© Nina Ananiashvili/sbog Earlier Ananiashvili Ballet.co interviews: January 2004 April 2004 January 2000 Ananiashvili in reviews recent State Ballet of Georgia reviews Nina Ananiashvili web site State Ballet of Georgia web site Bruce Marriott reviews

"The last four years we really working very hard and we produced all new productions - now it is 32 new productions". It sounded so innocent, so sweet in the sunny way Ananiashvili speaks, but better than anything it betrays the magnitude and steel of what she is about at the State Ballet of Georgia. It's a statement the like of which I never thought I'd hear and I doubt I ever will again.

She is one of the foremost ballerinas of her generation, so perhaps we should not be surprised she brings such fresh vitality and gusto to running a company. That she has kids, is still dancing with American Ballet Theatre as well as her own company just compounds the wonder. Anybody who sees her dance knows she is special, but this is a whole other ball game of specialness.

Apart from the all new repertoire the company visiting Edinburgh (and the UK) for the first time is no small affair - 60 strong, young, and blooded by recent touring of the USA and Japan, they are driven by a lust for hard work. Which is just as well really - Ananiashvili, who took over the company in 2004, laid it on the line: "Because I told them that first day I take the job, I say 'We need to go quickly, if we go quickly, if you follow me, we can make it. But if you don't follow me we will be late and the world is already full of good companies. Of course everything was not so easy there, so I had little fights {one suspects there is a huge understatement here}, and we need to do everything from the beginning. So we really start from zero and what was really good was to see they want it and they follow. And we did it! WE DID IT! Thank God I don't have trade union there!"

 

Nina Ananiashvili in Giselle
© State Ballet of Georgia

What they have done is no headlong rush to acquire anything and everything that might be available. Ananiashvili is acutely aware of the need for the company to have a unique and distinctive 'face' as she puts it and for her that means coupling the brand new works, you would expect, with rare existing works and new productions of 19th century classics. "Every company has everything now. Everybody has Manon!, but we have Ashton, we have Two Pigeons - actually a full Ashton evening of works, plus La Fille mal gardee. Marquerite and Armand was my last premiere - a dream come true (personally) and nobody else has it outside of the Royal Ballet. We have Birthday Offering, Thais pas de deux, Sylvia pas de deux to give a complete Ashton evening. Marquerite and Armand I really enjoy..." I bet she does, created on Fonteyn it's probably one of the most exclusive ballets in the world - in its 45 year history you can count the number of ballerinas who have danced it on the digits of one hand.

The company also has the original Romeo and Juliet production by Leonid Lavrosky. "Everybody asked me 'Why you want this old production - we can do new one'. Well because it is a masterpiece - this is first R&J - Lavrosky work with Prokofiev himself and everything is really musical. So maybe dance style is a little Soviet but story is still strong - it still works today and has beautiful pas de deux.

Nina Ananiashvili in Bizet Variations
© Lado Vachnadze

Edinburgh gets to see all these aspects of the company with the classical Giselle, some relatively rare Balanchine and new works by Possokhov and Ratmansky. The Giselle, staged by Alexei Fedeyechev (he did the wonderful Bolshoi Don Quixote), has "...a few small changes, we don't have a pdd like Russians but a pas de six - small details. But this is a classical production and we try to follow the costumes and decorations by Benois. They are new and 'after Benois' - something more fresh. I think our Giselle, especially seeing it the first time, it looks a very bright production."

Nina Ananiashvili
© Nina Ananiashvili

The Balanchine they are bringing includes the relatively well known, and eye catching, Due Concertant and Chaconne which is in fewer companies. Balanchine was a Georgian too so there is a special bond - "I think my company put into his work really big heart. When they are performing, I'm watching them, my feeling is that they do this with big pleasure." The most recent new work they are bringing is Yuri Possokhov's Sagalobeli, based on Georgian folk songs: "It's something special for the company with a real Georgian feel." Possokhov is Russian but "He knows who we are, Georgian, he knows our traditional dance but he doesn't know the language and so doesn't know what the songs are about (love of course!) - he just responds to the music." The fresh eyes seem to have worked for Nina and the company: "He did a really good job and we had huge success in the United States with it."

Ananiashvili cottoned on to what a great choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is earlier than most and commissioned two works from him for the Nina Ananiashvili and Moscow Dance Theatre company that visited London's Sadler's Wells in 2004. His latest work is Bizet Variations and for both Nina and the company. "The music is unusual for Bizet and I really enjoy it - very romantic and beautiful pas de deux. I was very pleased because he enjoyed working with the company, so I hope he will come back and do more really new and different work for us." Now there is a director talking - Ratmansky is a very busy man!

 

Nina Ananiashvili in Bizet Variations
© State Ballet of Georgia

Besides running the company Ananiashvili is also director of the company school. At the moment she doesn't teach regularly, which is not surprising given she is a full-on ballerina needing to do class each day as well as everything else. But when she is not travelling, "I'm there every Monday looking at the children and giving directions". She also goes to see all the classes each December/January. Not only does she want to inspire the young at school but she believes passionately in involving children in seeing ballet: "I am really happy that every Sunday I have a matinee performance for kids and it is always sold out. Always full house. And I'm doing myself also these performances, because I am working for the future. People remember the ballet when they were young and they keep coming back."

Inevitably I ask the obvious question - how much longer will she dance? She is 45, has kids, leads the school, leads the company, still dances with ABT - with whom she is touring when we speak on the phone from Tokyo (10:30 her time, but no problem, what a star). She laughs and it's obviously not a pat answer she's got, nor is it an easy decision for somebody at her level. After the last baby she thought she might not make it back but she promised her old Bolshoi coach, the late Raisa Struchkova, that she would and it took nearly 2 years to get right back. But it's not just about herself: "I need to show my company - so without me it would be more difficult. With me it is easy - people know me. But when people see my company they don't just see some provincial theatre with Nina Ananiashvili, they already see a really good quality of dancers and ballets. That makes me happy."

 

Wilis in The State Ballet of Georgia Giselle
© State Ballet of Georgia

And she isn't winding down her dance either: she continues to dance all the hard three-act classical works "I cannot cut anything - I do everything I always have. So far I feel I'm in good shape." And if that's good enough for Nina it's good enough for me. So go see Nina while you can, wherever you can, and go see Nina's company, her work in progress, dancing her way in the unique and distinctive 'face' she has given it.