World Ballet Day 2020 update

Published: 28 October 2020
Reporter: Vera Liber

The Royal Ballet rehearsing The Sleeping Beauty Credit: Gavin Smart

World Ballet Day 2020 on 29 October will be "the biggest ever celebration of global dance" with 40 dance companies participating in a live-streamed event, including The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Singapore Dance, Joburg Ballet, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre and Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico.

The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and The Royal Ballet will invite audiences to experience morning class on the Royal Opera House main stage. There will be interviews and access to rehearsals for The Royal Ballet: Live, the first series of live performances by The Royal Ballet in seven months.

Presented by dancers Alexander Campbell and Kristen McNally, The Royal Ballet’s itinerary includes:

  • Pre-recorded Class on the Royal Opera House Stage
  • George Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky pas de deux, rehearsal with Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov
  • Cathy Marston’s In Our Wishes, rehearsal with Fumi Kaneko and Reece Clarke
  • Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour rehearsal with David Donnelly and Téo Dubreuil
  • Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirts rehearsal with Fernando Montaño
  • Valentino Zucchetti rehearsing a new work Scherzo, performed by Artists of The Royal Ballet

The Australian Ballet has recently returned to the Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre where they will start their day with a COVID-safe morning ballet class followed by Bodytorque.Digital, an online series showcasing new choreography.

This year, the Bolshoi dedicates its livestream to Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, as the theatre celebrates the composer’s 180th birthday, with access to rehearsals of The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake (choreography by Yuri Grigorovich), The Nutcracker (Grigorovich) and Onegin (choreography by John Cranko). Morning classes will be led by theatre tutors Nadezhda Grachyova and Alexander Vetrov. There will also be interviews with Bolshoi dancers Svetlana Zakharova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Olga Smirnova, Artem Ovcharenko, Egor Geraschenko and the head of the ballet company, Makhar Vaziev.

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