I am not a good chess player. The few times I have won while playing chess is because either my opponent made a mistake, or just by pure dumb luck. While studying at the State Conservatory of Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, I did notice that they had a chess club. On the top floor of the Conservatory there was a dance studio, a gym, and a chess club. I remember climbing the stairs to the sixth floor to head to the dance studio, and there was an old professor climbing those same steps for a game of chess. While I was rehearsing my dance to the sound of the ping pong ball being tossed back and forth, the old man was concentrating on his game. I can say I respect the game, and admire people who can plan 12 move ahead. I can’t even plan my life two steps ahead. So I was never good at playing chess. The advantages of being a choreographer, however, is that I can make a dance about it without having to play it.
I first made a dance about chess in my first year of studying at the Conservatory. It was a dance for two young boys, and had them dancing with boards while they slowly made a chessboard on the floor during the dance. My mistake in that dance is that people who sat in parterre of the theatre couldn’t see the chessboard. It’s been 7 years since then and I am choreographing a solo for a young man taking part in The XIII Russian Open Ballet Competition “Arabesque–2014” named after Ekaterina Maximova. I was supposed to choreograph a duet for two young men, but since the other man wasn’t able to get leave to take part in the competition I rethought the chess duet and made it a solo.
In my dance is a serious business man making his deals, competitive, and wanting to win, and his perfect rival is himself, so he plays a game of chess or life with himself. A bit of Jekyll and Hyde, Black vs White, two characters in one man. I have struggled with my dancer as I want him to be an actor as well with this dance. Technically the dance is difficult, and emotionally as well. It’s 3:20 which is rather a long solo. I have struggled to have the dancer understand how the steps should be danced and how he should portray his character. At times during his rehearsal his character has come out, but then his technique has suffered. The most important is that he doesn’t always listen to the music and is either ahead of the music or behind.
Yesterday was the last rehearsal I had, and the dance is now finished though not in a perfect state. He leaves tonight for Perm, and will only dance this dance on the 10th of April, and I arrive in Perm on the 9th. So we will have one day for him to rehearse the dance before he performs it. As with all arts there never seems to be enough time to perfect the dance.
I can only hope it will look decent at the competition. I don’t expect to win the choreographer’s prize, but if I do it will be something to write about in my next blog.
davinciballet 