Ballet des Nations
Dances of the baroque Europe
Ardente Sole – dance ensemble (Poland)
Romana Agnel – artistic director
Collegium Marianum (Czech Republic)
Jana Semerádová – artistic director
Solamente Naturali (Slovakia)
Miloš Valent – artistic director
Aura Musicale (Hungary)
Balász Maté – artistic director
Romana Agnel, Leszek Rembowski – choreography
Monika Polak-Luścińska – costumes
Sunday 31 July 2005, 4 pm and 8 pm
Pod Palmovkou Theatre, Zenklova 34, Praha 8
Following the successful appearance of the Polish ensemble Ardente Sole at the preceding SFEM, the idea of a dance project produced in collaboration with some of the foremost music ensembles from the Visegrad Group countries, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The result was a programme presenting samples of the baroque culture in these four countries in varied dance scenes accompanied and interspersed by entertaining baroque music, and covering a wide range of dance repertoire, from the refined recreation at the wealthy court of the Habsburgs through the entertainment of the lower nobility and burgers to the environment of the impoverished Slovak nobles who had their dancing accompanied by folk musicians. The dancers in spectacular baroque costumes appeared in the choreography of Romana Angel based on period descriptions and dance notation.
The evening could have taken its title from one of the compositions by G. Ph. Telemann performed in its course: “Klingende Geographie”. The dances played during the performance were of Central-European provenience, including music from the pen of the Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux, dances from Polish (1715), Hungarian (1730), and Visegrad (1698) collections and from the pen of Georg Philipp Telemann. The medley of styles bearing the stamp of the folk culture of the individual countries brought the listeners a colourful, extraordinary experience.
