Cultural influence
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The dancers of the Kyiv City Ballet are welcomed in Paris in residence, “as long as necessary”, by the Théâtre du Châtelet in collaboration with the Théâtre de la Ville. A few hours before their first performance, they recount their “fears” but also their “pride” of being able to participate in their own way “in the influence of Ukraine”.
On the stage adorned with gilding at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, a young dancer performs the grand jets. He trains, diligent, a wired helmet screwed on his ears, as if the world around him had just disappeared, as if nothing else counted as much as the delicacy of his jolts. Forgotten the dozen of his congeners of the Kyiv City Ballet in motion at his side, forgotten the tumult of the room where journalists and luminaries of the Parisian cultural milieu are agitated this Tuesday afternoon. Forgotten especially, the time of a few chased steps, Ukraine, his country, which he left in February without suspecting that there would be no return trip. “When we are on stage, we no longer think of war”, whispers Nazar Korniichuk, 21, another dancer in the company. “But as soon as we go backstage, reality catches up with us. Nothing will ever be the same again.”
Tuesday evening, the municipal ballet of Kyiv performed for the first time on the boards of the Châtelet, during an exceptional evening orchestrated with the Paris Opera. The theatre, alerted by the town hall to the presence of dancers in the capital, inaugurated an unprecedented residence on Thursday,…