An anniversary of Georgian choreographer Giorgi Aleksidze will be marked next month with a premiere of two of his works by the Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet, a troupe named after the late ballet master.
The company, founded in 2016 and led by Aleksidze’s daughter Mariam, will mark the 80th anniversary of the creative who heralded experimental work in chamber ballet in Georgia. Their tribute will come on November 12, in their newly launched season.
The evening bill at the city’s Rustaveli Theatre will see the troupe and their artistic director host the audience for a bill involving Connexion and Pirosmani, productions by the late choreographer.
Staged on Concerto Grosso No. 1 by Soviet German composer Alfred Schnittke, the former piece is based on the musical artist’s 1977 work that marked his breakthrough for Western audiences. The latter ballet is a production on Symphony No. 5 by Georgian composer Sulkhan Nasidze. Involving dancers of the company as well as guest performers, the bill will mark the second show of the 2019-2020 performance season – dedicated in its entirety to the late choreographer’s anniversary and kick-started with Metamorphoses, another contemporary staging, earlier this month.
The Rustaveli Theatre bill continues the young troupe’s focus on contemporary dance, a major novelty for the local scene which had been almost entirely centred around classical dance repertory before Mariam Aleksidze founded the company three years ago.
Both Mariam and her late father worked at the ballet company of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre – a company predominantly oriented on classical productions – however Giorgi Aleksidze was also known for his experimental work on smaller-scale chamber productions while leading the group. Inheriting his interest in new forms of dance, his daughter left the state troupe to launch the new contemporary company.
The young creative has since restored a number of her father’s stagings from decades ago while also leading productions of her own work with the group.
Offering a number of premieres throughout each of their seasons, the work of Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet on the local scene has also resulted in invitations for international tours, with audiences introduced to the troupe’s performances at Stuttgart’s Linden-Museum in 2018 and the Theater Rigiblick in Zurich this year. The bill of Connexion and Pirosmani will run at the Rustaveli Theatre, located at 17, Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi