The ballet diptych Pulse of Life awaits the audience with the work of two choreographers of different styles and extraordinary talent – British David Dawson and Lithuanian Martynas Rimeikis.
David Dawson, resident choreographer of the Dutch National Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada, has an original style that has already inspired many young choreographers. According to LNOBT’s artistic director of ballet Jurgita Dronina, “when creating ballets, he is rooted in music. He is a true representative of the English ballet school, which is difficult to match in terms of musicality of movements, precision and, of course, complexity of technique. By expanding the usual possibilities of the classical ballet language, he opens the boundlessness of movements.”
This ballet by D. Dawson was staged in 2022 by the Bavarian State Ballet (Munich). The choreographer says: “I imagined the heart as a person, and how this heart could somehow show the effects or patina of all those emotions, dark and light, as colour and movement. I am trying to visualize this heart as dance, full of spirals and vortexes, with all those emotions onstage, and with each dancer creating a journey for their own heart, as immediate responses to the music of the emotions that are happening in the moment, or a collected string of emotions that could possibly show us in some way the story of our souls. This is a piece is about love itself. These Affairs of the Heart are an ode to love. It is a sonnet of love. It is joyful, it’s passionate, it’s fiery. It’s alive. It is a celebration of being.”
The second part of the ballet evening will feature the premiere of a new work, I like..., by the chief choreographer of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, M. Rimeikis, set to music by Vidmantas Bartulis.
"The characteristic of M. Rimeikis's work is a strong and deep dramatic line, which he is usually inspired by. A team of Lithuanian creators will work with him in this production, which is significant for the history of our national ballet and the identity of the company," – says J. Dronina.
Just as the composer V. Bartulis, in his cycle of works I like…, talks to his beloved composers, so in this ballet the choreographer seems to express his emotional reaction to this music. The performance becomes poetry, speaking of the past in the language of nostalgic memories.
Premiere: 20 November 2026
