Sergei Polunin showed the dramatic ballet Rasputin in the Event-Hall concert hall of the Grad city park, and before that he gave a master class for students of the local choreographic school. The performance was made with the participation of the dancer’s longtime partners – choreographer Yuki Oishi, composer Kirill Richter and stage designer Otto Bubenichek. The light was set by David Misakyan, known for his work with the Bi-2 group. Before the show Sergei Polunin talked about the justification of anti-heroes and teaching children the art of ballet.
– Sergey, do you somehow justify Grigory Rasputin?
– When you go on stage, you begin to feel this character – energetically, on a subconscious level. In the process of working on the performance, we deeply studied all the sources, felt the approach to the royal family and the relations that were there, including relations with Rasputin. After all, he was an ambiguous person. And you need to understand that every anti-hero himself probably thinks that he is a hero, that he is doing something good.
– Nevertheless, Raspustin is better known to a wide audience from the negative sides.
– This is, in principle, a human property – to remember the bad. Perhaps this is how the instinct of self-preservation manifests itself. I, on the contrary, always try to find something good in any nation, in any person. After all, everyone has something bad and something good. I’m trying to separate good and evil.
– How successful is it?
“Sometimes it’s difficult. It happens that a person personally treats you well and with love, but he himself is known for bad qualities. And then there is a risk of double standards… But for any person it is important to be loved – then they begin to treat everyone better. After all, everyone wants to be loved and loved.
– You turn 33 this year – quite a veteran age for a dancer. Do you feel that you still have a lot of strength to work on stage?
– I have been watching the body since childhood and now I understand that some moments are harder, for example, the back is weaker than it was before. But it’s physical. Energetically, I have become stronger than at 29: I have more strength and desire to do something. In March, I plan to show a new ballet – we are working on The Master and Margarita. I feel the transition to new stages and do not rule out that in a year the body will become stronger.
But the most important thing is the family: even after an injury, when your beloved woman and children are with you, you don’t notice seemingly serious moments for creativity, what is possible, you won’t return to the stage.
– And how is the work going at the Academy of Choreography of Sevastopol?
— We have been creating a training system for several years to maximize the talents of children. Moreover, half of the students are paid for by the state, and half by my foundation. Now the school building is almost ready, and I have not seen better in the world. There is no other such school with such a scale in the world. And, I plan, the children here will achieve the maximum result. We also put on performances with their participation, there will be The Nutcracker, and we will use them in adult shows – in Tsarevich Alexei’s Rasputin, a boy from Sevastopol is just dancing.