Blanca Li and María Alexandrova: Goddesses & Demonesses

Spanish contemporary dancer and choreographer Blanca Li invites Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Maria Alexandrova for a new visually stunning performance.

Goddesses & Demonesses is set in a mythological world inhabited by two radically different, but equally renowned, female dancers, Blanca Li and Maria Alexandrova.

Like the Greek gods of Antiquity, these two internationally celebrated dance goddesses perform with superhuman strength, continually transforming themselves into their opposites until good and evil, kindness and cruelty are as difficult to separate as Siamese twins. Evoking the same paradoxes existing in life on earth, the goddesses of dance battle each other with fierce fury, empower each other with their joy and love, trick each other with great glee, eye each other with equal doses of trust and suspicion while creating chaos and harmony as they winkingly toy with human destiny.

To experience Blanca Li, one of the world’s most versatile choreographers and spellbinding modern dancers, perform with the Bolshoi Ballet’s most adventurous étoile is to enter a world of the unexpected in which two independent forces of nature unite in an always surprising, but singular vision.

Goddesses & Demonesses is first about the opposition of two singular dancers. The Spanish Blanca Li, armed with her abrupt charm, burns the stage with her only presence. Her gestures are inspired by contemporary dance as well as flamenco. She sublimates the space draped in her carmine red dress as in a toreador cape. Far from the archetype of the ethereal ballet dancer, Maria Alexandrova shows the same charisma on stage. The Russian étoile has a classical technique of excellence. The opening in Silhouette, where she arches her body on pointe, is particularly beautiful. The modern scenography, introducing video smartly supports the uncluttered style of the decors.

—The Huffington Post