The Kabaniaev Project Brings Contemporary Ballet to the Irvine Barclay Theatre

March 30, 2011, Orange County, Calif. – Dmitri Kulev and Viktor Kabaniaev spoke rapidly to each other in Russian as they discussed the audition before them. A room full of eager students at the Dmitri Kulev Classical Ballet Academy were warmed up and ready to audition for the Kabaniaev Project, slated for a performance at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Friday, May 20, 2011.

The Kabaniaev Project will feature Maria Kochetkovaand Gennadi Nedvigin, principal dancers at the San Francisco Ballet. The project also features talented young dancers from the Orange County Ballet Theatrer, which is the resident dance company for the Dmitri Kulev Classical Ballet Academy.

Viktor Kabaniaev and Dmitri Kulev met several years ago through a mutual friend. Both Russian, both classically ballet trained, and both drawn to a more contemporary dance form. Kulev had dedicated his life to inspiring and training dancers at the Dmitri Kulev Classical Ballet Academy in Laguna Hills, while Kabaniaev had traveled the world as a dancer and choreographer. A friendship was born, that has now turned into a collaboration to advance the movement of contemporary ballet in Orange County.

Kabaniaev’s dance technique, instilled from the famed Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, is borne from hard work and discipline. The Vaganova Academy has taught dancers such as Anna Pavlova, George Balanchine, and Vaslav Nijinsky; and where students are housed in dormitories for eight years during their time there. The rigorous curriculum taught Kabaniaev to never stop pursuing perfection, whether as a professional dancer or choreographer. He has danced and choreographed extensively in Germany, Russia, France, Iraq, Singapore, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Austria, in addition to working locally here with Molly Lynch through the National Choreographers Initiative (NCI). One of his joys is working with students. “It’s part of my learning process. I watch how they move and it’s a collaborative process. I incorporate my choreography with their individual mastery of technique. I want to show off their movement and make them look good. They learn from me and I learn from the process,” stated Kabaniaev as he prepared for the auditions for the Kabaniaev Project.

Maria Kochetkova and Gennadi Nedvigin are the featured dancers of the Kabaniaev Project, both principal dancers at the San Francisco Ballet and graduates of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Kochetkova was recently in Orange County for the world premiere of Reflections at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts and has since traveled back to Russia for her first performance on the Bolshoi stage since leaving the country. She has a desire to teach if she had more time in between her demanding travel, rehearsal and performance schedules. This opportunity to work with Kabaniaev and Kulev’s students is a step closer to fulfilling the next step in her professional career to inspire young dancers.

The Kabaniaev Project will be performed at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Friday, May 20, 2011 in conjunction with excerpts from the famed classical ballet, Swan Lake. The Orange County Ballet Theater performance combines a mix of classical and contemporary dance repertoire. The Kabaniaev Project consists of three contemporary dance movements with the first set amongst the backdrop of Mozart’s Second Movement in his Second Piano Concerto, written when Mozart was a young musician with a youthful spirit clearly felt in the movement; “White Light” is written by Estonian composer Arvo Part who compares his music to white light where all the colors are combined and the spirit of the listener acts as the prism to divide the colors; and the final piece will be the world premiere of “A Series of Unrelated Events” set to the music of Jon Hopkins, a British musician who writes melodic contemporary electronic dance music.