DANCE: State Ballet of Georgia - a young company with her star Nina Ananiashvili

The talent, and inexperience, show
By Lewis Segal

Los Angeles Times, February 22: A young company with an antique pedigree, that's the reconstituted State Ballet of Georgia, which brought four works choreographed late in the last century or early in this one to UCLA's Royce Hall on Thursday.
If that repertory often challenged the dancers more than the audience, give them time: Georgian-born international star Nina Ananiashvili became artistic director only four years ago and had to virtually start from scratch. Like our even younger Los Angeles Ballet (across campus in the Freud Playhouse this same weekend), impressive talent and inexperience go hand in hand when they take the stage.
The problems arose most consistently on Thursday in "Chaconne," George Balanchine's alternately serene and courtly large-scale suite to music (on tape) by Gluck. Ananiashvili danced the ballerina role as if lost in a beautiful dream, but her partnership with the effortful Vasil Akhmeteli kept the technical difficulties of their duets more evident than their rapt lyricism.
Generally, the Tbilisi dancers brought freshness and exactitude to the more conventional step combinations here but looked decidedly uncomfortable in the many experimental ones.
The trio (Rusudan Kvitsiani, Ekaterine Chubinidze, Otar Khelashvili) proved especially ill at ease, and a secondary duet (Maya Dolidze, David Khozashvili) started promisingly but grew progressively shaky.
Unfortunately, an errant follow-spot added to the disarray and all but wrecked the haunting final sequence in "Duo Concertant," Balanchine's mercurial duet in which the dancers stand listening to a Stravinsky piece for piano and violin (played onstage by Liam Viney and Roberto Cani) and then begin an increasingly involving partnership.
If you could scarcely see them in the finale, Nino Gogua and Lasha Khozashvili danced the other, brighter sections gorgeously, their youth, charm and spontaneity gilding the choreography and making it seem an inspired improvisation.
With "Bizet Variations," Bolshoi Ballet artistic director Alexei Ratmansky contributed a formula, quasi-romantic exercise for three couples -- not as unwatchable as his "Pierrot Lunaire" for Diana Vishneva and company in Costa Mesa last week but just as fundamentally soulless.
This is one of those ballets in which the men have some freedom to actually dance (and get assigned off-the-rack bravura, for the most part) but the women are continually yanked about and hauled overhead, subordinated to the partnering. Again cast opposite Akhmeteli (playing a flamboyant outsider), Ananiashvili alone brought the sense of an inner life to the choreography -- even to simple walking steps and absolute stillness. And Anna Grinberg played the somber "Chromatic Variations" powerfully."
Sagalobeli" used taped Georgian folk music played by the musical ensemble of the same name to accompany a divertissement suggesting the twisty fervor and nervy elegance of the nation's ethnic dances but managed to avoid both extreme classical abstraction and opera-ballet literalism.
Like Ananiashvili, choreographer Yuri Possokhov began as a dancer at the Bolshoi but spent most of his career outside Russia -- at San Francisco Ballet.
Although his concept was prefigured, and trumped, by the late Maurice Béjart in such works as "Golestan," and Possokhov often rode roughshod over bold changes in the music's tempos and instrumentation, the dancers made an exciting case for "Sagalobeli," projecting its exotic technical qualities with great skill.
The piece began and ended with the men, but the most original choreography turned up in an undulating women's quartet invaded and dominated by Anna Muradeli, who then soloed, her movement at once lush and passionate, liquid yet perfectly centered. Gogua and the omnipresent Akhmeteli danced the inevitable, conventional pas de deux.
Mostly executed in browns and beiges, Anna Kalatozishvili's costumes adroitly enhanced the women's hyper-extended line and the men's heightened muscularity. The company ends its UCLA Live engagement with three performances of "Giselle" today and Sunday.


