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Russian superstar ballerina Natalia Osipova performs “Two Feet” as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Festival

Review | Superstar Russian ballerina dazzles in Hong Kong Arts Festival performances

  • Natalia Osipova’s dazzling dancing and demonstrations of astounding flexibility lit up her gruelling schedule of performances for the festival
  • The fearless male guest dancers also impressed, though pacing was a problem throughout due to the pauses for Osipova’s frequent costume changes

If there was any doubt about Natalia Osipova’s superstar status, it will have been put to rest by the demand for tickets that led to two extra shows being added for both her programmes, “Force of Nature” and “Two Feet”, in this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The Russian ballerina, for some years now a principal with the Royal Ballet in London, clearly possesses extraordinary energy, strength and stamina to take on two shows a night for two days running, twice in one week, with only one day off in between the programmes.

This was particularly remarkable when it came to “Two Feet”, a full-length solo piece in which the performer runs a physical and emotional gamut which would seem too exhausting to repeat half an hour later. It’s not for nothing that Osipova has been called “the sylph of steel”.

“Force of Nature” offers a selection of short pieces performed by Osipova together with four male guest dancers.

Osipova performs in “Force of Nature” with one of the guest dancers. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Festival

The programme and cast underwent a series of changes – so much so that the pieces featuring the last dancer to join, Jacopo Tissi (a former Bolshoi Ballet principal who returned to his home company at La Scala in Milan following the invasion of Ukraine), didn’t make it into the programme notes.

The evening opened with Osipova and Tissi in the pas de deux from Act 2 of Giselle. While it’s not uncommon for this excerpt to be used for programmes of this kind, I personally dislike seeing it taken out of context as the dance is so interwoven with the drama.

Both dancers were particularly impressive in their solos, Tissi showing his elegance of line and impeccable finishing, Osipova her outstanding elevation. But if you’re only going to include one classical piece, a crowd-pleaser virtuoso pas de deux like Don Quixote would have been more suitable.

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By far the most substantive work on the bill was Qutb by celebrated Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, commissioned by Osipova in 2016.

This stunning contemporary piece features a trio of dancers (Osipova, Robbie Moore and Jason Kittelberger) in a relentlessly paced, fast-flowing series of impossibly intricate lifts and intertwinings, fearlessly executed by all three artists.

The Arabic title may be translated as “pivot”, a role embodied in Kittelberger’s partnering, often lifting both the other dancers at the same time in breathtaking feats of strength and balance.

Osipova and guest dancers at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre performance. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Festival

Best of the other pieces was Ashes, a duet choreographed by Kittelberger which brought some welcome emotion and, although contemporary, drew cleverly on Osipova’s classical background to display her speed, control and lightness.

Another creation designed to showcase Osipova’s strengths, Alexei Ratmansky’s Valse Triste, is a very minor entry in this great choreographer’s oeuvre and while the ballerina shone, her partner, Royal Ballet principal Reece Clarke, was not ideally suited to this particular piece.

Solos for Clarke and Tissi were beautifully performed but low key – a pity, as both are fine dancers and it was frustrating not to have seen them given more to do.

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Indeed, overall the choice of repertoire felt rather random and the programme rather thin – why bring such a top-notch group of dancers all the way to Hong Kong for only an hour of dancing?

The finale was Osipova in The Dying Swan. Good though she was, artistically there is little point in doing this hackneyed piece, created purely for Anna Pavlova’s unique talent, unless you do something exceptional with it.

However, it’s a sure-fire winner for general audiences (everyone has heard of The Dying Swan) and the applause was ecstatic, as indeed it was throughout the show, complete with that rarity in Hong Kong: a standing ovation.

Osipova and guest dancers at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre performance. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Festival

“Two Feet” was first created and performed in 1988 by Australian dancer/choreographer Meryl Tankard, who staged a new version for Osipova in 2019.

The piece alternates between two themes: the trials and tribulations of a young girl studying ballet and the tragic story of Olga Spessivtseva, a legendary Russian ballerina of the first part of the 20th century whose career was cut short by mental illness – an ironic fate, since she was famed above all for her portrayal of Giselle, a character who succumbs to madness.

The first half started slowly. Scenes with the young dancer first trying to learn a ridiculous routine about catching shrimp, then ballroom dances, are mildly amusing but overlong, and Osipova as Spessivtseva doing exercises at the barre were, ultimately, just barre exercises.

(Pacing was a problem throughout due to the pauses for Osipova’s frequent costume changes – these inevitably interrupted the flow of the performance.)

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The scenes where Tankard’s semi-autobiographical experiences have been adapted to Osipova’s own life worked well – footage of her as a child in ballet class showing her mischievous sense of humour as well as her precocious talent was charming.

Her feisty response to unkind critics brought some dazzling dancing, while a demonstration of her astounding flexibility (during an exploration of the pain ballet dancers put themselves through to achieve their goals) drew an audible gasp from the audience.

The first half built to a powerful climax as Osipova (like Spessivtseva before her, widely considered the greatest Giselle of her generation) recreated her predecessor’s interpretation of the mad scene from Giselle (which exists on film and was projected later in the production) and ended with a thrilling, frenzied tribute to Rite of Spring.

The second half also started slowly but again built momentum as Osipova gave a harrowing portrayal of Spessivtseva’s descent into madness, as she struggled to dance as she used to and her identity merged with that of her most iconic role, Giselle.

In these final scenes, Tankard draws on Giselle extensively in terms of choreographic and musical references – perhaps to a baffling degree for an audience not sufficiently familiar with the ballet.

While the applause at the end was warm, “Force of Nature” got a bigger reception and the parts of “Two Feet” which elicited the best response were the tantalising glimpses of Osipova’s technical prowess revealed in the “Critics” section, including solos from Don Quixote and Esmeralda.

“Natalia Osipova in Hong Kong Arts Festival”, “Two Feet” and “Force of Nature”, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Grand Theatre. Reviewed: March 14 and 18.

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