Dancers Blanca Li and Maria Alexandrova, principal dancer from Bolshoi Ballet
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 great 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 one of the world’s most versatile choreographers and spellbinding modern dancers, Blanca Li, 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.
Music Tao Gutierrez
Scenography Pierre Attrait
Video Charles Carcopino
Light design Caty Olive
Costumes Azzedine Alaïa, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Stella McCartney and Sophie Théallet
Hairdos and wigs John Nollet
Accessories Erik Halley
coproduction Blanca Li and Theatre des Champs-Elysées
video at Bolshoi by Charles Thompson
photo by Nico Bustos @Artlist
dresses by Sophie Théallet
“For much of the piece, Li and Alexandrova share the stage, one in white and the other in black, mirroring each other’s movements. They appear as shadow silhouettes, striking Egyptian-inspired poses; behind masks, leaning sensually on chairs; in Isadora Duncan-like flowing dresses. They share a beguiling androgynous quality. Alexandrova is a force of nature even by Moscow’s standards of bravura, a ballerina who takes charge on stage. It shows in a long solo where her rippling swan arms give way to imperious marching on pointe. Li, meanwhile, is angular and commanding in an oversized red skirt that is at once toga, flamenco prop and a throwback to Loie Fuller’s serpentine dance.” Laura Capell, Financial Time
