Puppet

About

“My ballet is called Puppet. I love the use of plasticity in a dancer’s body and achieving beauty, nevertheless the idea of puppetry suggests an outside force moving the dancer’s limbs or an unusual non-human way of articulating the joints. Al this I am exploring in the studio. Mythical creatures such as a puppet bring a sense of fantasy out in a person’s creative mind. It is the same sense of fantasy that draws people to the theatre or ballet.” Douglas Lee.

The English Douglas Lee worked with the Czech National Ballet since August 2020. The dancers learned to exercise in face masks, disinfect their hands, split into small closed groups, take tests, protect themselves and others, watch their health and act as an evidence that the covid era shall not destroy the arts, the live theatre. In November 2020 Douglas Lee completed the new choreography and the work was recorded. Puppet is part of the Phoenix production which has entered the repertory of the Czech National Ballet (other parts of the bill being Prelude und Liebestod by Cayetano Soto and  Dos soles solos by Alejandro Cerrudo).

PUPPET (Douglas Lee)
World premiere on-line on YouTube channel of The Czech National Ballet on Thursday March 18th at 19.00
Record of the choreography on-line until March 24th 2021

Douglas Lee is a freelance British choreographer. His works have been premiered by the Stuttgarter Ballett, the Norwegian National Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Nederlands Dans Theater and other companies. His Snow Was Falling, created for the Perm Opera Ballet, received the coveted Golden Mask for the best choreography of 2016. Lee is known to Prague dance lovers too – his Mask Duet was presented within the Velvet Gala evening in November 2019 at the Estates Theatre.

PUPPET

Choreography: Douglas Lee
Set design, costume design, lighting design: Douglas Lee
Technical adaptation of lighting design: Daniel Tesař
Ballet Master: Jiří Kodym
Music: Nicolas Sávva (Awakener, The Tower),  David Skidmore (Take Anything You Want, Triptan, Torched & Wrecked)
Music record: HAMU Percussion Ensemble (Awakener, The Tower), Third Coast Percussion (Take Anything You Want, Triptan, Torched & Wrecked)

photo: Martin Divíšek, Serghei Gherciu