An evening of modern ballet: In Dark Images. Petite Mort. Minus 16 Tickets

The Stanislavsky Theatre, located in XIX century historical building just 750 metres (9-minute walk) from the Bolshoi, offers a rare opportunity to enjoy ballet of the highest artistic quality. The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre presents an extraordinary evening of contemporary one-act ballets, uniting three masterpieces that reveal the boundless possibilities of dance. On stage you will see brilliant dancers who have performed at the Bolshoi Theatre and trained in the same world-renowned academies as Bolshoi artists, bringing their artistry and energy into these unique productions. Ballet at the Stanislavsky Theatre is the great and affordable alternative to the Bolshoi.

In Dark Images by Maxim Sevagin (to the music of Antonio Vivaldi) first premiered at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2022 and was later brought to Moscow in 2024. This work is the choreographer’s ode to ballet itself — a poetic exploration of timeless images and symbols emerging from the vast universe of movement. With just nine performers, the ballet transforms Vivaldi’s baroque brilliance into a living dialogue of ensembles, duets, quartets, and trios.

Petite Mort by Jiří Kylián, created for the Salzburg Festival in 1991, is set to the slow movements of Mozart’s piano concertos. This ballet for six men, six women, and six rapiers has become a legendary example of the perfect union between music and choreography — lyrical, sharp, and breathtakingly beautiful.

Minus 16 by Ohad Naharin, the celebrated Israeli choreographer and creator of the Gaga movement language, breaks the barrier between stage and audience. It transforms spectators into participants, making every performance an unrepeatable, vibrant encounter with dance.

An unforgettable night of contemporary ballet in Moscow — three works, three worlds, one stage.

For his choreographic performance Petite Mort, Jiri Kilian, who is also called the “Picasso dance”, used two slow fragments from two of Mozart’s most famous concerts for piano. He deliberately cut out fast movements, leaving only slow music, helpless, like mutilated bodies, appearing to listeners and spectators. According to the choreographer himself, this is against all rules, but, nevertheless, it was decided to do just that. After all, the world around us is far from ideal and the rules are constantly violated. Jiri Kilian also decided to keep up with this general trend.

Indeed, since Mozart created his divine music, and to this day, many wars have occurred in the world, and rivers of blood have spilled under the “Bridge of Time”. In order to demonstrate male potency and a thirst for power (possession), swords were symbolically involved in the composition.

So, throughout our entire life, “Death” always accompanies us, sometimes it is “small” and sometimes “large”, but it is it that is our faithful companion from dawn to dusk of our life.