2025 BALLET INTERNATIONAL GALA - BIG VI Canberra Theatre

Iana Salenko and Marian Walter

Artistic Director: Joel Burke    –     Executive Director : Khalid Tarabay

Company Manager: Jennifer Burke - Marketing Manager: Jonathan Oakes

Canberra Theatre. August 2nd, 2025. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS


BIG Live premiered its 2025 Ballet International Gala tour before a capacity audience in the Canberra Theatre with a performance that was sold out a week before the company arrived in town.

Established four years ago by dancer, Joel Burke, and entertainment lawyer, Khalid Tarabay with an ambition to create stable, long-term employment for Australian performers without relying on government funding, BIG Live has already succeeded in building an impressive national audience for its productions.

Founded on the belief that ballet should be open and inclusive, BIG Live has challenged public perceptions of the art form by presenting commercially viable, audience-focused productions that are respectful of tradition but adapted to contemporary audiences.

Central to this aim is its annual Ballet International Gala which each year brings together some of the world’s most accomplished dancers featuring guest artists from leading ballet companies from around the world performing iconic solos and pas de deux.

Daniil Simkin performing "Le Corsaire"

 

This year’s guests include three celebrated principal dancers from the Berlin State Ballet, Daniil Simkin, Marian Walter and his wife, Iana Salenko who is also a guest principal with the Royal Ballet.   

Adamzhan Baktiyar is a principal dancer with Astana Opera Ballet, and from the Mariinsky Theatre are soloists, Makar Mikhalkin, Maria Khoreva and her younger sister, Sofya Khoreva.

Maria Khoreva and Sofya Khoreva

Originally from New Zealand, Alice McArthur trained in Stuttgart, danced with Paris Opera Ballet before joining the Australian Ballet. She is moving to the Vienna State Ballet in September this year.

The Gala lineup also includes principal dancers from BIG Live. Company co-founder, Joel Burke, the first dancer to represent Queensland Ballet Academy in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne; Ervin Zagidullin, a former principal with Ankara State Ballet; Brisbane born Abbey Hansen who trained with the Australian Ballet School before becoming a principal with BIG Live; and soloist, Huw Pritchard, another Queenslander who graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance and danced with Ballet Collective Aotearoa before joining BIG Live.

Ervin Zagidullin

The lineup for the gala also includes a rock band which featured in the opening and finale. With one other exception, all the other items were performed to recorded music.

An unfortunate lighting glitch as the curtain rose, marred the opening item, which was meant to be a romantic duet choreographed to Gershwin’s Summertime by Joel Burke and performed by himself and BIG Live principal, Abbey Hansen.

While the dancing was quite lovely, the mood was ruined by over-amplified live vocals and vocal phrasing at odds with the choreography.

Any flaws were quickly forgotten when Daniil Simkin and Alice McArthur took the stage with a bravura performance of the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux which drew the first of many cheers throughout the evening.

Iana Salenka performing "Thais"

Marian Walter and his wife, Iana Salenko, followed with an exquisite performance of the Thais Pas de Deux set to Massenet’s Meditation. Abbey Hansen returned to the stage, this time partnered by an ebullient Ervin Gagidullin for an exhilarating performance of the pas de deux from Diana & Acteon.

Marinsky theatre soloists Maria Khoreva and Makar Mikhalkin enchanted with their elegance and precision in a dreamy performance of the Talisman Pas de Deux which proved the perfect entre to a breathtakingly exquisite performance by Alice McArthur, this time partnered by Adamzhan Baktiyar, of the Act 2 pas de deux from Giselle.

Other pas de deux featured in the program were from Romeo & Juliet performed by Maria Khoreva & Makar Mikhalkin, and a sensational version of the famous pas de deux from Don Quixote performed with exactly the right amount of playful competitiveness by Iana Selanko and Adamzhan Baktiyar, that had the audience screaming with excitement.

Adamzhan Baktiyar

There was also a sneak peek from BIG Live’s forthcoming full length ballet Dracula, performed by Abbey Hansen and Huw Pritchard accompanied on keyboards by Tobi Clark. Dracula will tour widely later in 2025.

Outstanding among many highlights and superb dancing was a poignant mini-ballet Sola performed by Iana Salenko and Marian Walter set around a ballerina haunted by schizophrenia.

A solo version of the Russian Dance from Swan Lake was performed with elegance and fastidious attention to detail by Sofya Khoreva, as was the stunning solo by Daniil Simkin entitled Lohengrin in which the essence of the opera was distilled into a transfixing solo which demanded extraordinary virtuosity and presence.

The program ended with a unique speciality of the annual BIG Gala. A ballet mash-up in which the entire cast takes to the stage to participate in a semi-staged finale.

However, freed from the restriction of repertoire, the dancers began to improvise. Egged on by the band and the audience, they risked life and limb to challenge each other to invent ever more daring balletic moves. The thrilling, good-natured competition may have given their entrepreneurs palpitations but sent their already charged up audience home thrilled at having had the rare experience of witnessing world famous dancers at play.

Following this Canberra performance the BALLET INTERNATIONAL GALA is scheduled for Brisbane on August 6th and 7th, Sydney on August 14th, Melbourne August 16th, Cairns August 22nd and Auckland 29th.

Ballet International Finale

This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au