7 dancers. It was the era of great Russian ballet evenings with choreographies such as "Scheherazade" (Nikolai Rimski-Korsakow) and "Flame of Paris" (Boris Assafjew), "Cinderella" (Sergei Prokofjew) or "Fountain of Bakhchisarai" (Boris Assafjew). Even under her successor Horst Jentsch, laypeople and colleagues from other fields were included in the choreographies. During his time, the GDR premiere of the fairy tale ballet "The Princess with the Golden Star" (Radovan Fest-Spisiak) fell.
In 1973 Inge Berg-Peters took over the direction of the ballet. She saw her most important task in raising the technical and artistic level of performance of the ensemble and developing capable young soloists. The ballet work became more professional; the inclusion of laypeople became less important or almost completely disappeared. For 20 years she was in charge of the Gera Ballet. Ballet became a recognized and popular branch of the stage as a review from 1986 shows:
"Not only dance professionals know that Gera has meanwhile become a balletto oasis in the GDR, grown through the ensemble work by head choreographer Inge Berg-Peters and the annual 'Gera Ballet Days', the only regular meeting in the GDR."
Under her leadership, the Gera Ballet Days were brought into being, which took place regularly from 1976 to 2009. International ensembles such as the Russian National Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet Preljocaj from Aix-en-Provence, Introdans from Arnhem, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, the Compania Nacional de Dansa from Madrid and the London-based Henri Oguike Dance Company performed in Gera. The festival also offered a platform for young dancers. The festival's program focuses on classical ballet - on its tradition, its further development, its description, its analytical reflection - and it asks about the future of this art form.
In the 1990s the ballet branch developed into the public darling. After Inge Berg-Peters left, her former student and resident choreographer Peter Werner-Ranke, together with the dramaturge Wolfgang Ranke, shaped the profile of the ballet. He choreographed the successful ballet productions "Play Goethe", "Romeo and Juliet", "Carmen" and twice a "Dix" ballet.
Guest choreographers such as Ton Wiggers, Nils Christe, Uwe Scholz, Dietmar Seyffert, Youri Vamós, but also young choreographers such as Mario Schröder, Silvana Schröder and Stela Korljan worked in Gera under the direction of the ballet director Siegfried Martin Wende. For the first time, “Giselle” (Adolphe Adam), a full-length ballet, was performed in the traditional classical original choreography.
Ballet director Ivaylo Iliev continued the development by hiring guest choreographers such as Gregor Seyffert, Hugo Viera, Davide Bombana, Robert North and Birgit Scherzer, thereby bringing out different artistic styles.
In 2011/12, Silvana Schröder, who once started her career as a dancer at the Gera Theater, returned to the house as ballet director. With her choreographies "Freaks", "Zeit.Punkt.", "27", "Schwarzer Schwan" and "Joker" she created her own, unmistakable style for the ThüringenBallett. On the basis of neoclassics, she worked with the company to develop current, sometimes athletic-circus, sometimes humorous movement sequences, always emotionally gripping choreographies on self-set topics in which all dancers are equally important. Great ensemble choreographies and the drawing of strong personalities are one of her trademarks.
In the course of the financing agreement for the years 2013–2016, the state government decided to award the Thuringian State Ballet the title of Thuringian State Ballet on January 1, 2013, to the Theater & Philharmonie Thuringia ballet company.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Advertisement for the gala opening , article from January 3, 2013
- ^ Statement by the ballet director on the title award, article dated December 30, 2012
- ↑ Frauke Adrians: Ministry of Culture wants a Thuringian State Ballet , article from May 19, 2011 (accessed: January 3, 2012)