Diana Vishneva se despide del American Ballet Theatre a finales de junio.
Vishneva es un ejemplo del ballet ruso y, en alguna medida, de todo buen ballet. No sólo produce los movimientos: los unifica, les da sentido, los hace arte.
La bailarina rusa Diana Vishneva, artista del American Ballet Theatre desde el 2005, dará sus actuaciones de despedida con la compañía, en el Metropolitan Opera House, el 19 de junio y el 23 de junio de 2017.
Bailará el papel de Tatiana en John Cranko «Onegin», con Marcelo Gomes. La Sra. Vishneva, de 40 años, es también bailarina principal con el Ballet Mariinsky en San Petersburgo, compañía en la que permanecerá.
Vishneva dijo que había tomado la decisión de abandonar el Ballet Theatre porque sentía que tenía «demasiados proyectos exigentes en mi plato».
Agregó: «Simplemente soy incapaz de dar el 100 por ciento de mí mismo a A.B.T. Y esta no es la forma en que funciono».
Comentó que había elegido el papel de Tatiana para su despedida debido a su poderoso componente dramático, y porque le permitió bailar con el Sr. Gomes, «uno de mis mejores compañeros. «
Comentó que aunque las actuaciones de junio serían su despedida oficial, no descartó presentaciones de invitados con la compañía en el futuro. Tiene un repertorio grande a elegir de: en sus 12 años con el American Ballet Theatre ha realizado en una gama extensa del trabajo, de los clásicos del siglo XIX a los ballets de George Balanchine, de Frederick Ashton, de Kenneth MacMillan, de John Neumeier y de Alexei Ratmansky .
También ha actuado independientemente en sus propias producciones, encargando piezas de coreógrafos contemporáneos como Moses Pendleton y Carolyn Carlson, así como de coreógrafos de ballet como Jean-Christophe Maillot y Mauro Bigonzetti.
En 2013, fundó Context, un festival internacional de danza contemporánea en San Petersburgo. Este año, dijo, el festival se expandirá para convertirse en programas paralelos en Moscú y San Petersburgo, y ha encargado al coreógrafo israelí Ohad Naharin crear una obra para ella y Aurélie Dupont, la ex estrella del Ballet de la Ópera de París que ahora es la Director de esa empresa.
Diana Vishneva is not leaving American Ballet Theater without a plan. She’s leaving Ballet Theater because she has too many plans.
What doesn’t she have? Time.
When Ms. Vishneva performs “Onegin” on Friday night for her Ballet Theater farewell, she will leave behind an imprint of dance memories. A passionate, soulful ballerina, Ms. Vishneva burst on the New York scene as if from another world — though, technically, she is from St. Petersburg, Russia. In an early New York appearance, she performed George Balanchine’s “Rubies” like a ballerina on fire.
After she danced as a guest artist in “Romeo and Juliet” in 2003, Kevin McKenzie, Ballet Theater’s artistic director, offered Ms. Vishneva, then a principal with the Kirov Ballet — now known as the Mariinsky — a contract. She became a Ballet Theater principal in 2005. But Ms. Vishneva also embraced life as a guest artist, dancing with many companies over the years, including the Bolshoi Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet and Berlin State Ballet.
Ms. Vishneva, 40, won’t stop dancing, but she is searching for new ways to perform. In August, she will open a studio in St. Petersburg where, along with classical ballet training, she’ll offer yoga and gymnastics for both professionals and nonprofessionals.
She’ll also use the space to help cultivate new choreographers, which will expand on her work with Context, a dance festival she initiated five years ago that will be in Moscow and St. Petersburg this November. She welcomed the Martha Graham Company in 2011 (its first time in Russia) and hopes to bring Ballet Theater this year. Ms. Vishneva, who recently spoke about her career in her dressing room, may need an infusion of New York City by then.
Following are edited excerpts from the interview.
Why are you stepping down from Ballet Theater?
My generation has already left, and at some point, you understand that this might be the time where you have to start a new page of your life. I love it here, but it’s time-consuming and energy-drawing, so I decided at this point, when time is not waiting, I’d rather spend it on new projects.
Do you have a base? Where did you live?
On a plane. [Laughs.] Depending on projects, my schedule varies. Sometimes it’s more in America. Sometimes it’s more in Europe or back home. When you stay at the same place, you get used to the routine, and it becomes boring, so when you move to a different company or country, you’re getting this shot of adrenaline. You are restarting somehow.
Do you like that?
It’s very important to find either a new style or new choreography or a new production that I haven’t done before. So I became a guest everywhere! [Laughs.] I don’t get deep into what’s happening at a specific company; by moving around, I feel freedom for artistic development.
Is it also so that you don’t get caught up in company politics?
Yes. When something starts to get, not messy but to touch me, I can say, “I’m done here.” [Laughs.]
I have earned this status and position. I didn’t just get it because I’m a great talker. I got it because of all the work I put into it and what I showed onstage. I have this from my childhood, being trained in Russia. Unfortunately, in the new generation, not everybody has this diligence.
Why not?
Maybe because, in my generation, we had something to go for, to reach. Maybe it was competition. It was very hard to get somewhere on a professional level because you were surrounded with unbelievably strong dancers. I didn’t want to be just a dancer, I wanted to own and use the language of art.
What do you think of ballet training today?
The world is different, life is different, and kids are different. When I go to see my own teacher, I am shocked with the fact that nowadays the teacher has to repeat [instructions] over and over — 10 times, 20 times.
In my generation, you were told once. We would try over and over; now, they just stand there looking. I don’t know what they have in their heads. We were afraid of our teachers, yet we thought they were gods and we loved them. Now we have this feeling that teachers depend on students.
Is that true only in Russia?
No, it’s everywhere.
This season at Ballet Theater, there aren’t the usual international stars. How do you feel about that?
Obviously, there is a chance for dancers in the company to experience growth and to land parts that they would not necessarily have. But there has to be a balance between local and invited. It gives a new touch, a new potential to the ballets.
A major focus for you in the future will be your festival. What was the dance climate like when you started it?
[Smiles.] It was a little controversial. I am from the classical world and I am doing something contemporary, and I created a festival and why is she doing this? For what reason? She is classical! Now it’s absolutely interconnected, but before they were parallel. Nobody remembers why it was controversial. [Laughs.]
What will you miss about your frequent Ballet Theater partner Marcelo Gomes?
It’s not possible to miss Marcelo. We will continue. It’s very rare that it happens with a partner — this unbelievable connection, this chemistry.
I don’t have the feeling that I am saying goodbye to A.B.T. I know that I have to break and leave the system. When someone says, “I’m tired,” I say: “Well, you never worked at A.B.T. Try going there.”
New York is a hard town, isn’t it?
Yes. [Laughs.] And mentally, psychologically, emotionally, not everyone can withstand these conditions. So when you are standing there in front of the audience — the grateful, wonderful audience thanking you for your performance — you’ve gone through rehearsing and felt all the pressure. The feeling of standing in front of this grateful audience is mind-blowing. You almost feel like you’ve done an amazing deed. The gratitude that you get from the audience is so much different in America.
How so?
Here, people are so open. And this openness and gratitude gives you an unbelievable freedom to open up to them. But you don’t feel it anywhere else. You only feel it here. www.nytimes.com
