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Dance

Romeo and Juliet: a Mariinsky masterclass

The Soviet dance aesthetic now looks dated – unless you can pull it off as well as this

9 August 2014

9:00 AM

9 August 2014

9:00 AM

Romeo and Juliet: Mariinsky Ballet

Royal Opera House

According to some textbooks, one thing the fathers of Soviet choreography hastened to remove from ballet was that awkward-looking language of gestures generally referred to as ‘ballet mime’. Which explains why most Russian versions of Swan Lake lack familiar mime dialogues. And when it came to creating new ballets that required silent acting, such as Lavrosky’s 1940 Romeo and Juliet, the early Soviet dance-makers opted for a more naturalistic form of expressive gestural solutions.

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