The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet will collaborate for the third year in a row to broadcast 20 hours of behind-the-scenes footage on Tuesday 4 October. For the first time the stream of World Ballet Day LIVE will be shown via Facebook LIVE – the longest broadcast ever to be shown on the platform.
SCHEDULE (Moscow time)
5 am – 9 am – The Australian Ballet (Melbourne)
9 am – 1 pm – The Bolshoi Theatre
1 pm – 5 pm – The Royal Ballet (London)
5 pm – 9 pm – The National Ballet of Canada (Toronto)
9 pm – 1 am – San Francisco Ballet
World Ballet Day LIVE is a celebration of dance and an opportunity for audiences to see what it takes to be one of the world’s top ballet companies, and get an inside look at the athleticism and dedication required for a life in ballet. Each company will introduce views to a variety of insights, from morning class, rehearsals for upcoming performances and backstage preparations. This year World Ballet Day LIVE will also include pre-recorded footage from a wide range of other dance organizations from across the world. Confirmed companies are: English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Boston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Ballets du Monte Carlo and Dutch National Ballet, Houston Ballet.
World Ballet Day Live 2015 saw an unprecedented 349,000 views on the day itself and has subsequently reached an audience of over 2 million throughout the course of the year. Working with Facebook Live, World Ballet Day aims to reach an even wider audience via social media channels including Instagram. Viewers are encouraged to get involved using the hashtag #WorldBalletDay and #mydanceshoes submitting pictures and videos of their own dancing shoes.
About World Ballet Day LIVE
The first World Ballet Day LIVE was held on October 1, 2014. The live broadcast attracted a total of 502,823 views from dance lovers around the world who watched for an average of 27 minutes. Allowing unparalleled, behind-the-scenes access, the streaming project revealed each company’s approach to company class and rehearsals, illustrating the unique personalities that characterize five world-class companies. As the first event of its kind, the 20-hour streaming project garnered critical and viewer acclaim with the New York Times declaring it an “unprecedented bout of internationalism” and the Toronto Star calling it a “milestone event.” World Ballet Day LIVE was inspired by Royal Ballet Live in 2012, a nine-hour live streaming via YouTube and The Guardian website.
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is about to open its 241st season. One of the oldest and largest ballet companies in the world, the Bolshoi combines its great classical tradition with a fresh approach. The Bolshoi Ballet is renowned for its unique style characterized by true virtuosity and incredible stage presence, and it celebrates an illustrious history with legends such as Galina Ulanova, Vladimir Vasiliev, Maya Plisetskaya, and Ekaterina Maximova. The Bolshoi Ballet was also the first company to stage Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Minkus’ Don Quixote.
Much of the Bolshoi’s legacy can be attributed to Yuri Grigorovitch who was the artistic director for more than 30 years and who will celebrate this season his 90th anniversary on January 2, 2017. The Yuri Grigorovitch festival is a main theme of this season at the Bolshoi ballet. Numbers of his creations will be shown in the framework of it.
Bolshoi constantly expands its repertoire with new works such as The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and Hero of Our Time. Pursuing this direction Bolshoi will present at the end of this season a new ballet based on the life of Rudolf Nureev, the original ballet score for which the theatre commissioned to the young but renown composer Ilya Demutsky. Today’s Bolshoi artists Svetlana Zakharova, Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Vladislav Lantratov, Artem Ovcharenko, Semyon Chudin, Denis Rodkin, and others—coached by Liudmila Semeniaka, Marina Kondratieva, Svetlana Adyrchayeva, Nikolai Fadeechev, Boris Akimov, Alexandr Vetrov, and more—ensure that under the leadership of Makhar Vaziev the Bolshoi’s standards are held as high as ever.
Art. Lebedev Studio