Bolshoi Ballet’s Brilliant Comedy The Bright Stream at Orcas Center

 Friday, November 18, 6:30 p.m., Orcas Center

— from Susannah Weaver —

The Bright Stream, Alexei Ratmansky’s brilliantly choreographed smash production bursts with vivid life and bright spirits in cinemas throughout the U.S. and Canada in November. Join us for a subversive night of dance streaming at Orcas Center Friday, November 18, 6:30 pm. The Bright Stream is the second title in the seventh season of Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema featuring seven productions, four exhibited on the same day as the live capture from Moscow, and three encore presentations.

Alexei Ratmansky, one of ballet’s most significant contemporary choreographers and former Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet, revived the once-censored Shostakovich ballet score and production of The Bright Stream for the Bolshoi in 2003. The original work by Fyodor Lopukhov was staged in 1935, and although praised by the public and critics, the ballet was banned shortly after its premiere without any saved notation of the original choreography. Ratmansky first came across the full score in a recording by Gennady Rozhdestvensky in 1995, and decided to stage the full length ballet for the Bolshoi, which led to his appointment as Artistic Director. The choreographer maintained, “Soviet ballets like The Bright Stream… are unique to us. We need to treasure them.” –The Telegraph

The story follows a visiting dance troupe that arrives at a collective farm to celebrate the harvest festival, reuniting a ballerina with her childhood friend Zina. In order to teach Zina’s unfaithful husband a lesson, the ballerina, her husband and Zina decide to swap roles for the evening. Alexei Ratmansky invokes the genius of Shostakovich’s score at the Bolshoi, creating a comedic masterpiece with bits of slapstick, hilarious deceptions, false identities and its many colorful characters! The Telegraph claims, “In the glorious second act, you would have to be made of stone not to laugh out loud.”

The Bright Stream stars Principal Dancer Ruslan Skvortsov, who as a sylph, according to: The New York Times, “has line, adagio, he even performs pointe work, but he never takes ballerinadom very seriously, and at one point he pauses to scratch his hairy chest.” Prima Maria Alexandrova stars as the ballerina who swaps costumes with her male dance partner. This is one event not to be missed!

Tickets for the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema’s The Bright Stream are $20, $15 for students, $2 off for Orcas Center members, and may be purchased at www.orcascenter.org or by calling 376-2281 ext. 1 or visiting the Orcas Center Box Office open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 12 – 2 pm. $5 subsidized tickets are available at the Box Office. For more information about Orcas Center’s 2016-2017 season visit www.orcascenter.org.