K-Arts Dance Company, State Ballet of Georgia, visiting dancers set for Tbilisi Ballet Festival

South Korea’s K-Arts Dance Company, Georgian artists from troupes across the world and the Tbilisi-based State Ballet of Georgia will be on stage to make the third Tbilisi Ballet Festival an event to attend later this month.

In just over a week’s worth of performances, the Opera and Ballet State Theatre in the capital will host the dancers with the customary mission of showcasing both local and foreign talent.

The celebration will launch with a bill of Le Conservatoire, a classical work by Danish choreographer August Bournonville and a Tbilisi premiere of The Two Pigeons by Frederick Ashton, both in performance by the local company led by Nina Ananiashvili, also the Artistic Director of the Festival.

Led by Misook Jeon, the K-Arts dancers will then take over for two shows of fragments from full productions, ranging from classics like La Sylphide to contemporary stagings like Mob.

The 2019 edition will present ‘The Two Pigeons’ and ‘Le Conservatoire’ - two ballets restored after their original stagings. Photo: State Ballet of Georgia.

Their two-day bill will also showcase parts from neoclassical productions by the famed George Balanchine. The dancers of the company will bring fragments from Tarantella and Stars and Stripes to the Tbilisi venue, among others.

Two behemoths of the classical repertory will go on the programme next to attract dance enthusiasts, with Victoria Jaiani and Temur Suluashvili — two Georgian-born artists of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet — leading the first evening with Giselle.

The two young dancers will entertain the Festival audience in choreographer and former dancer Alexey Fadeechev’s version of the major work, with conductor Alevtina Ioffe leading the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre Orchestra.

In the second classical evening, State Ballet of Georgia’s Nino Samadashvili will be partnered by Ruslan Skvortsov of the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow. The duo will lead a performance of Swan Lake, in another production staged by Fadeechev and conducted by Ioffe.

The Festival will then come to a close in a gala show involving a host of dancers including Francesco Piccinin of the Estonian National Ballet, Martina Arduino and Marco Agostino of Teatro alla Scala and Bolshoi’s Anastasia Goryacheva and Ana Turazashvili joining Skvortsov.

The Tbilisi Ballet Festival was launched by Ananiashvili in 2017, with annual editions bringing a selection of artists from foreign troupes to performances also featuring local talent.

Productions from annual performance seasons of the State Ballet of Georgia are also highlighted for the visiting audience.

This year's Festival will be hosted at the Opera and Ballet Theatre venue, located on 25, Rustaveli Avenue, between June 22-30.