THE CAPTIVE MIND OPERA NOVA BALLET 4th Days of Dance at Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa, Moniuszko Auditorium

The young choreographer who wrote the script and designed the production, Robert Bondara, came up with the idea for this piece some years ago. The ballet in two scenes is not completely true to the famous book by Mi?osz on which it is based. The main characters are not a reference to the Polish writers concealed behind Greek letters. As the artist said in an interview for Bydgoski Informator Kulturalny, “Composing movement, my focus is not on a ballet pas or a sequence of motions; the most important thing is for every movement and every gesture to carry content and emotional value, something capable of building an atmosphere and enabling the audience to decipher all those - let’s face it - rather complicated problems. I believe it can be done and it is what I will strive for. All this requires proper directing of the individual scenes, creating a relationship between the characters, and moving away from building a sequence of steps which is typical of classical ballet. My aim is to create movement primarily based on the content involved; to proceed from meaning to image”.

The production features music by Philip Glass (including fragments from Metamorphosis, Symphony No. 3, Glassworks, Mad Rush, String Quartet No. 2, String Quartet No. 5) and Wojciech Kilar (Ko?cielec). Mariusz Napiera?a’s costumes do not invoke any specific time in history, either. Diana Marsza?ek has created a single element of set design: a kind of toppled pyramid from which bricks, metal handles/steps, and cubby-hole windows protrude. Now and again, multimedia projections are thrown onto this ambiguous mass.

The dominating colours are greys; multimedia projections (clouds, molten lava) are superimposed on the black tones blurred by light and a few brighter accents (Elpis’ dress). This is the first contemporary ballet in the Opera Nova Ballet’s repertoire.