"Diana Vishneva. Beauty in Motion"
"Diana Vishneva. Beauty in Motion" (2008) was the first solo program staged personally for Diana Vishneva by the best foreign and Russian choreographers. The program included "Pierrot Lunaire" by Alexei Ratmansky, based on the song cycle of the same name by Arnold Schoenberg. Moses Pendleton choreographed "F.L.O.W." (For Love of Women), composed of three parts: "Swans Dream," "Glass Awakening," and "Water Flower," based on musical pieces by contemporary vocal bands and ethnic music. Dwight Rodin staged "Turns of Love," in which one of Diana's partners was Desmond Richardson, a unique dancer well-versed in various dancing techniques. The project was initiated and promoted by Sergey Danilyan, the president of Ardani Artists.
It was hailed as unique by ballet critics. The program won the Golden Mask national theater award (2009) in three categories: Best Ballet Production, Best Female Ballet Role, and Critics' Choice Award.
World premiere on the Mariinsky Theater stage, October 22 & 23 and November 12, 2011
Tours of the project were arranged in November 2011 in Moscow and in March 2012 in New York
"Diana Vishneva. Dialogues" (2011) was the second original international project developed for Diana personally. This was a joint production of the Diana Vishneva Foundation and the Mariinsky Theater, supported by the US-based Ardani Artists. The project won two Golden Mask national theater awards: Best Ballet Production and Best Female Role.
The project included "Labyrinth," "Dialogue," and "Subject to Change," ballet productions staged by four choreographers of different generations. Their styles represent different choreographic trends developed over the past 70 years. This is actually the key to the message hidden in the project name: it is about dialogues between different generations of choreographers, dialogues between genres, dialogues with time, and, eventually, dialogues of a ballet dancer.
The program opens with Martha Graham's "Labyrinth" (1947), set to music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Graham is a true legend of contemporary choreography, one of the founders of modern dance who contributed greatly to the culture and development of dance in the 20th century. Diana Vishneva was the first Russian classical ballet dancer to perform Martha Graham's choreography. It was also the Russian audience's first opportunity to see the great Graham's choreography in person because neither the choreographer nor her ballet company had ever visited Russia.
"Dialogue" (2011) is a one-act ballet directed by John Neumeier. The music, "Variations on a Theme of Chopin," was written by Federico Mompou. This is a dramatic love story full of quarrels and reconciliations staged by the choreographer especially for Diana Vishneva. The name of this performance was taken as the title of her program.
"Subject to Change" (2003) was choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, and it was performed to Franz Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" (second movement: Andante con moto) arranged for chamber orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The famous Lightfoot-Leon duet of choreographers also debuted for the Russian audience.
Between 2002 and 2020, Paul Lightfoot from Great Britain and Sol Leon from Spain were the resident choreographers of the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), one of the leading theaters for modern choreography. (Paul Lightfoot served as its artistic director from 2011-2020.) Lightfoot-Leon, the successors of the great Jiří Kylián who was the head of NDT for many years, staged several dozen performances for this theater. One of these productions was "Subject to Change," which the choreographers selected for Diana Vishneva. Her partners were Andrei Merkuriev, a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, and ballet artists of the Mariinsky Theater. This was the first time in the history of NDT that Russian classical artists performed a piece of choreography from its repertoire.
World premiere on November 6, 2013, at the famous Segerstrom Center for the Arts
European premiere on December 18, 2013, at the historic Garnier Opera House in Monte Carlo
Russian premiere on March 27, 2014, at the Bolshoi Theater of Russia and on April 7, 2014, at the Mariinsky Theater
On the Edge is the second joint project of the Foundation and the Ardani Artists artist management company. The program of this performance includes two one-act ballets: "Switch" and "Woman in a Room." The project won the Golden Mask national theater award in the Best Female Role category.
Switch was staged especially for Diana Vishneva by Jean-Christophe Maillot, a famous choreographer and the director of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo (Monaco). According to the dancer, this ballet is "a story about a woman, her alter ego and her relationships with men." Diana's partners in "Switch" are Bernice Coppieters and Gaëtan Morlotti, the stars of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. The production is based on music by the famous American composer Danny Elfman, who wrote the musical hits to almost all of Tim Burton's movies and animated films, the "Desperate Housewives" TV series, the movies "Mission Impossible," "Men in Black," "Wanted," and many others.
Woman in a Room is a forty-minute solo performance staged for Diana Vishneva by Carolyn Carlson, a famous American dancer and choreographer who currently heads the National Choreographic Center Roubaix Nord-Pas-de-Calais and the Atelier de Paris center (France). The production tells about the life journey of a woman with all its joys and sorrows. This solo ballet is staged to the music of Giovanni Sollima, a famous Italian cellist and minimalist composer. It was inspired by the artistic heritage of the Tarkovsky family. During the performance the viewers hear Diana Vishneva's voice reading the poem "Eurydice" by Arseny Tarkovsky, and there are references to "The Mirror" by Andrey Tarkovsky.
"World of Diana Vishneva" festival in Tokyo, August 2013
The "World of Diana Vishneva" international festival in Tokyo gathered world-famous ballet stars. The four gala evenings of the festival featured appearances of Diana in "Carmen Suite," "Subject to Change," and other performances from her repertoire.