Staatsballett in Berlin

I figured I’d continue on my current trend of Berlin’s performing arts. As I mentioned previously, I will be in Berlin for the first two weeks of August doing a contemporary dance program at the State School of Berlin. I want to become familiar with the local companies and their repertoires. Interestingly enough, before 2004, each opera house has its own ballet company. Today the Staatsballett Berlin has become the single professional ballet institution in the city. Here is a bit of the history.

• 1742: Frederick the Great began his court opera under the name of Staatsoper Unter den Linden with included a ballet company.
• 1856: Paul Baglioni, descendant of the famous dancing-family, became director. His visionary leadership made dance in Berlin rank equal to Paris.
• 1920s: Deutsch Oper Berlin as a contemporary dance company. The company’s most known artistic director was Tatjana Gsovsky in the 1950s.
• 1951: The first ballet school in Berlin was established to train their own dancers instead of importing dancers from Paris.
• 1966: Tom Schilling brought his modern dance choreography, Komische Oper, to Berlin for almost thirty years.
• 2004: The three former ballet companies were transferred into one single institution even though they continue to perform in all three opera houses.

 Under the direction of Vladimir Malakhov, a world-renown Russian ballet star and choreographer, the company’s goal are to create a distinctive company with Germany’s best dancers. The 88 company dancers and 2 apprentices make Staatsballet Germany’s largest ballet company. As I will show you below, their repertoire features classical ballet and newer, more contemporary works.

For those of you who are not familiar with dance companies, I want to share with you a backstage look at the Staatsballett Berlin. You can see the dancers in class warming up for their day and rehearsing in the studio and on stage. Most audience members do not realize how much work that gets put into ballet productions.

Below you can see the dancers of the Staatsballett Berlin in performance of Patrice Bart’s “Swan Lake.” This production is considered one of the most classical ballet with women in tutus and Pointe shoes displaying the ultimate amount of grace and technical precision.

Here is an example of the company being innovative with the fairytale story of The Wizard of Oz. Madia Giorgio transformed it into a ballet, The Wonderful Wizard, with a fun and charming flair. You will notice that the style of dance is completely different than “Swan Lake” and the women are not wearing Pointe shoes and traditional ballet costumes.

Latently, I want to share with you a choreographic project, “Shut Up and Dance!,” that has also been done in the states at Pennsylvania Ballet. Young choreographers in the Staatsballett company are given the opportunity to choreograph. You can see in the clip how different the dancers move than in the other two videos. The transition between dance style must be seamless.

After doing this research I feel like I am more familiar with ballet company scene in Berlin. It is overwhelming how many dance companies are in Germany, but at least now I am aware of the past and the present of Staattsballett Berlin. I hope to meet a few of the company dancers in the program in August.