Site-Specific Ballet

November 28, 2001

Modern dance companies have been performing in quirky places since the days of Judson. But ballet has its share of branching out of the theater, too. Last weekend, 20 dancers from Russia’s Yekaterinburg Ballet performed in a car factory—right alongside plant workers doing their jobs! A temporary stage was installed directly in the factory for the one-act ballet, H2O, performed as part of the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art. In addition to the unconventional location, the piece was full of crazy effects: The dancers started out covered in paint, which was washed off at the end of the piece when water dramatically rained down from the ceiling. Check out a clip of the performance on the The Telegraph’s site.