Ballet Estable de la Plata
Since Ballet Estable de la Plata named former dancers Gustavo Mollajoli and Lidia Segni co-artistic directors in March 2005, the dynamic duo’s aim has been unflinching. They intend to lift the company—based in La Plata, Argentina, about an hour south of Buenos Aires—to new heights and out of the shadow the more famous company at Teatro Colón.
The elegant Segni and avuncular Mollajoli have infused energy into a company that had been run by the same artistic director, Esmeralda Agogila, for more than 30 years. The company gave its first performance in 1938, and when its home theater burned to the ground in 1977, the troupe had to relocate to cramped quarters at an old movie house. La Plata moved into its new and modern digs in 1999. The Nuevo Teatro Argentino is a cavernous, square behemoth with a huge stage—a suitable home for the company’s revitalization under its new directors.
Mollajoli and Segni rose to the top of their profession in the late ‘70s and have zigzagged the world ever since teaching, touring and promoting dance. Retiring gracefully isn’t in their vocabulary.
“A lot of young people want to come to La Plata now; it’s where so many stars have gotten their start,” says Segni, a former dancer at La Plata who then became prima ballerina at the Colón in 1977, before directing Julio Bocca’s Ballet Argentino from 1989 to 1998.
Fourteen-year La Plata veteran Omar Saravia welcomes the changing of the guard. “They bring dynamism and can do much for us,” he says. “Both are open to new things and styles.” Saravia is one of the company’s 70 dancers, most of whom are Argentinean, but the roster also includes one Russian, one Brazilian and one Armenian.
Segni and Mollajoli held their first audition in late March—the first step in bringing new talent to the state-sponsored ballet company. Auditions for government-funded companies are rare in Argentina because ballet dancers previously signed lifetime contracts. In La Plata, new dancers now sign one-year contracts. By recruiting fresh dancers, the directors aim to increase the company’s vitality and popularity. Twenty dancers recently joined the ranks.
The repertoire for the 2005 season includes Paquita and excerpts from Giselle, Swan Lake and Don Quixote. In the future, the directors would like to incorporate modern interpretations of classical ballets.
“The public expects to see the great classics, so we will give them that, but we want to move ahead as well with new pieces and new choreographers,” says Mollajoli, who danced at the Colón, was artistic director at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is also a choreographer.
Although times have been tough for the arts in Argentina (the country is slowly recovering from economic turmoil, which wreaked havoc on its government and devalued the currency in 2001), the company never folded.
The directors believe that their hard-working group can outshine its competitors. Segni says, “I want this company to be ranked number one in the country.”
Charlotte Sector is a New York–based journalist.
