The Staatsballett Berlin with Polina and Malakhov are going to tour in SPAIN this summer! WOOOOOOW!
Here’s the program:

30 June 2006 to 2 July 2006 – in Gran Canaria, gala “Malakhov and Friends”
4 and 6 July 2006 in Granada, “Ein Lindentraum”
8 July 2006 in Almeria – Balanchine evening

Ein Lindentraum:





Balanchine:
Wonderful Polina!







Malakhov and Friends:



Uliana… of course!

They have a really amazing looking company!!!!!! Great post.

Does anyone else here think that Malakhov dances more like a girl than a guy?

WOOOOOWWWWW Ouch!!!!!!! Where did my jaw go????

I spend a part of the summer in Almería!!!!!! And Granada ain´t much farther.
But now that I think about it, going to Gran Canaria that weekeng would be pretty nice, because the gala will have good names and I dont have to choose between my summer intensive and the other two performances

Olga, you have just given me a heart-attack

jaxdok, that is not completly wrong. Malakhov is a very soft dancer which is not that usual for a male dancer. He moves his arms very softly, you can´t hear any sound when he lands after a leap. He´s not like some other male dancers who come on stage like "BOOOOM! Here I am!!!"
He comes quite softly and calm on stage, but with a HUGE stage presence, every single movement he does has a deeper meaning, and if it´s only the turning of his head.
Of course Malakhov can be very powerful, but at the same time he still has this special soft extra. Hard to explain....
Actually this difference of Malakhov towards other male dancer is what his fans (me included) love so much about him.

My ballet teacher once said after she heard he´s going to be dancer and balletdirector here in Berlin: "Malakhov? Oh I saw him when he was very young. He is SO gorgeous! I have never seen a dancer like him, he uses his arms like a girl!" The way she said it it was obvious that it was a compliment for him.

Kathy

One little note for all dance.net members in USA: Staatsballett Berlin plans to come to USA in summer 2007. Until now there´s nothing specific.

Actually I agree with jaxdok, although I wouldn’t have put it in exactly those terms
Ballet goers seem to be divided into those who absolutely love him and those who hate his dancing style!

It's Vladimir Malakhov not Malakhova? D'oh.

He does have a feminine dance style, not nearly as masculine as Baryshnikov, but he's still one of my favorites =)

Let me add the names of the dancers on the photos:

1) Ein Lindentraum, Nicole Siepert (retired), Nadja Saidakova, photo by Gert Weigelt
2 and 3) two photos of Nadja Saidakova in Lindentraum, photo by Gert Weigelt
4) Vladimir Malakhov & Viara Natcheva after Lindentraum, photo by me
5) Polina Semionova and Ronald Savkovic in Ballet Imperial
6) Elodie Puna & Michael Banzhaf in Serenade
7) Gaela Pujol (pink), Polina Semionova & Ronald Savkovic with Corps de Ballet in Ballet Imperial
8) Corps de Ballet in Serenade
9) Corinne Verdeil & Marcin Krajewski in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux
10) Artem Shpilevsky in Apollo
11) Polina Semionoav & Friedemann Vogel in Sleeping Beauty Pas de Deux
12 and 13) Lucia Lacarra & Cyrill Pierre in Light Rain
14) Uliana Lopatkina in Dying Swan
15) Friedemann Vogel in Apollo
16, 17 and 18) Vladimir Malakhov in Caught

they are always sooo beautiful!!!...really wish I could see them live though......
right now it's impossible cause they don't really tour here......
that time's gonna come when it does.....

yes i agree with whats being said about malakhov...but i think perhaps a better way to put it is that he has the fabulous physique and strength of a male dancer, yet at the same time he has THE most wonderful line throughout his entire body and the ability to move with the grace of a butterfly! He can be doing the same power jumps as other male dancers, and yet look so completely different. He is like a ballerina in that you dont see the effort behind the movement. I find with alot of male dancers (and this is not a bad thing) that you can literally see the strength rippling through their body when they jump and turn. Malakhov, on the other hand, is weightless, he moves like a cat. I guess thats why he is so amazing...because he has the best of both worlds! fabulous post guys!
XxX

Was it foolish to hope, just for one second, that they'd come to this small provincial island of mine?

*shrugs* I guess so.

I'm SO jealous... I'm going to Spain in winter, to bad they won't be there

I think Tippitoes has explained very well the big difference between Malakhov and the other male dancers and that is indeed what makes him so special. The only thing I don’t agree with is this idea that there is a world of female ballet and a world of male ballet. Ballet is one art only – it’s ballet, stop. And in ballet effort is not supposed to be seen. Both female and male dancers train a lot so that their effort can’t be seen while dancing. Ballerinas don’t do the jumps that male dancers do simply because they can’t. But in every grand jeté or Kitri jump they train so that effort cannot be seen. The principles are the same both for men and women. So it is clear to me that when in a male dancer “you can literally see the strength rippling through their body when they jump and turn” (as Tippitoes says), to me that is indeed a bad thing and it is against ballet principles, in other words: it is bad ballet. Most male ballet dancers put so much effort in jumping very high that they simply can’t hide the effort. That is what makes Malakhov different from any other male dancer I know: he CAN indeed hide TOTALLY the effort he makes to jump, and he jumps very very high. He doesn’t use his arms to rise in the air and you can’t hear his feet touching the floor when he lands (something not possible for female dancers, because the point shoes are always noisy on the landing). That has everything to do with his conception of ballet and his willing to work as much as it takes to make it be “ballet”, pure ballet, not a show of male strength.

In the book “Vladimir Malakhov, dancer of the century” he was asked: “Where do you get this energy from, this will?”. He answered:

It’s in me. But it’s also work and, yes, will. Sometimes I just about kill myself in the rehearsal, exhaust myself. I don’t take a break. Imagine a racehorse. Shortly before the finish it can’t go any further. But it has to overcome this barrier. It has to stick it out. And that’s the way it is when I sometimes overexert myself to that extent. Then I have to outdo myself even more. After that it’s easier. On stage nobody should notice how hard it is. A lot of people say: You make such difficult things so easily. How do you manage to do it? That’s only because I work many, many hours in the ballet studio, killing myself, exhausting myself. And that makes it possible for me to make it look so easy on stage.

Next question: “That means for you there’s nothing other than work?” His answer:

Yes. Work comes first. And then everything else.

.

This is what makes Vladimir Malakhov the best male dancer ever, in my opinion. And because he is a man and has good muscles, he can do everything that a female dancer can, and much more! And that’s a delight to watch, that's ballet at its best!

I love both of these dancers! And I love all the pictures too! Thanks!