Choreography: Andrey Kaydanovskiy
Composition: Lorenz Dangel 
Stage: Karoline Hogl 
Costumes: Arthur Arbesser 
Lighting: Christian Kass 
Dramaturgy: Serge Honegger

Musical direction: Gavin Sutherland

Bayerisches Staatsballett
Bayerisches Staatsorchester

World premiere: 17 April 2021

Photos: © Bayerisches Staatsballett / Serghei Gherciu 
Texts: © Bayerisches Staatsballett / Serge Honegger

 

Excerpt from the programme booklet article "Choreography and Storm"

With “The Blizzard”, Andrey Kaydanovskiy has chosen a subject for his narrative ballet that also raises the question of the conditions of choreography. For a blizzard, as a weather and storm phenomenon, is not choreographically structured, but functions according to arbitrary principles of chance. Andrey Kaydanovskiy confronts the paradox of translating the storm as an object determined by chaotic principles into a fixed choreographic structure with an approach that has always been recommended for larger-scale endeavours: He laid out a precise scenario before rehearsals began.

A second important decision for the ballet production with regard to the realisation of Pushkin's literary evocation of the snowstorm lies in the depiction of the storm itself. Kaydanovskiy did not want to treat it as an abstract phenomenon. Rather, the snowstorm was to be given a factual stage reality through the material qualities of the means used: "I believe that such a snowstorm puts us back on the ground. Here we realise how little we can do as individuals. We are no match for the snowstorm, indeed for life in general. No matter how much we fight back."

Excerpt from the interview with Lorenz Dangel for the production's programme booklet.

SH: You worked very closely with Andrey Kaydanovskiy on the score. What exactly was this collaboration like?

LD: The big question in ballet is always who comes first, the composer or the choreographer. There are many cases where someone writes the music, the choreographer then gets the music and starts choreographing to it. And that was very different for us. It was an intensive process in which I asked Andrey very precisely about the microstructure of the scenes in order to understand what should happen in the course of the action on stage. That went all the way down to the bare seconds. This integration of the vertical structure from choreographic moments into the horizontal of the musical progression was a great challenge.