Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal in Ohad Naharin's Minus One
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal artistic director, Gradimir Pankov, has been updating this venerable Canadian institution since he tooks the reins in 2000, hiring a bevy of new dancers and eschewing the company's older repertoire for newer works. The effect has been a revitalization of the company (not that previous directors did not make significant contributions, of course). Back in April, Laura Bleiberg of the Orange County Register previewed the Company's enagagement at the Irvine Barclay Theatre:
"Each successive artistic director put his or her stamp on the company. Its current director, Gradimir Pankov, certainly has done that. Instead of building on the repertory of the past, Pankov has tossed out much of it, adding works by young Europeans, such as Belgian Stijn Celis and Didy Veldman of Holland (whose ballets were featured in the fall 2006 engagement in Los Angeles)."
Pankov on his changes to the repertory:
"'If we want to bring the company to other dimensions, we have to renew the repertory to make the repertory unique and put the company in the position where the company cannot be compared to another one,' said Pankov, who was born in Macedonia in the former Yugoslavia."
Read all of A Different Dimension.
The 50 year-old Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal makes its Boston debut (!) March 28-30 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.
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