The premiere of the spectacle entitled “Dracula” performed by Vortice Dance Company from Portugal and supported by their Macedonian counterparts took place on Friday (29 April) at the closing ceremony of the first ever April Ballet Evenings 2011 at the Macedonian Opera and Ballet.
Rafael Caricco and Claudia Martins were the people responsible for the choreography of this amazing ballet spectacle with music from Voyceh Kilar, Phillip Glass, Rachmaninoff and Lou Reed. Rafael Caricco was the genius behind the stenography, videography and sound effects, Claudia Martins was woman behind the costimography, while audio-visualization and technical director was João Neves. Light design of Luis Paz and João Teixeira.
The soloists in “Dracula” were the amazing Aleksandra Mijalkova, Mimi Pop Aleksova, Biljana Basmadzieva, Ivana Kocevska, Igor Velanoski, Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Boban Kovachevski, Trajche Stojkovski, Jorge Libório, Simona Vasilevska, Jan Kisilev, Razvan Mazilu, Gabi Pavlovska, and Lile Milenkovska.
Dracula… An attack on all senses! How else could we describe what went on the stage of MOB on Friday?
The Macedonian audience can finally feel honored to have been present at a spectacle of such reverence. Everyone in the audience could feel the horror of the famous story by Bram Stoker in their own unique way. “Dracula” simply moved the boundaries of contemporary ballet to whole new levels that rarely who, from this point on, can reach.
The storyline was intertwined with motifs of all works of art created on this topic thus far. The music inspired, frightened, and moved us; the soloist disappeared from the stage, reappeared as ghosts on the side screens, screamed, hung from the sealing like acrobats, hovered in the air, precisely delivered the energy of the Portuguese work-of-art through their inspirational movements, made us laugh, frightened and excited us, awakened the primordial senses in us. The sound effects made us jump from our seats, and tightly grab on the hand of the person sitting next to us, to reminisce of the scenes from the original movie of Count Dracula from which audio dialogues in English were extracted, while all the other surprises that “sprung up” on the scene left us with our mouths wide open until the end of the show.
Through blood, laughter, fear and love, the Portuguese creators of the unforgettable work-of-art showed us all the faces of Dracula and his wild transformations, confirmed, but also deconstructed all the stereotypes that we have for this amazing character that has been the subject of many authors. No matter how well you think you know the character dubbed “the Lord of the undead” the show “Dracula” will give you a whole new perspective of the monster in Vlad Tepes.
The standing ovations that lasted almost 15 minutes should be reason enough for the heads of MOB to understand the need of the Macedonian audience for this type of performances and to immediately try to put more shows like this in the repertoire. The crowd has spoken! “Dracula” must be repeated in Skopje, because one performance simply isn’t enough.
Author: Vladimir Ristevski
Rafael Caricco and Claudia Martins were the people responsible for the choreography of this amazing ballet spectacle with music from Voyceh Kilar, Phillip Glass, Rachmaninoff and Lou Reed. Rafael Caricco was the genius behind the stenography, videography and sound effects, Claudia Martins was woman behind the costimography, while audio-visualization and technical director was João Neves. Light design of Luis Paz and João Teixeira.
The soloists in “Dracula” were the amazing Aleksandra Mijalkova, Mimi Pop Aleksova, Biljana Basmadzieva, Ivana Kocevska, Igor Velanoski, Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Boban Kovachevski, Trajche Stojkovski, Jorge Libório, Simona Vasilevska, Jan Kisilev, Razvan Mazilu, Gabi Pavlovska, and Lile Milenkovska.
Dracula… An attack on all senses! How else could we describe what went on the stage of MOB on Friday?
The Macedonian audience can finally feel honored to have been present at a spectacle of such reverence. Everyone in the audience could feel the horror of the famous story by Bram Stoker in their own unique way. “Dracula” simply moved the boundaries of contemporary ballet to whole new levels that rarely who, from this point on, can reach.
The storyline was intertwined with motifs of all works of art created on this topic thus far. The music inspired, frightened, and moved us; the soloist disappeared from the stage, reappeared as ghosts on the side screens, screamed, hung from the sealing like acrobats, hovered in the air, precisely delivered the energy of the Portuguese work-of-art through their inspirational movements, made us laugh, frightened and excited us, awakened the primordial senses in us. The sound effects made us jump from our seats, and tightly grab on the hand of the person sitting next to us, to reminisce of the scenes from the original movie of Count Dracula from which audio dialogues in English were extracted, while all the other surprises that “sprung up” on the scene left us with our mouths wide open until the end of the show.
Through blood, laughter, fear and love, the Portuguese creators of the unforgettable work-of-art showed us all the faces of Dracula and his wild transformations, confirmed, but also deconstructed all the stereotypes that we have for this amazing character that has been the subject of many authors. No matter how well you think you know the character dubbed “the Lord of the undead” the show “Dracula” will give you a whole new perspective of the monster in Vlad Tepes.
The standing ovations that lasted almost 15 minutes should be reason enough for the heads of MOB to understand the need of the Macedonian audience for this type of performances and to immediately try to put more shows like this in the repertoire. The crowd has spoken! “Dracula” must be repeated in Skopje, because one performance simply isn’t enough.
Author: Vladimir Ristevski
I saw this... with 4 Greek friends!!!
ReplyDeleteWe all loved it! Fantastic!