Jõhvi Ballet Festival

Jõhvi Ballet Festival is an annual festival held since 2008 at Jõhvi Concert House to promote ballet-related education in Estonia, to popularise world-class dance art in Ida-Viru County and to introduce the Estonian-born dancers who have met with acclaim at various ballet theatres across Europe.

During the four years of the festival’s history, Jõhvi Concert House has invited ballet companies from Estonia, Europe as well as Russia to Ida-Viru County. In 2008, Jõhvi Concert House had the honour to show Giselle with Anastassia Volotchkova and Yevgeni Ivanchenko (St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre) in the leading roles. The performance took place in partnership with St Petersburg Governor Orchestra. The first ballet festival included “Ballet Gala of White Nights” where the audience could see St Petersburg State Academic Ballet troupe with soloists from theatres of St Petersburg and Moscow.

In 2009, we were pleased to welcome Age Oks and Toomas Edur from the English National Ballet, the most famous Estonian ballet duo who gave their last joint performance in Estonia before retiring. Together with the troupe of St Petersburg Academic Theatre and St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, we showed Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty starring also Yevgeni Ivantchenko and Irina Golub (St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre). Also, we had the traditional ballet gala with Mare Tommingas from Vanemuine Theatre as the artistic director.

The programme of the third ballet festival included Leo Delibes’ Coppelia starring Eve Andre, Sergei Upkin, Vitali Nikolajev, Marika Muiste and Nanae Maruyama from the Estonian National Opera. The Latvian National Opera delighted us with Adolphe Adam’s Corsaire. On the third day, the audience was treated to a big ballet gala featuring Eve Mutso-Oja (Scottish National Theatre), for whom it was the first time after many years to perform in Estonia, with Erik Cavallari, also Vladimir Arhangelski and Aleszja Popova (Hungarian National Ballet) as well as Adela Pollertova and Aleksander Katsapov (Czech National Ballet), and Irina Perren and Marat Šemjunov (St Petersburg Mikhailovski Theatre). The ballet gala was led by Age Oks from the Estonian National Ballet as the artistic director. 
 

2011 was a special year for Jõhvi Ballet Festival since the festival was part of the Tallinn, European Capital of Culture for 2011 programme. The highlight of the festival was the ballet troupe from the Czech National Ballet who performed the modern ballet “Solo for three”, produced by the creative director Petr Zuska and starring Michal Štipa and Tereza Podarilova. For the first time, Jõhvi Ballet Festival involved other towns: Rakvere and Tallinn. The Scandinavian ballet gala featured prima ballerina Kaie Kõrb, celebrating her 50th birthday, who debuted Blue Ballerina by Jorma Uotinen. The artistic director of the Scandinavian ballet gala was Juhani Teräsvuori.     
 

The cast of this gala included a unique line-up of foreign dancers: Jan-Erik Wikström and Marie Lindquist, Semjon Tchudin, Maria Semenyachenko, Petia Ilieva, Tero Saarinen, Anu Viheriäranta and Tamas Nagy, Yoel Carreno and Yolanda Correa. Estonian ballet was represented by Nashua Mironova and Ilja Mironov from Vanemuine Theatre and Sergei Upkin, Eve Andre and Olga Malinovskaja from the Estonian National Ballet. 
 

The participants at Jõhvi Ballet festival include young dancers from a variety of Estonian ballet schools and studios, who get to show their skills. The main stage of Jõhvi Concert House has welcomed pupils from the following ballet schools: Ida Dance School, Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio, dance school Luikede Lend, ballet studio Etüüd, Kersti Adamson’s ballet studio from Pärnu, Vanemuine Dance and Ballet School, Dance School of the Estonian Dance Agency, Dance Theatre of Jõhvi Culture and Hobby Centre, dance groups Rütm and Radost from Kohtla-Järve, private dance school Noor Ballett, dance group Kullerkupp from Narva-Jõesuu, Kemi Ballet School from Finland and Tallinn Ballet School.
 

In March 2012, everybody is welcome to the fifth birthday of Jõhvi Ballet Festival featuring soloists from St Petersburg.

See you at the next festival!