A debut by Nadezhda Gonchar

In the matinee performance on 23 March Nadezhda Gonchar will be making her debut as Syuimbike in Leonid Yakobson's ballet Shurale.

In the bright and colourful ballet Shurale the image of Syuimbike the Bird-Maiden is one of the most beautiful. The choreographer Leonid Yakobson was not the first to think of using the image of a bird-maiden in a ballet, though his winged heroines – led by Syuimbike – are not at all like the feathered inhabitants of the famous Swan Lake. They have different, more fragile arms for wings and fluttering hands and they appear in different physical groups – at times they appear in triangles, at times in a row and at times in a circle. Their entire dance creates an illusion of flight. If in Act I Syuimbike appears as a bird and dances en pointe, then in the second “wedding” act she takes on worldly qualities, becoming a girl and appearing in high-heels. Writing of the heroine’s appearance as a bride at a village celebration, the choreographer commented that “In this dance I wanted to feel that she belongs to the air. And I had an idea: a gauze scarf comes out from beneath the bride’s veil, it’s like her inner essence.” This surprisingly picturesque and effective idea of the veil acting as a “cupola” on the bride’s head made the image of Syuimbike even more memorable in terms of the dance, more varied in terms of the movements and more interesting dramatically. The role will be performed by the experienced and technically refined Nadezhda Gonchar.