The state-owned Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow has an artistic director who has pledged that the company will return to the West for performances. The renowned ballet company gave a performance at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts last week in China. The company had not performed outside of Russia since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020. Numerous nations have boycotted the corporation as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Mahkar Vaziev, the artistic director, claimed that the Bolshoi was “not suffering” from its inability to tour the West. “I have no doubt that one day everything will go back to how it should be because culture is a wave that is very hard to suppress,”
The Bolshoi is regarded by many as the pinnacle of Russian culture. The Great Empress Catherine started the ballet company in 1776. Even at the worst of the Cold War, the troupe continued to tour the globe. The dancers of Bolshoi believe that their appearance in China would signal a return to performing all over the world. There are only two more shows that the firm has scheduled as of right now. The dancers are scheduled to perform in Oman in January of next year and in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in November. During its visit to Beijing, the Bolshoi will present excerpts from two of its most well-known ballets. After that, a three-day production of the 19th-century ballet “Don Quixote” will take place.
According to a corporate spokesman, the Bolshoi still receives about 70% of its funding from the Russian government. Present-day performers have refrained from criticizing the Russian invasion. Approximately 8,500 civilians have been injured or killed in the conflict, according to the UN. The Bolshoi concerts scheduled for the summer of 2022 were canceled by London’s Royal Opera House in February 2022, a day after Moscow dispatched thousands of troops into Ukraine. Soon after, cancellations occurred in other Western cities. The creative collaboration with Western artists and theaters was discontinued. To express their extreme disapproval of the war in Ukraine, a number of Russian and international dancers also left the company. Among those who resigned was Olga Smirnova, a former lead ballerina. “But it is what it is right now,” she continued. At the start of the pandemic, Elizaveta Kokoreva started working for the company. Now she serves as its primary dancer. “I would really like to travel and see other countries as well as different venues, theaters, teachers, and choreographers,” she remarked. “But it is what it is right now,” she continued.
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