Review | Superstar Russian ballerina dazzles in Hong Kong Arts Festival performances
- Natalia Osipova’s dazzling dancing and demonstrations of astounding flexibility lit up her gruelling schedule of performances for the festival
- The fearless male guest dancers also impressed, though pacing was a problem throughout due to the pauses for Osipova’s frequent costume changes
If there was any doubt about Natalia Osipova’s superstar status, it will have been put to rest by the demand for tickets that led to two extra shows being added for both her programmes, “Force of Nature” and “Two Feet”, in this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival.
The Russian ballerina, for some years now a principal with the Royal Ballet in London, clearly possesses extraordinary energy, strength and stamina to take on two shows a night for two days running, twice in one week, with only one day off in between the programmes.
This was particularly remarkable when it came to “Two Feet”, a full-length solo piece in which the performer runs a physical and emotional gamut which would seem too exhausting to repeat half an hour later. It’s not for nothing that Osipova has been called “the sylph of steel”.
“Force of Nature” offers a selection of short pieces performed by Osipova together with four male guest dancers.
The programme and cast underwent a series of changes – so much so that the pieces featuring the last dancer to join, Jacopo Tissi (a former Bolshoi Ballet principal who returned to his home company at La Scala in Milan following the invasion of Ukraine), didn’t make it into the programme notes.
