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The evening opened with a delightful performance of Bournonville’s “Blumenfest in Genzano”. Ludmila Konovalova played a real tease to her partner Marian Walter who performed some stunning jumps. This piece had the air of “La Fille Mal Gardee” about it light hearted and fun. I must say that Ludmila performed some lovely steps including lovely bourees as she teased her ‘beau’. Next came the pdd from the “Diamonds” section of Balanchine’s Jewels. Vladimir Malakhov appeared on stage to rapturous applause and was then joined by the wonderful Polina Semionova to perform this beautiful piece with ease and grandeur. The performance was completely “true” to Balanchine, being staged by Maria Calegari and the costumes were the original Karinska designs. Can I now live in hope that maybe Staatsballett Berlin will take Jewels into their repertoire? If this pdd was anything to go by they will certainly do the full work justice.

“The Nutcracker” pdd followed danced by ABT’s Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky – she in a lovely sugar pink tutu quite befitting the SPF she was dancing. What struck me most about this performance was the musicality displayed by Irina, her timing was just perfect. Then followed the “Tchaikovsky” pdd which was danced competently by the young Mariinsky couple Yevgenia Obraztsova and Vladimir Shklyarov who were perfect dancers for this piece.

The pdd from “Le Corsaire” followed danced by Mizuka Ueno from Tokyo Ballet partnered by Staatsballett’s Dmitry Semionov – Mizuka performed around 40 fouettes with total assurance and to great applause and Dmitry performed the usual death defying leaps with speed and bravura, also to huge applause (although the jumps were not quite as flashy as the extra special twisting jumps I have seen performed by Denis Matvienko!)

The first half then came to a close with a performance of Bejart’s “Serait-ce la Mort?” danced by Vladimir Malakhov, accompanied by Polina Semionova, Beatrice Knop, Shoko Nakamura and Nadja Saidakova. This piece was in quite stark contrast to the rest of the very classical first half, and not my preferred style, but it was nonetheless an interesting piece to watch – I particularly enjoyed the pieces danced by Vladimir and Nadja. The piece was accompanied by singer Carola Hohn.

The second half of the evening was a series of pieces set to taped music, rather than live orchestral music and opened with Mizuka Ueno dancing the pdd from “Carmen – Don Jose” choreographed by Alberto Alonso. The curtains opened to reveal Mizuka standing centre stage in a “latino/flamenco” style black dress with tasselled fringe “skirt” against a stunning red backdrop – it drew an audible gasp from the audience as it was such a stunning sight. Partnered by Ibrahim Onal from Staatsballett, Mizuka and Ibrahim brought a hot Latin American feel to the auditorium with “Carmen”. Next came a new piece called “Alexander the Great” by Ronald Savkovic who used to dance for Staatsballett but who has now moved on to choreography. This piece was danced by Elisa Carillo Cabrera and Leonard Jakovina, but I can’t recall too much as I was getting dance overload by now!

Next came a favourite piece of mine which I have seen at a previous ”Malakhov and Friends” this was van Cauwenbergh’s “Les Bourgeois”, fabulously danced by Dinu Tamazlacaru against a dark set to the very French music/song of Jacques Brel. Dinu played the drunken man so well, with humour and feeling and as for his jumps across the stage he jumped so high I could hardly believe my eyes – needless to say he brought the house down with prolonged applause, flowers being thrown to him and cries of “Bravo!”. Dinu truly deserved the adulation and it was just a pity this piece is so short!

Now I was really getting spoiled – next up was Forsythe’s “In The Middle Somewhat Elevated” – I’m not a huge fan of modern dance but this piece has “something” and it was danced by Staatsballett’s very capable Nadja Saidakova and Mikhail Kaniskin – they made the twisting and pulling of the choreography look so easy and displayed the choreography with true professionalism.

One of the most visually stunning pieces of the evening was Jessica Lang’s “Splendid Isolation” set to Mahler’s 5th Symphony Adagio, and performed by Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. Again the audience gasped in amazement as the curtains drew back to reveal Irina standing centre stage with a huge oversized skirt to her dress – the skirt must have been 15 feet in diameter. As Maxim danced around Irina she eventually began to move twisting round and round thus pulling in the large skirts of her dress to her feet – I feared she would fall, but no the lady has done this before! It made for a stunning visual effect and thankfully by the end of the piece the skirt was discarded to free Irina to dance.

Yevgenia Obraztsova and Vladimir Shklyarov then performed “Parting” a duet by new Russian choreographer Juri Smekalow. I think he is a rising choreographer and this piece was great – it was set to John Powell’s “Assassin’s Tango” and had that lovely Latin American feel to it. The dance was set on an almost dark stage and opened with the 2 dancers seated on a chair back to back and took it in turns to dance to start with – he danced first then sat down and then they turned the chair 180 degrees to reveal her and she danced. This was a super piece and I think we have an exciting new choreographer in the dance world.

The final piece was a new solo work choreographed by Ronald Savkovic again specifically for Vladimir Malakhov and set to music by Arshak Ghalumyan featuring Klaus Nomi- "La Vita Nuova". Again a dark stage with a central panel of light and smoke clouds hanging above Vladimir Malakhov added dark drama to the scene.

The evening over, all the guest and resident dancers then reappeared to take their curtain calls with Vladimir Malakhov and the audience was very appreciative. A thoroughly well deserved standing ovation ensued. Polina Semionova also added final glamour by changing back from the plain leotard of “Serait-ce la Mort?” into her fabulous “Diamonds” costume. I thoroughly enjoyed this performance and the chance to see some world class dancers all on one stage. If you wish to see the gala you can as it will be repeated next year on 22, 24 and 26 February 2009

To see some lovely photographs of some of the dancers and to read some reviews (in German) please click the links below:
http://www.tanznetz.de/kritiken.phtml?page=showthread&aid=176&tid=13439
http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/kultur_und_medien/feuilleton/1619311_Malakhov-und-Friends-begeistern-in-Berlin.html