Founder and choreographer of Kyiv Modern Ballet talks of his passion for dance
Well-known by ballet enthusiasts, Radu Poklitaru, the Moldovan-born choreographer, preserves a special place in his heart for each city he visits. And Kyiv, where his modern dance performance studio is headquartered, obviously is no exception.
He is quite the international type, at least on post-Soviet turf, having been born in Kishinev, having studied in Perm, Russia, but holding Belarusian citizenship. Yet Kyiv has been his home base for the past two years.
We met Poklitaru in Podil district, at the office of the Kyiv Modern Ballet, where he concocts his artistic modern dancing experiments.
Now that summer vacation is over, Radu and his ballet are soon to get really busy, since the troupe will kick the new season off with a tour to Spain.
One of their most impressive shows is to take place in Bilbao. “Carmen TV” ballet will be accompanied by a live orchestra and an opera vocalist, which is far from the typical style thus far for the Kyiv Modern Ballet.
As I learned from Radu, he has never studied the technique and styles of modern ballet. On the contrary, he was brought up in classic ballet traditions.
“When I was four years old, my parents, both academic ballet dancers, said that I love ballet; I believed them and still believe,” Radu said.
“My credo in life is that a person should do what is easier for him to do, but should do it with all his efforts. For me it’s easy to stage performances. I enjoy it and try to do my best,” Radu stated.
After graduating from the Perm State Choreography College, Radu “performed waltzes in Swan Lakes,” yet one day he understood that modern technique impresses him as a spectator far more then a classic one.
After receiving a diploma in choreography, he staged only one classic ballet, and has since dedicated himself to modern performances.
“I’m totally uneducated in the styles of modern dancing and try to cultivate this feature,” he remarked.
“If a person is talented, he can create his own language without using any existing techniques and styles,” he concluded.
One way or the other, the dancing technique introduced by Poklitaru is something peculiar.
Although there are good dancers that can be educated in modern technique, it’s a difficult and long process. Moreover, there aren’t any recognized modern dance lessons in the programs of choreography colleges in post-Soviet countries.
“Dancers are crippled in a way. They study classic dance, duos, character and national dance … everything but modern dance. At the same time, modern dance accounts for 50 percent of all performances nowadays,” Radu argued.
According to Radu, it’s rather difficult for those performing in ‘Giselle’ and ‘Swan Lake’ all year round to switch abruptly and without training to an absolutely different technique once every two or three months.
Recently Radu received an offer to participate in the Ukrainian dancing TV show to air this fall on Inter channel, ‘Tantsuyut Vse!’ (‘Everybody Dance!’), yet he declined due to his busy schedule.
“I was offered a spot on the jury, But, we are going to Spain and I think they will find someone cheaper to be there all the time instead of me flying back and force,” Radu noted ironically.
The first work staged by Radu in Ukraine was an opera-ballet called ‘Le Forze del Destino’ (‘The Forces of Destiny’). After the premiere, Volodymyr Filipov, whose Art Fund donated money for the performance, proposed Radu to establish a ballet troupe of his own.
“I understood that such offers are made only once in lifetime and agreed at once. That’s how the Kyiv Modern Ballet was founded,” he explained.
Radu keeps calling Filipov some kind of “A Silver Age Patron,” since theatre performances are mostly unprofitable, except for Broadway shows, of course, where one performance runs every day for seven years till it pays off the expenses.
As Radu argued, the money that the Modern Ballet gathers from tickets can only pay the rent of the venue, notwithstanding that his ballet troupe is the most expensive one in Kyiv and always gathers full house.
The next step of the Kyiv Modern Ballet is going to be “Palata n6” (“Ward n6”), based on the story by Anton Chekhov. The performance was already staged by Poklitaru in Russia, yet he stresses that the show in Kyiv will be unique, not a copy.
“At the moment I’m perpetually listening to Tchaikovsky’s “Pikovaya Dama” (“The Queen of Spades”) and “Perezvony” (“Chimes”) by Valeriy Gavrilov. It would be interesting to use their music in the new performances,” he shared.
I suggested that Poklitaru should open a modern dance school of his own.
“I would like to, but there is a problem finding a good renting place for regular work,” he explained. ”
In essence, however, his troupe already functions as a school, having produced some of its stars from scratch.
Although the dancers initially accepted weren’t required to have a diploma, now they’ve reached a professional level.
“The majority of them have not got any diploma in dancing, but they are one hundred times more energetically open to the audience than ‘professionals’ coming to the castings,” Radu explained.
