PRESS RELEASE

Filip Barankiewicz The Artistic Director of The Czech National Ballet ballet

ON-LINE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE CZECH NATIONAL BALLET CNB YOUTUBE CHANNEL PUPPET DOS SOLES SOLOS Two choreographies / double experience

During 2020/2021 season The Czech National Ballet manages to stimualate creative energy and seeking new artistic impulses. The world online premiere of works by choreographers Douglas Lee and Alejandro Cerrudo ranks among them. We value every moment when we can freely create and thus contribute to the formation of a sensitive and supportive environment…

Douglas Lee and Alejandro Cerrudo worked with The Czech National Ballet since August 2020. The dancers learned to exercise in face masks, disinfect their hands, split into small closed groups, take tests, protect themselves and others, watch their health and act as an evidence that the covid era shall not destroy the arts, the live theatre. In November 2020 these artists completed their new choreographies and the works were recorded. All choreographies are part of the Phoenix production which has entered the repertory of The Czech National Ballet (the third part of the premiere is Prelude und Liebestod by Cayetano Soto). We are ready to perform all three creations whenever audiences can return to our historical building. The live premiere is still to come and we hope to reconnect soon.

On March 18, 2021 at 7pm we will be showing PUPPET (choreography by Douglas Lee) and on March 25, 2021 at 7pm DOS SOLES SOLOS (choreography by Alejandro Cerrudo); both works on YouTube channel of the Czech National Ballet.

Douglas Lee: ‘My ballet is called Puppet. I love the use of plasticity in a dancer’s body and achieving beauty, nevertheless the idea of puppetry suggests an outside force moving the dancer’s limbs or an unusual non-human way of articulating the joints. Al this I am exploring in the studio. Mythical creatures such as a puppet bring a sense of fantasy out in a person’s creative mind. It is the same sense of fantasy that draws people to the theatre or ballet.‘

Alejandro Cerrudo: ‘Once I enter the studio I don’t think about sun, death or rebirth. I just listen to the music and watch the dancers – and we make something new, in the present moment. As Chris McCandless says: The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.‘

Národní divadlo Ostrovní 1, 112 30 Praha 1, Česká republika, www.narodni-divadlo.cz IČ 00023337, Bankovní spojení: ČNB Praha 1, č. ú.: 2832011/0710 PRESS RELEASE

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DOUGLAS LEE

British choreographer, dancer, principal dancer with the Stuttgart Ballet for many years, winner of the prestigious Russian Golden Mask Award for the best choreographer of the year 2016. He has been creating his own works since 1999 and cooperating with numerous ballet companies in Europe and North America. Douglas Lee‘s movement vocabulary is known for its distinct aesthetics emphasizing dancers‘ physical abilities and pushing them to the limits.

Born in Douglas Lee started his ballet training at the Arts Educational Schools London and then received a scholarship for School where he graduated in 1996, winning the Alicia Markova Award. Lee then joined The Stuttgart Ballet, his promotion to principal dancer followed in 2002. With Aubade and Lachrymal Douglas presented his first works for the Stuttgart Opera House. His tenth work for the Stuttgart Ballet Miniatures premiered in March 2011. Following his choreographic success in Stuttgart he became a freelance choreographer working internationally. As well as returning to the Stuttgart Ballet to create Aria and Arcadia he created Lifecasting set to the music of Steve Reich for the New York City Ballet which was shortlisted in Time Out NY as one of the outstanding dance works of 2009 and subsequently taken into the Stuttgart Ballet repertoire. Douglas Lee has also worked with the Norwegian National Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Tulsa Ballet, Ballett Augsburg, Ballett Dortmund, Ballett Mainz, Ballet du Rhin and the Greek National Ballet. His 2016 creation Snow Was Falling for Perm Opera Ballet Theatre received the prestigious Golden Mask Award for best choreographer. Lee also created Legion for Netherlands Dance Theatre 2, Playground for Atlanta Ballet as well as three new works for Ballett Zürich. Recent creations include Earthlings for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, new Petrushka with the music of for Ballett Nürnburg and the critically acclaimed Naiad for the Stuttgart Ballet.

Photo: S. Gherciu PRESS RELEASE

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ALEJANDRO CERRUDO

Spanish dancer and choreographer, resident artist with the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (2009–2018) and the Pacific Northwest Ballet (since 2020). During his career he has created works for a number of companies and artists, including Wendy Whelan and Daniil Simkin. It is above all the choreographer‘s musicality and careful dealing with music that is appreciated, as well as the sense for detail in movement patterns and emotions.

Alejandro Cerrudo was born in Spain and trained at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Danza in Madrid. His professional career began in 1998 and includes working with Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater 2. Cerrudo joined Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 2005 and held the position of Resident Choreographer of the company from 2008 to 2018. Cerrudo’s body of work has been performed by more than twenty professional dance companies around the world. In March 2012, Pacific Northwest Ballet invited Cerrudo to choreograph his first work for the company, Memory Glow, upon receiving the Joyce Theater Foundation’s second Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance. Recently Cerrudo was appointed PNB’s first-ever resident choreographer. Additional honors include a Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work from the Prince Charitable Trusts (2012) for his acclaimed, first evening-length work, One Thousand Pieces, and a 2014 USA Donnelley Fellowship by Artists. Alejandro Cerrudo was one of four choreographers invited by New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan to create and perform original duets for the Restless Creature, a documentary film about Whelan. Together with the dancer Daniil Simkin he worked on the site-specific production within the project Work & Process managed by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Cerrudo’s Sleeping Beauty, created with Ballet Theater Basel in 2016, was nominated the Swiss production of the year by Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag magazine.

Photo: S. Gherciu PRESS RELEASE

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PUPPET Choreography: Douglas Lee Set design, costume design, lighting design: Douglas Lee Technical adaptation of lighting design: Daniel Tesař : Jiří Kodym

Music: Nicolas Sávva (Awakener, The Tower), David Skidmore (Take Anything You Want, Triptan, Torched & Wrecked) Music record: HAMU Percussion Ensemble (Awakener, The Tower), Third Coast Percussion (Take Anything You Want, Triptan, Torched & Wrecked)

DOS SOLES SOLOS Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo Set design: Michael Korsch Costumes: Karen Young Lighting design: Daniel Tesař Ballet Master: Alexandre Katsapov

Music: Caroline Shaw (Entr’acte, Plan & Elevation) Music record: Attacca Quartet

• Photo gallery • YouTube channel – Czech National Ballet • Puppet / trailer • Dos soles solos / trailer

Contact: Helena Bartlová P. R. of The Czech National Ballet M: +420 737 205 899 [email protected] www.narodni-divadlo.cz