Tamás Vásáry is both pianist and conductor, recipient of the most prestigious awards. He attaches great importance to giving young people an appreciation of classical music. This led him to establish the Zoltán Kodály Youth World Orchestra two years ago. His wife, Henriett Tunyogi, is a worthy companion in his efforts. She enjoys talking to children about her career, initiating young people into the workshop secrets and enchanting world of ballet. What path leads someone from the first steps to becoming a real ballet star?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gylLrjwUs

Since his first work debuted with the Houston Ballet in 1990 at the age of 20, Trey McIntyre has created more than 75 contemporary ballets, for The Washington Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Stuttgart Ballet and Houston Ballet, among many companies. Trey McIntyre Project premiered in 2004 as a summer company with a hand-selected group of America’s most talented ballet dancers and immediately won over the hearts of audience and critics alike at the major summer festivals, including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Wolf Trap. Using classical ballet as the point of departure, Trey McIntyre creates emotionally charged dances that defy categorization, set to musical scores ranging from Beethoven and Henry Cowell, to Beck, The Beatles, and Ralph Stanley. Trey McIntyre Project is proud to make its debut with an evening of dances bursting with dazzling creativity and heightened physicality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5qg4PkxIAs

“Trey McIntyre who has the looks of a film star was not even 30 when leading companies in America and Europe had already danced more than 60 of his choreographies. Four years ago he organised a summer tour with hand-picked dancers. Following the enormous success the group became a permanent company. Their Beatles music is an emotional journey: fresh, simple and very witty. It is sure to conquer Budapest too.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5qg4PkxIAs

Leatherwing Bat has been created for six dancers to the music of Peter, Paul & Mary. The figures of the graceful but powerful, long-legged John Michael Schert, and the challenging, teasing Brett Perry represent the complicated process of adolescence. Perry stands apart from his cheerful fellows, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso as he turns his melancholy gaze ahead in lonely longing; Schert is a more self-confident, independent type. Optimistic camaraderie also plays an important part in the piece: his fellows try to pull Perry out of his daze in the physical sense too, in the dance their arms create a human protective net offering security.

“Almost four decades after the break-up of the legendary foursome, in this crossover piece McIntyre draws on all the tools available to ballet for an incredibly exciting evocation of their music and their behaviour. He uses original movements to bring out the emotions hidden in the song – the wild, the funny, the drug-induced melancholy that soar over both the street toughs and the classical dancers. … With stubbornly recurring, brilliant spins.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5qg4PkxIAs

Three singing poets, three lonely artists, three sensitive people. Three different cultures, three different personalities, three different fates. Although their languages are different, the three creative artists are closely related in their manner of musical expression and their lyrical sensitivity. Beyond its narrative character, Solo for Three is a bizarre mosaic of flashback images and visions evoking mainly the features of Jacques, Vladimir and Karel. The figure emerging from the fragments bears the features of all three: an original personality incapable of compromise, respecting life above all, humour combined with measureless sorrow and loneliness, and murderous depression alternating with enormously fruitful, unbounded energy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOWVF74-pjM

D. M. J. 1953–1977
“The title of the performance representing the initials of the names of three great Czech composers – Antonín Dvořák, Bohuslav Martinů and Leoš Janáček – D.M.J. 1953 –1977 is in reality the inscription on the tomb of a girl who died very young. There are places where something extraordinary happens to us several times in the course of our life, and there are moments of grace when we can experience the throbbing of the universe in our veins, feel the direct presence of God and come face to face with ourselves.
The place can be a mountain range, a desert, a rock in the ocean, but it can also be a cemetery, the grave of a young girl where the shock of the inscription suddenly awakens the viewer to the reality of death.”

Maria’s dream
“The piece aims to translate a dream from the language of poetry to the language of dance, a dream of Maria Taglioni, one of the outstanding figures in the history of ballet, the queen of the romantic, that the artist recounted to a psychologist in London in 1847. The dream that is also recorded in detail in her memoirs gives us a glimpse into the innermost corners of the soul of Taglioni, a woman who was far ahead of her age in so many respects. It is at once metamorphosis, absurdity, fragile lyricism, coarse humour and prophetic vision. The work is actually a blend of two largely independent ballets: the artist’s famous Grand Pas de Quatre, and The Dying Swan created many years after Maria’s death, demonstrating the special sensitivity of the virtuoso ballerina. Of course, it is possible that the artist would not fully agree with the above, but there can be no doubt that her refined, ethereal being is here among us, and smiling. Let us smile back at her.”

Sinfonietta
Each part of this five-part ballet is a dream-like vision based on folklore. The choreography achieves perfect harmony between dance and music and hovers on the borderline between realism and abstraction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOWVF74-pjM

Bangarra Dance Theatre is one of Australia's most unique and innovative dance companies. Blending traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture with international contemporary dance, Bangarra creates a uniquely Australian dance language.
At the heart of Bangarra's uniqueness is the company's vision and commitment to a theatrical style that remains true to the indigenous spirit.
Bangarra means 'to make fire' in Wiradjeri language of NSW. The logo of Bangarra represents a flame; the headdress of a Torres Strait Island warrior; the point of a spear used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island hunters. The company belongs in the international vanguard and regularly appears at top world events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qWD40rGPgM

http://www.bangarra.com.au/

The Bangarra Dance Theatre is the best known company popularising Australian indigenous traditions; with the high artistic standard of its productions it has won a prominent place not only in Australia but throughout the world. From a small, community-based group the company representing Australian culture rooted in indigenous traditions in a way unlike any other contemporary company, has grown dramatically in size, in creative output, in financial and human resources and in popularity with audiences, by consciously blending the power of traditions with contemporary trends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qWD40rGPgM

http://www.bangarra.com.au/

The company’s aim was to respect and energise the link between indigenous cultures of Australia and contemporary artistic forms of expression, by maintaining the integrity of tradition while exploring the endless inspiration of dance and in doing so it has created a new dance theatre form. The success of these efforts can be seen in the company’s international recognition and the great response to its productions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qWD40rGPgM

http://www.bangarra.com.au/