Russian News Article 2012

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17.10.2012

Sergei Polunin: “I want to get to know the Russian public as soon as possible”

Sergei Polunin – perhaps, the most titled participant of the project of the TV channel “Russia – Culture” “Grand Ballet” . At the age of 17 he was accepted into the Royal Ballet Company of London, and already at 19 he became the youngest principal dancer in the history of the theater. In 2011, British critics dubbed him the best classical dancer, and he unexpectedly left the prestigious collective at the very start of his career. It was a sensation, around which all sorts of rumors immediately began to spread. The artist himself complained of the tight restrictions that he faced when he was working on the stage of “Covent Garden”, and even admitted that he plans to permanently leave his ballet career. Nevertheless, a few months later, he came to the stage of the Musical Theater named after K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. He was invited by the artistic director of the ballet troupe, Igor Zelensky. In addition, Sergei agreed to participate in the television competition “The Big Ballet”, refusing for the sake of this many tempting offers of foreign entrepreneurs. On the stage of the “Bolshoi Ballet” he appeared in a duet with soloist,Christina Shapran, of the Musical Theater named after K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko

Interview:

– Sergei, commenting on one of your numbers, the members of the jury of the “Big Ballet” noted that your duet with Christina Shapran on the project did not work out – all too often you are performing here separately from each other.

“You see, we’ve known each other for only a month, and during this time we were still preparing a performance in the theater. After all, Christina has only recently performed on the big stage – it is her first year in the theater since school. Probably, this will be only the fourth performance in her entire career. Of course, we devoted most of our time to the ballet “Coppelia”, and it was very difficult to create something else together. If we took duets for all six issues of the Bolshoi Ballet project, of course, we would need to rehearse a lot more. And there was very little time – in just four or five rehearsals we learned the whole program, even at night we were preparing for performances.

– In the end, how do you think, did you manage to realize those goals that you certainly set for yourself by agreeing to participate in this project?

“I learned about this project before coming to Russia, and the goal was one – to get acquainted with a wide Russian audience as quickly as possible. After all, in the theater you can only fit a thousand people. It would never compare to the audience of television. I just wanted to get as close as possible to the Russian public. I hope it will turn out.”

– Television is very conducive to this.

“Of course. And such a project is wonderful, not “pop” at all. There are no amateurs and beginners here. Only professionally trained ballet dancers are shown, everything is very high quality.”

– Do you even watch TV?

“Often, yes. I love this business. And “Kulture” included.”

– What do you feel on stage, being under the gun of thirteen TV cameras?

“To be honest, I’m even more relaxed here than in the theater. Here, on the project, we are all together, and we support each other.”

While we were chatting with Sergei Polunin, another participant of the project, Artyom Ovcharenko, ran up to us. “Do you even know who is before you?” – he asked. – “This is Sergei Polunin! This is a brilliant artist!” That’s how clearly the guys proved how warm the friendly relations developed in the team of participants of the “Big Ballet”. There is no feeling of competition, just an irresistible desire, in spite of fatigue and excitement in front of television cameras, to demonstrate to the wide spectator audience the best skills of ballet dancers from the leading theaters of the country.