Creative searches in the genre of national ballet: “Sultan Baibars” and “The Legend of Turanga”

Abstract

The return to the full-scale format of the ballet performance and the approval of the prominent names of young choreographers marks the result of creative searches in the national art of dance over the past 30 years. Composers, set designers, visual artists, and costume designers turn their attention to such a genre as ballet with renewed interest, which results in the two latest works by Russian choreographers on the national theme: "Sultan Baibars" (choreography by Mukaram Avakhri) and "The Legend of Turanga" (choreography by Anvara Sadykova). In the article, using their example, the authors attempt to consider ballet as a part of art in general and, in particular, to understand ballet as a repository of the emotional experience of perception accumulated in society over generations and, in turn, also value-oriented to society itself. This is the purpose of the study. To achieve this goal, the authors choose some methods of the system-based and synergetic approach, which in recent years has been actively introduced into humanities research, including art history. The approach focuses on phenomena as unstable systems and uses various methods for a complete and qualitative analysis during research. Its principles of feedback and intellectualization are implemented in ballet if one takes a holistic approach to art: as an object of socio-cultural nature. During the study, it becomes clear that the ballet performance is the product of the co-creation of choreographers and a lot of other authors who feel the direct connection between art and the world when a separate object or phenomenon makes sense only as part of the whole. The changing moral values of modern society, the influence of the new ideologies of national identification, and the environmental movement, along with new trends in visual perception, are directly reflected in the performances of young Kazakh choreographers. Through the principles of the systemic interaction "theater-society" and the consideration of art as a repository of historical memory, the authors try to understand the mutual influence of the national ballet and the socio-cultural field. Thus, on the example of the two latest works by Avakhri and Sadykova, the search for new themes and plots, their artistic and technical, visual and musical design, the prospects for the development of the plastic language of national ballet are seen in the understanding of art as an unstable system that is in continuous development and interconnection not only with internal but also external factors.