“The Fairy-Tale Hermitage” An evening devoted to the Year of Ballet

On 18 December 2017, the Hermitage Theatre was the venue for an evening devoted to the forthcoming Year of Ballet and the results of the nationwide competition for the best New Year tree decoration organized by the State Hermitage and the company Ayra.

The awards ceremony for the competition winners took place in the Hermitage Theatre. Svetlana Adaksina, Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage, welcomed everyone and wished them a Happy New Year and Christmas. She thanked Ayra for creating New Year decorations for the museum and noted that it was an especial pleasure to see splendid young dancers on the stage of our wonderful theatre as the festive season approaches. Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Rector of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, expressed gratitude to the Hermitage for the opportunity to perform here, which is something very important for the Academy’s pupils.

Yury Berestov, the General Directory of Ayra, introduced the results of the competition for the best New Year tree decoration. He said that around 1,000 people from Russia and abroad had taken part and announced the names of the winners. First place went to Olga Murashova, a student of the Saint Petersburg State University of Technology and Design, for an unusual decoration in the form of a white swan, the composition and mood of which was suggested by the image of the outstanding choreographic miniature The Dying Swan. Second place was taken by Yulia Chaitsyna for a decoration inspired by Henri Matisse’s celebrated panel Dance in the Hermitage collection. The composite piece, made up of little figures that can be hung on a tree either separately or all together, was created using old-fashioned technology and coated in reflective paint that allows it to glow in the dark. Eleven-year-old Yekaterina Zhivilova, one of the youngest entrants, drew on motifs from Swan Lake. She was awarded third place for a decoration of a ballerina and a black swan made from dense foam rubber, feathers and mirrors. The winners hung their own decorations on one of the trees in the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre.