Great news: Alexandr Trusch is dancing in a premiere in Hamburg! Not with the Hamburg Ballet—the former Principal Dancer famously resigned from that company following a dispute with short-lived artistic director Demis Volpi—but rather with the Hamburg Chamber Ballet. The latter was founded in 2022 by Trusch’s fellow company member Edvin Revazov, originally to create performance opportunities for Ukrainian dancers who had fled Russia’s war of aggression. By now, it has also become a vehicle for Revazov’s own ambitions as a director. At the Ernst Deutsch Theater, the six-member ensemble is presenting Waiting for Godot (after Samuel Beckett), subtitled “In the Small Moments We Live." It features star guest Trusch as Vladimir, and Revazov (who is responsible for the choreography as well as the set and costume design) as Estragon. From a dance perspective, it's not very spectacular.
Reviews
Hamburg
Edvin Revazov
Waiting for Godot
Trusch rarely gets to showcase his impressive physique here; instead, there are clownish solos, a few pretty turns, but above all, sensitive duets with Revazov that offer a hint as to what this evening is really about: Vladimir and Estragon are not bound to each other in a love-hate relationship like in Beckett's novel, but they genuinely like each other, presenting a counter-model to the master-servant relationship between Pozzo (Vladyslav Bondar) and Lucky (Valerii Liubenko)—a relationship That inevitably fails. Waiting for Godot is more dance-theater than ballet—dance-theater that derives its appeal primarily from reflecting the real-life friendship between Trusch and Revazov. For the women of the Hamburg Kammerballett, by contrast, the evening offers hardly anything: they get to mince decoratively across the stage a few times as "thoughts," providing an abstract accompaniment to the action. But that’s just how it is with a proper male friendship—women have no say in the matter.