“The 25th Varna International Ballet Competition 2012 Finally Ended” Two First Prizes Awarded

The Surge for the Golden Times Crumbles

The Ballet Competition Shows Signs of Slowing Down

Two First Prizes Awarded

Brooklyn Mack, USA;  The first black Afro-American to win the first prize and gold medal.

Denis Cherevichko, Austria;  was the other ballet soloist to win the first prize and gold medal.

“The Varna Grand Prix” was not AWARDED.

Booklyn Mack

The surge for the golden times crumbles: Benjamin Feliksdal stated: The relative unimportance of the Varna International Ballet Competition 2012 was illustrated by the disappointed acts of dance by all the winners. There was a lack of pure classical ballet from the obligatory repertoire, created by the end of the 19th century.

The performers all suffer from wan and inexpressive gestures and weakly developed mimicry. The ballet dancers pleased the audience, who had come to see and love the purity of classical dance. At this stage of the Varna Ballet Competition, the audience saw a different kind of dance, an explosion of acrobatic complexity of tricks, from physical culture, was the only true response to the times.

Denis Cherevichko

Criteria transparency 

The criteria to judge the dancers, isn’t up to date and without transparency,” said Mr. Feliksdal. When dancers must dance fragments of pieces from Petipa, Perrot, Coralli, Vainonen and Lev Ivanov, members of the jury should discuss what exact will be the criteria for these pieces. There was no news conference or official discussion of the nuances of the dancers’ situation and its historical context. The extreme acrobatic tricks the dancers perform within these classical academic solos or duets, they consciously violating the model of the academic variations. It should be wise for the jury to consider and adjust some of the rules.

The original choreography and how they must be performed, is totally neglected by the jury members of the Varna Ballet Competition. Dance is physical, like sports, but, in many ways it is the opposite of sports!

In classical ballet, the purpose is to blend with and mirror each other.  Ballet dancers perform for an audience and they offer a gift of emotion. The audience saw on the stage of the Varna open air theatre, ballet dancers like athletes respond to one other and spectators are just there to witness and cheer.

Talented young dancers      

It seems that all the talented young dancers of today have forgotten how to dance the fragments of the repertoire of the 19th century; La Bayadere, Raymonda, La Fille Mal Gardee, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake,” said Benjamin Feliksdal, CIDmember and ballet critic. Trends in ballet competitions are not born in an instant, and that every step in the development of any art is measured in years, this is especially true of choreography. And each of these steps is conditioned by preceding stages. Of course, during these solos and pas de deux, dancers throughout the whole competition smile in warmth and friendship. This is the problem with the ballet fragments of variations or codas from ballets of the classic legacy showing in the Ballet Competition Varna 2012.

Benjamin Feliksdal

Benjamin Feliksdal

CID Member Int. Independent Jury Member,

Former principal dancer “The Dutch National Ballet”

Author, of Methodic Dance Books , Ballet Critic

www.benjaminfeliksdal.com