Estonian ballerina Anna Roberta: Performing in Spain felt like a rock concert

Last week, the Estonian National Ballet gave three guest performances of "Le Corsaire" in Seville, Spain. Lead ballerina Anna Roberta said the emotional and supportive Spanish audience made it feel like they were performing at a rock concert.
In Spanish city of Seville, January is the month to go to the theater, with 5,400 locals turning out at the Teatro de la Maestranza last week to get a taste of Estonian ballet.
The Estonian National Ballet's last visit to the same theater was back in 2015. According to artistic director Linnar Looris, the opportunity to return to Spain was due to several wonderful things coming together at once.
"It was a win to bring in a Spanish choreographer from Seville, who has done a really good version of this classical ballet and we also have a high level of dancing . Plus, the timing works well because we are at a good point in in the season when we can fit in an international guest role, so to speak," Looris told ERR culture show "OP."
The stage the performance took place on in Seville is several meters wider than the one in Tallinn's Estonia Theater.
"The dancers can feel freer, nobody has to dance beneath themselves. Our soloists Anna Roberta and Ketlin Oja are tall ballerinas, they don't have to drop down a step to fit in," Looris said.
"We do put on good shows at our home theater, but there's still a difference. If you have these regular stage dimensions, you are able to show what you can really do. That freedom, that soul, that art comes across much better. The same is true of the physical performance."
According to Anna Roberta, who performs the leading role of Medora "Le Corsaire," it was great to perform in Seville, but the bigger stage did take some getting used to.
"The hardest thing about this stage is that you have to run back and forth so much. The stage is so big and so wide that because we just used to running a few steps, now it takes us a while to run a few steps more to the same music," she said.
While Estonian audiences usually only show their appreciation at the end of a performance, in Spain, it is customary to scream and clap throughout in response to the action happening on stage.
"In Estonia for example, sometimes during children's performances, if children have been sitting for a long time and then finally they are allowed to clap and shout at the end, it's like a rock concert. Here it's like a rock concert all the time," Roberta laughed.
Ketlin Oja, who also plays a leading role, was likewise full of praise for both the large stage and warm audiences in Spain. "Dancing on a big stage is something else, it's like a breath of fresh air - the steps are bigger, the jumps are higher and the pirouettes are faster. It was a great feeling to be on stage," Oja said.
The orchestra was conducted by Kaspar Mänd, who usually conducts the Estonian National Opera. "The acoustics here are really great. You can't hear it all the time in the orchestra, but when the song is over, you can hear the reverberation. It's extremely powerful," Mänd said.
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Editor: Karmen Rebane, Michael Cole
Source: "OP," interviewer Ave Lutter