Macedonian ballet (1949 – 2024), decoding of diverse choreographic “letters”

Abstract

This article attempts to determine the relevant processes related to ballet, positioned in a concrete geographic space–the Republic of Macedonia. The time frame starts with the year of the founding of the professional ballet ensemble within the Macedonian National Theatre (MNT) 1949 and ends with the year 2024. An additional reason for such a theoretical review is the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Macedonian ballet. Due to the volume of material, the author decided to detect general styles, that is, general “chapters” or “letters” (as will be defined in the article), with their specific tendencies. From an analysis of the entire repertoire, performances can be classified into three general groups. The first is classical ballet with a fixed choreography (in Macedonia’s case, versions currently performed in Russia, that is, countries of the former Soviet Union). The second group is performances classified as contemporary regarding theme and music, but most importantly dance style. The third group is the works where there is a symbiosis between classical ballet and folk dance, which are referred to as national ballets. This group carries the most important and most distinctive national features. Each of the aforementioned groups is in close interaction with cultural politics, that is, current societal trends, which will be further elaborated.