July 24, 2023
Dance critic Harss traces the life of dancer-turned-choreographer Alexei Ratmansky in her impressively detailed debut. An explosive mix of talent, ambition, and “utter devotion” to ballet propelled Ratmansky from a humble childhood in Kyiv to rigorous training at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Russia and international tours as a principal dancer in different companies. He found his calling as a choreographer in 2003 when he developed a ballet for the Bolshoi Ballet company that became a “surprise success” and thereafter devoted himself to “making ballets with as much artistic freedom as possible” and developing a style characterized by clean lines, playfulness, and movement “that is neither pure nor fully story driven.” According to Harss, Ratmansky’s ballets express “ideas and images and feelings, but it would be almost impossible” to capture the precise narrative. While Ratmansky’s productions have never explicitly centered politics, his heritage reveals itself more subtly in his work: for example, he created Songs of Bukovina, based on Ukrainian folk material, in 2017, when the country was fighting Russian interference. While the author’s admiration for her subject sometimes devolves into flattery (ballet is the “language in which he feels more conversant... the air he breathes”), it’s a pleasure to follow Ratmansky’s career, which is brought to life by Harss’s deep research. Dance aficionados will delight in this vibrant portrait.