Lithuanian choreography and thearical culture in the first half of the 20th century

Pirmieji Lietuvoje statyti baleto spektakliai yra susiję su pasaulinės choreografijos veikalų adaptacijomis, tačiau nuo pat 1925-ųjų - pirmųjų baleto gyvavimo metų - mėginta kurti savitą lietuvišką choreografiją. Šiame straipsnyje lietuviška choreografija vadinami Lietuvoje susiformavusių ir kūrusių menininkų arba pagal lietuvišką muziką sukurti sceniniai veikalai. Šio straipsnio tikslas - apžvelgti, išanalizuoti ir apibendrinti negausią XX a. I pusėje Lietuvoje sukurtą originalią choreografiją.The first ballet performances staged in Lithuania were for the most part adaptations of foreign choreography works, but already starting with 1925 - the firs year of ballet existence - there were attempts to create a specific Lithuanian choreography. In this article, Lithuanian choreography means pieces designed by the artists that developed and worked in Lithuania or those based on Lithuanian music. The present article aims to review, analyse and summarize the sparse original choreography created in Lithuania in the first half of the 20th century. The firs major attempt in this area was Pavelas Petrovas' choreography for Lietuviškoji rapsodija (the Lithuanian Rhapsody) by Jurgis Karnavičius. In the period between 1925 and 1940 the most prolific and significant choreographer was Bronius Kelbauskas. He choreographed one act ballets Vienos džiaugsmas (The Viennese Jey), Baltosios rožės (The White Roses), and Jūrininkai (The Semane, 13 March 1937), as well as the complex and dramatic Boris Asafyev's performances The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (27 January 1938) and The Prisoner of the Caucasus (11 May 1939). The ballets composed by Kelbauskas mark the move of Lithuanian ballet and the choreographer himself toward Soviet Russian ballet, with and attempt to place emphasis on the dramatic and theatrical features of ballet and, in terms of choreography, to melt the elements of classical ballet, Russian "ballet-drama" of the 1930s and Lithuanian choreography simultaneously employing a number of acrobatic elements. This feature associates Kalbauskas' works of the 1930s with Nikolay Zverev's works from his Lithuanian period. Most of the choreographic features that formed within this period are characteristic of Kelbauskas' later work