Pandemic process to be shown on ballet stage

ANKARA

A new ballet work titled “Pandemic,” showing the COVID-19 process through artistic performance and dedicated to health care workers, will make its world premiere online.

Dedicated to heroic medics and featuring the pandemic process, the work is choreographed by Armağan Davran and Volkan Ersoy and will be staged by the Antalya State Opera and Ballet.

Supported by digital effects and specially designed images, the decor and costume design of the ballet work is by Çağda Çitkaya, and the lighting design is by Mustafa Eski.

The world premiere of the work will be broadcast live on the YouTube channel of the Culture and Tourism Ministry from the Haşim İşcan Cultural Center Opera Stage on Aug. 1 at 8 p.m. to all art lovers in Turkey and around the world.

The ballet “Pandemic” will meet with art lovers with music by Bach, Vivaldi and Albinoni and with a concept that theater actor Alper Saldıran will take part as a guest artist.

Speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency, Ersoy said they wanted to explain the pandemic process, which deeply affected the society and left deep traces, especially on artists, with ballet.

Ersoy stated that while describing this difficult process they experienced in chronological order, they also decided to show its traces on themselves in a theatrical sense, adding that they wanted to enrich their work with the power of expression rather than ballet work.

He noted that due to the pandemic process, the ballet would take place on the stage with a small staff.

“For the first time in the world, the pandemic process will be shown with a universal art branch, which is ballet. This will be realized in our country with our artists. At the same time, since we dedicate it to health workers, doctors and health workers will also be included in the work. We designed a special stage for them. We will see them on the stage together with the ballet artists at the opening of the work. This will be a first in the world. The fact that the doctors are on the stage in a work dedicated to them has a different meaning for us.”

Akın Ulutaş, the general manager of Antalya State Opera and Ballet, stated that the work would meet art lovers via live broadcast techniques applied by world-famous art centers.

Stating that the ballet will meet with the audience for the first time at the 18th International Bodrum Ballet Festival on Aug. 11 after the live broadcast, Ulutaş said they would also be taking the stage at the International Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival on Sept. 18.