Photo report November 21. “LA BAYADÈRE – NATION OF ILLUSION”.

Photos: © Evgeny Pronin

The ballet programme of the festival was open on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre on November 21 with La Bayadère – Nation of Illusion, performed by the Japanese company Noism, which was founded in 2004 in the city of Niigata. The company’s name draws attention to the fact that art is sometimes too obsessed with creating a new method (a new “ism”). Its founder,  and choreographer of this La Bayadère,  Jo Kanamori – who is also a disciple of the late Maurice Béjart – is not seeking to invent a new ‘ism’ (hence the name “no-ism”), but prefers rather to investigate existing methodologies. Quality of production here is placed much higher than any principle of genre originality.