In the 2020/2021 season the Czech National Ballet succeeds in instigating creative energy and seeking new artistic impulses. The world online premiere of works by choreographers Douglas Lee and Alejandro Cerrudo ranks among them. The present brings along new things and approaches. The more so we appreciate every moment when we can freely create and thus contribute to the formation of a more friendly environment…
Puppet
The English Douglas Lee worked with the Czech National Ballet since August 2020. The dancers learned to exercise in face masks, disinfect their hands, split into small closed groups, take tests, protect themselves and others, watch their health and act as an evidence that the covid era shall not destroy the arts, the live theatre. In November 2020 Douglas Lee completed the new choreography and the work was recorded. Puppet is part of the Phoenix production which has entered the repertory of the Czech National Ballet (other parts of the bill being Prelude und Liebestod by Cayetano Soto and Dos soles solos by Alejandro Cerrudo).
Douglas Lee is a freelance British choreographer. His works have been premiered by the Stuttgarter Ballett, the Norwegian National Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and other companies. His Snow Was Falling, created for the Perm Opera Ballet, received the coveted Golden Mask for the best choreography of 2016. Lee is known to Prague dance lovers too – his Mask Duet was presented within the Velvet Gala evening in November 2019 at the Estates Theatre.
My ballet is called Puppet. I love the use of plasticity in a dancer's body and achieving beauty, nevertheless the idea of puppetry suggests an outside force moving the dancer's limbs or an unusual non-human way of articulating the joints. Al this I am exploring in the studio. Mythical creatures such as a puppet bring a sense of fantasy out in a person's creative mind. It is the same sense of fantasy that draws people to the theatre or ballet.
Douglas Lee
Dos soles solos
The Spanish choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo arrived in Prague in the autumn of 2020. He conceived his new work in direct synergy with the dancers at ballet studios, inspired by the momentary impulses captured at the Czech National Ballet and in Prague itself. Completed in November 2020, Cerrudo's choreography has been recorded. The dancers had to get used to exercising in facemasks, disinfecting their hands, working in small closed groups, taking tests, protecting themselves and others, closely observing their health, and in doing so proving that the Covid era will not destroy the arts, nor live theatre.
Alejandro Cerrudo's choreography Dos soles solos (along with Cayetano Soto's Prelude und Liebestod and Douglas Lee's Puppet) will make up Phoenix, a new production that will enrich the Czech National Ballet's repertoire.
Alejandro Cerrudo was previously engaged with the Victor Ullate Ballet, the Stuttgarter Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater 2. He is resident choreographer at the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago company. His miniature Paco Pope Pluto too was included in the Velvet Gala in 2019 in Prague.
Once I enter the studio I donʼt think about sun, death or rebirth. I just listen to the music and watch the dancers – and we make something new, in the present moment. As Chris McCandless says: The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
Alejandro Cerrudo