Мaya Plisetskaya Award 2015

Gil Roman Receives Maya Plisetskaya Award 2015

The International Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin Foundation presents the Maya Plisetskaya Award to Gil Roman. The Maya Plisetskaya Award was founded in 2005 to support “young, talented artists, performers, composers, dancers and authors in the fields of ballet and music” and “to internationally promote the art of ballet dance and composition”.

Maya Plisetskaya about the Award:

“I have had the pleasure to work with the great Maurice Béjart 5 times. Four of the five ballets he choreographed “for me”. Always at his side you could see - young, like-minded-Gil Roman. Béjart passed on to Gil Roman the continuation of his lifework "The Ballet of the XX Century". Gil Roman has acted in line with the will and instructions of Béjart perfectly well. The Ballet of the XX Century lives and flourishes. This is thanks to Gil Roman who is a brilliant, talented choreographer, excellent manager and a very attentive keeper of Béjart's inspired lifework. I would like to highlight and honour the artistic achievements of Gil Roman with this Award. Gil Roman is an important figure in the international ballet scene today.”

 

Roman says about the grant of the Award: “I feel very honoured and I am really touched to receive this Award. My appreciation and gratitude to the International Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin Foundation.” Gil Roman studied with Marika Besobrasova, Rosella Hightower and Jose Ferran. Since 1979 he has been working in the dance company of Maurice Béjart. To this day he has danced and interpreted all major ballets of Béjart. Since 1990 Roman has worked as a choreographer as well. He staged the opening ceremony of the 14th Gymnaestrada in Lausanne. Recently he has staged Danses pour Tony, Kyôdai and Tombées de la dernière pluie which will be performed in May 2015 at the Opéra de Lausanne. In 2005 he received the Italy's most prestigious ballet award, Danza&Danza Award, as the best dancer, in 2006 the Nijinsky Award of the Monaco Dance Forum and in 2011 Il Premio internazionale alla carriera, Tenore Giuseppe Di Stefano. In 2014 he was awarded the Prix du Rayonnement of the Canton of Vaud and a special prize of the Arts Festival Shanghai for the new choreography of the Béjart ballet for Beethoven's 9th Symphony. In 2007 he became the successor to Béjart and artistic director of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne.

The International Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin foundation was jointly founded in 2000 by the world famous former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Maya Plisetskaya, and her husband, the internationally renowned composer Rodion Shchedrin. The primary goal of the Foundation is to preserve the lifework of Rodion Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya and to support the art of ballet and composition throughout the world. 

The award ceremony takes place on 15May 2015 at 7:30 p.m. during the extra concert at the KKL Lucerne dedicated to Maya Plisetskaya who should celebrate her 90th birthday on the 20th November 2015. Maya Plisetskaya died only two weeks before the award ceremony. Peter Hanser-Strecker, another chairman of the Foundation took over the award ceremony for Maya Plisetskaya. The concert of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra LSO under the direction of James Gaffigan is part of the Festival Zaubersee – Days of Russian Music Lucerne on the initiative of LSO.