Ballet stars to illuminate Bodrum nights

BODRUM - Hürriyet Daily News

Casting the sea and sand to one side for the next two weeks, the 12th Bodrum International Ballet Festival will bring a dose of high culture to the southwestern resort town between July 19 and Aug. 6.

During the event, selected ballet works from Turkey and around the world will be on stage in the historic atmosphere of the Bodrum Castle, which is home to one of the world’s most significant underwater museums.

This year six ballet productions will be present nine performances. Among the world-renowned foreign guests of the festival will be the Spanish flamenco masters of the Carlos Saura Flamenco Hoy show group and the Moscow Classical Ballet.

The festival will open Turkish literary doyen Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s immortal work, “Çalıkuşu” (The Wren), on July 19 before an encore is staged the following day. The work has been adapted to the ballet stage by choreographer Merih Çimenciler with the same name. It will be performed by the Mersin State Opera and Ballet, accompanied by Turkish music.

The group Carlos Saura Flamenco Hoy, which bears the name of famous director, screenwriter, actor and producer Carlos Saura, will be on the stage on July 23. The dance performance “Flamenco Hoy” from Saura’s “Flamenco Trilogy” is an energetic work by talented choreographers Rafael Estevez and Nani Panos. Famous dancers will gather for the work and bring the festival audiences to a different world.

“Afife,” which tells the life story of the first Turkish theater actress Afife Jale, will be on the stage on July 26 with a performance by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. Jale was the first Muslim theater actress in early Turkish history and chose to take the stage despite the fact that it was forbidden for Muslim women to perform during the early 1900s. She continued to perform as an actress in the face of social pressure and negative comments.

The performance is an example of modern Turkish ballet and dance drama, reflecting different parts of Jale’s life in gold, red, purple and silver costumes, according to organizers.

On July 29 and 30, art lovers will get the chance to see the first ballet work on the prophets and the history of Islam, “Karbala.” The work is based on the battle of Karbala in the year 680, which resulted in the killing of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and deepened the Sunni-Shia divide following his death in 632. Mehmet Balkan is the choreographer of the ballet work, which will be staged with an artistic narration but not as a documentary. The İzmir State Opera and Ballet will perform the work.

A program titled “Tangos” will be staged on Aug. 2 by the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. The choreographies titled “Five Tangos,” “Bolero” and “Entre Dos Aguas” will be on the stage.

In “Five Tangos,” choreographer Hans van Manen focuses on movement; instead of narrating a plot or creating dance dramas, he seeks out the beauty of lines and develops engaging exchanges between his dancers’ bodies in space. The music was composed by legendary Argentine musician Astor Piazzola.
The second work “Bolero” will be staged by choreographer Uğur Seyrek, while “Entre Dos Aguas” will be staged by Robert North.

The last two performances of the festival will be made by the Moscow Classical Ballet. Founded by Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyov, the guest ballet theater is one of the three most important ballet companies in Russia. It will perform “Camille” on Aug. 5 and 6.

All the performances will start at 9:45 p.m.