Online laboratory MAD Company of St. Petersburg choreographer Yuri Smekalov restarts the Infinita Frida project.
Eight world ballet stars and musicians from five countries have found a new format of work during self-isolation and are creating together, without leaving the walls of their homes. To gain step-by-step access to viewing the production, Telegram and Facebook users are invited to go through a fascinating quest step by step with questions about the life and work of the legendary Mexican artist. The full premiere of the play will be shown today, 29 May, at 19.00 in the IVI online cinema with the support of Gazprombank.
The idea for this ballet was born in 2012 year, when Smekalov was undergoing rehabilitation in Germany after an injury and was worried about the future of his dancing career. To support him, spouses Elisa Carrillo Cabrera and Mikhail Kaniskin - prima ballerina and principal dancer of the Berlin State Ballet, offered to stage a ballet about Frida Kahlo — actresses, which became great, despite severe illness.
The play was first shown in Mexico with the support of the Elisa Carillo Cabrera Foundation.. In Russia the premiere took place in 2015 year on the stage of Alexandrinka. AT 2020 year, in the wake of the global crisis, the MAD Company studio again turned to the story of Frida and created a ballet with an international team, despite the pandemic.
Rehearsals and filming of the ballet were held in a dance studio in St. Petersburg, at the dacha near Veliky Novgorod, in a Moscow apartment, in the living room of an apartment building in Berlin. All members of the creative team, including premieres and primaries of the Mariinsky Theater and the Berlin State Ballet, worked on a project, without leaving self-isolation mode.
The artist worked on the costumes Elisey Shepelev. Composer Alexander Maev wrote new compositions specifically for this production, and the conductor Yaroslav Zaboyarkin assembled an orchestra of musicians from Russia, Portugal, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil.
You can watch the production in two formats. Passing the ballet quest, viewers end up in closed chats and look for answers to questions asked there, accessing the following fragments, and it depends only on the participants themselves, what kind of performance will they see?. Director's cut, which will be shown on IVI, consists of two episodes of complete immersion in the performance.
Author: Natalia Hvorostyanova
