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Boris Eifman

Boris Eifman

Biography

Born in Siberia; his ballet degree he got at the department of choreography of the Leningrad Conservatory. Already in 1977 he set up his own company – the Leningrad New Ballet today known to millions of art lovers as St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet. The concept of the New Ballet was more than innovative for its time: from the first days of its work it was designed and developed as an experimental laboratory, a ballet theater for one choreographer.
The company’s first performances such as Two-Voice and Boomerang brought success and stirred intense interest of the audience; ballet critics began arguing about new tendencies in the Russian ballet. Advocates of the traditional ballet school, however, were rather reluctant to acknowledge the young choreographer’s authority. Eifman’s novelty in how he chose literary basis and music for his ballets, the audacity of the body movement vocabulary secured for him the reputation of «a choreographic dissident».
In late 70s – early 80s Eifman’s theater is working out its own individual approach to repertoire formation. More and more new ballets based on the world classical literature appear on the company’s playbill. Boris Eifman both addresses classical plots and explores new genres. He creates performances whose distinguishing feature is the strikingly sharp choreographic patterns, intended to express the fiery passions of ballets’ characters: The Duel, The Idiot, The Mad March Day, or the Marriage of Figaro, The Legend, The Twelfth Night, Murderers, Master and Margarita etc.
The company demonstrating an outstanding dance intellect, brilliant technique and a particular gift for transformation fascinates western audiences. Anna Kisselgoff, one of the leading ballet critics in the USA, names Boris Eifman the leader among contemporary choreographers: «The ballet world in search of a major choreographer need search no more. He is Boris Eifman».
Today the St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet is renowned among ballet lovers in Asia, Europe, the Americas and in Australia for such ballets as Tchaikovsky; I, Don Quixote; Red Giselle, Russian Hamlet, Anna Karenina, The Seagull, Onegin, Rodin, Beyond Sin, Requiem. Boris Eifman is a philosopher choreographer. He is earnestly concerned with the problems of today, with the secrets of creativity. The choreographer speaks openly with his audience about the complicated and dramatic aspects of human life; he defines his genre as «psychological ballet».
An important period in the company’s life began in September 2013, when the Boris Eifman Dance Academy – a project originally initiated by the choreographer himself announced the start of its first academic year.
Another Eifman-initiated ballet institution is to be built and opened in St. Petersburg in the near future. It is the Boris Eifman Dance Palace envisioned by Boris Eifman as a new world center of the ballet art.