UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey is one of the latest works by the UK choreographer Wayne McGregor and his Company.
Zuzana Rafajová
Originally from Valašské Meziříčí, she graduated from the Masaryk Grammar School in Vsetín, where she also attended the dance branch of the Primary Art School for thirteen years. After graduating from high school, she entered the HAMU in Prague, where she received her doctorate in dance science in 2019 (dissertation The Revival of Traditional Ballets - starting points, possibilities, procedures; defence in June 2019).
She is mainly interested in the history of 19th century stage dance and the legacy of the Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire, and she also studies dance notation of the same period, especially Vladimir Stepanov's system (first published in L'Alphabet des Mouvements du Corps Humain, Paris 1892) and its application in theatre practice. As part of the preparation of her dissertation and subsequent further research, she spent two months at the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Boston, where she studied the materials of the so-called Sergeyev Collection, containing musical and choreographic notations of ballets in the repertoire of the tsarist Mariinsky Theatre from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
She is a columnist for the websites Taneční aktuality.cz and Opera Plus, and occasionally contributes to the magazines Hudební rozhledy and Živá hudba. She has collaborated on the programme brochures of the Czech National Ballet (e.g. Timeless, Phoenix, Onegin, Forsythe/Clug/McGregor, bpm, Tram to the Station of Desire) and the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre Ballet (e.g. Le Corsaire, Carmen, Coppélia, The Nutcracker - A Christmas Carol), as well as with Czech Radio and Czech Television. She is a teacher at the Duncan Centre Conservatory and lectures at the Department of Dance at HAMU. She regularly participates in professional conferences (e.g. European Association for Dance History, AIRDanza).
Texty autora
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
La Strada as a life journey through circus archetypes
Federico Fellini's La Strada, a 1954 film, is undergoing a surprising renaissance in dance this year. Jiří Bubeníček is preparing his version for the Prague Chamber Ballet, and Alina Cojocaru has taken up the same theme in London.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
Giselle by English National Ballet - rich in all the historical details, yet shallow at times
For this winter season at the London Coliseum, the English National Ballet has delved into its archives and decided to stage the well-loved romantic ballet Giselle in Mary Skeaping's 1971 production.
Interviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
Alexei Ratmansky: 'The question of the future of Russian art is not relevant now'
Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is in many ways a fascinating man. A world traveller who at the age of thirty-six became artistic director of one of the world's most prominent ballet companies, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
La Sylphide both unconvincing and charming
The last premiere of this season for the Czech National Ballet in Prague was rather unexpectedly the romantic La Sylphide. Replacing the originally intended programme of George Balanchine's Who Cares? and Brahms - Schönberg Quartet.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
Balanchine quadruple bill in Brno
In the West, especially in the United States, programmes made entirely of George Balanchine's works are very common. In the Czech Republic, however, until this year no ballet company had ever staged a similarly composed evening.
Interviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
With Johan Kobborg not only on the fateful La Sylphide: “If I could, I would dance Madge every day!”
Johan Kobborg, a long-time principal dancer of the Royal Danish Ballet, and especially of the Royal Ballet in London, is spending the past few weeks in Prague with the Czech National Ballet, where he is staging his production of La Sylphide, following the romantic legacy of August Bournonville.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
Like Water for Chocolate – Mexican soap opera in ballet
The Royal Ballet prides itself on regularly producing new, original works. It has both a resident choreographer, Wayne McGregor, and an artist in residence, Christopher Wheeldon.
Reports
– Zuzana Rafajová
The Joys And Sorrows Of Dance Research
The international conference on dance research, organized by the Institute of Choreology, took place in the HAMU Gallery on Friday 7 October 2022.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
Carmen or Who is the Animal Here?
The second premiere of this season for the ballet company of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre was Carmen by Czech choreographer Jiří Pokorný.
Reviews
– Zuzana Rafajová
La Bayadère: Crisis of Ballet in 2019
Brno National Ballet opened the new season with a lavish production of La Bayadère, a ballet which has become part of the company’s repertoire for the third time in its history.
Reports
– Zuzana Rafajová
25 YEARS OF DANCE CENTRE PRAGUE
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Dance Centre Prague, one of the capital’s dance conservatories.
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Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species