2013 at the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts is already shaping up to be a stellar season with artists of international acclaim. Making their Toronto debut is Russia’s most exciting modern ballet company, EIFMAN BALLET St. Petersburg with their latest masterpiece, RODIN, a new ballet by Boris Eifman inspired by the remarkable life and art of French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
RODIN is the tumultuous tale of two artists, Auguste Rodin and his muse and mistress, Camille Claudel. Visionary choreographer Boris Eifman has created a contemporary performance where dance and sculpture come together and find an unprecedented camaraderie in a modern ballet of love, lust and jealousy.
“Eifman is the real deal, a choreographer-magician who can shape the most unlikely material into throat- catching, mind blowing stage images.” Newsday
To turn a moment, frozen in stone, into an irrepressible stream of sensuous body movements; to capture the human spirit as brilliantly as Rodin and Claudel did in bronze and stone, was Eifman’s intention in creating “One of the great ballets of the 21st century!” (NY Dance), a dance performance that expresses artistic innovation and the terrible price of genius that comes with it.
Choreographer Boris Eifman explains:
«The life and love of Rodin and Claudel is an amazing story of two artists in an incredibly dramatic alliance in which everything interlaced: passion, hatred, artistic jealousy. The spiritual and energetic interchange of the two sculptors is a unique phenomenon: living together with Rodin, Camille was not only inspiring him, helping him find a new style and create masterpieces, but also going through the impetuous development of her own talent; actually, she was transforming into a great master.
After her breakup with Rodin, Claudel began to plunge into the darkness of insanity. Her soul was burnt to ashes with a pathological hatred to her former teacher and lover, who had stolen, in Camille’s opinion, her life and gift. Rodin’s longing for his muse and the torments of his conscience, as well as the delusion of Camille—or the insane Erinye, an alter-ego full of sick obsessions—all of these are reflected in the new ballet.
With the help of body language, we talk in our performance about passion, internal struggle, despair—about all of those life phenomena of the human spirit, which were brilliantly expressed by Rodin and Camille in bronze and marble. To turn a moment frozen in stone into an irrepressible sensuous stream of body movements is what I was striving for when creating this new ballet performance.
Rodin is a contemplation of the unreasonable price that geniuses have to pay for the creation of eternal masterpieces, and also about those torments and mysteries of the creative process that will always disturb the minds of artists».
Sony Centre For The Performing Arts, 1 Front Street East, Toronto
May 23-25, 2013 @ 7:30pm
Ticket prices range from $55-$145, plus applicable service charges,
and can be purchased in person at the Sony Centre box office,
over the phone at 1-855-872-SONY (7669) or online at www.sonycentre.ca
Discounts are available for groups of 8 or more. Call THE Group Tix Company 647-438-5559 or
Toll Free 1-866-447-7849 or online at www.thegrouptixcompany.com/