Georgian State Ballet embraces heritage while moving forward
By Laura Bleiberg

Orange County Register , February 22: Nina Ananiashvili, the luminous ballerina of the Bolshoi and American Ballet Theatre, has added the title of "company artistic director" to her resume, and if one performance is a predictor, this new role will suit her exceedingly well.
In 2004, Ananiashvili took over the leadership of the Georgian State Ballet, in her hometown of Tbilisi. The company is more than 70 years old, but recent government political tumult caused stagnation at the theater. Ananiashvili, with former Bolshoi artistic director Alexei Fadeyechev as her co-director, are patching the leaks, and launching the ship forward on a new course, including a current United States tour.
At the moment, Ananiashvili's greatest asset may be as a crowd-drawing star, and she appeared in two of the four ballets Thursday night on the Georgians' Los Angeles stop at Royce Hall (through Sunday, presented by UCLA Live).
Despite its long history, the Georgian State Ballet is in its adolescence. The dancers are young and made youthful mistakes Thursday, such as the occasional collision (not fatal, thank goodness) and that old deer-in-the-headlights face of fright. Missed lighting cues and an off-stage crash or two were other gremlins that bedeviled the show.
The latter might not have been the Georgians' fault. Either way, what's more important, is that the new leadership has embraced Georgia's distinctive cultural heritage, and in doing that they are laying the foundation for a uniquely styled and, perhaps, innovative company.
No.1 on the agenda was the ballets of choreographer George Balanchine, Georgia's favorite native son. (Turns out his composer brother, Andrey Balanchivadze, helped found the company.) Ananiashvili, who guested early in her career with Balanchine's New York City Ballet, has added 10 of his ballets to her company's repertory.
The night began with his courtly and romantic "Chaconne" (1976), to recorded selections from Gluck's opera "Orfeo ed Euridice." From the opening all-female tableaux, the women of the corps de ballet showed themselves naturals at the sophisticated glamour that was one of Balanchine's gifts to women.
The ladies' confident faces and assured body placement projected an aura that rippled throughout the theater. The men were a little unsteady, particularly in the ballet's exacting footwork. Make no mistake, this is a virtuoso work without looking like one.Ananiashvili and Vasil Akhmeteli were the lead couple, and despite some partnering bobbles, were an attractive presence. Ananiashvili performed with a ripe suppleness. Her long legs are one of her great assets and she used them to strong effect in the role's unfolding circular developées and high kicks. An attractive and strong dancer, Akhmeteli had to rush the small jumps a bit to keep up with the music. The movement of their alternating solos, though, was a thrilling bit of "Anything you can do, I can do better."
In Balanchine's "Duo Concertant" (1972), ballerina Nino Gogua was the "It" girl, a standout of excellent proportions who will perhaps take over Ananiashvili's mantle. This winsome, yet elegant dancer was the muse/love interest for partner Lasha Khozashvili, who was both buoyant and boyish. Violinist Roberto Cani and pianist Liam Viney made the tricky Stravinsky pieces sound easy.
Alexei Ratmansky's "Bizet Variations" (2008), was a flirtatious, romantic jaunt for three couples to Bizet's Chromatic Variations (played by Anna Grinberg). Though it had no libretto, a story could be imagined: lovers at a ball, enticing one another away from their intended. To my mind, Ananiashvili and Akhmeteli were the more experienced couple, easily attracting the opposite gender. As with Ratmansky's "Pierrot Lunaire," seen last week at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the choreographer's kinetic language here was fluid and pretty, but overflowing with unmemorable steps that rushed past without distinction.
The closing ballet came from yet another Bolshoi alumnus: Yuri Possokhov, now choreographer-in-residence at San Francisco Ballet. His "Sagalobeli" was an homage to Georgian folk traditions and the score (recorded) consisted of short, reedy folk instrumentals and songs.
Possokhov made the best use of the company's men, giving them solid poses and airborne leaps, one leg tucked under. Steps that suggest vernacular dance – especially a rolling torso and undulating hip swings for the women – recurred through the piece.
A female dance that bespoke longing and feminine solidarity was my favorite. Possokhov had the audience in his pocket throughout, though, and the crowd actually clapped to the music, which was a first for me at a ballet performance.
This show of affection must certainly have warmed Ananiashvili's heart. She and the Georgians are off in the right direction.