You're reading: Top world dance troupes fail to impress at Benois

MOSCOW, May 27 (Reuters Life!) - The world's major ballet troupes left one of the most prestigious dance contests in the world empty-handed this week.

The jury at the 19th annual "Benois de La Dance" gave awards to pieces by a Belgian couple and a Finnish choreographer, but awarded no prizes to ballets from the Bolshoi, the Paris Opera Ballet or the American Ballet Theatre at the contest in Moscow this week.

"I can say that the classical ballets, of which Russia has the most, put up this year, were not of good enough quality to represent classical ballet today," jury member Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director, told Reuters.

The prestigious Russian-led award, founded by the International Dance Association in 1991 and held under UNESCO’s patronage, attracts the world’s best dancers and choreographers and has earned a reputation for having an unusually liberal approach to dance.

But the multinational jury did not nominate a single Russian choreographer this year and only one Russian ballet dancer took home a prize: Semyon Chudin from Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theatre.

"There was a lot done here (in Russian dance) but nothing interesting," said Yuri Grigorovich, 84, the Bolshoi’s chief choreographer for more than 30 years, jury chairman and founder of the prize.

The world’s major ballet companies trail behind because they do not allow room on their stages for the kind of fearless experimentation valued by the contest, jury members complained.

Worse, they said, the top ballet companies have all begun to resemble one another.

"Over the contest’s 19 years, all troupes started resembling one another, they put up the same choreographers: always Balanchine, always Forsythe," the contest’s artistic director Nina Kudryavtseva-Loory told Reuters.

"Troupes lose their faces. That’s a pity. The Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres, Paris Opera Ballet all need to have something that would distinguish them from others. Today, only the sizes of their troupes set them apart," she said.

Meanwhile, the nominees transformed the traditionally classic Bolshoi stage into a free and modern dance space.

In the winning dance, "Babel" (Words), a topless female dancer emerges as if from the ribcage of her male partner, depicting the biblical birth of woman, choreographed by Cidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, who won "best choreographer" award.

Kudryavtseva-Loory said that Asian and Arabic influences had increasingly begun to take the lead at the annual competition.

"Art reflects global social changes, the stronger the influence of Asian and Arabic nations gets, the more place it has in art," she said.

As if to prove the point, Chinese prima Zhu Yan won best ballerina for part in Czech Jiri Bubenicek’s "Outrenoir."

Yan shared the award with Monte Carlo’s Bernice Coppieters, who appeared as a dominatrix in a corset and sharp pointes elevating her above a slouching partner in a fluffy skirt.