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Arts & Communication

ARTICLE
Macedonian ballet (1949 – 2024), decoding of

diverse choreographic “letters”

Sonja Zdravkova Djeparoska*
Department of Ballet Pedagogy, Faculty of Music, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje,
Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract
This article attempts to determine the relevant processes related to ballet, positioned
in a concrete geographic space–the Republic of Macedonia. The time frame starts with
the year of the founding of the professional ballet ensemble within the Macedonian
National Theatre (MNT) 1949 and ends with the year 2024. An additional reason for
such a theoretical review is the celebration of the 75 anniversary of the Macedonian
th
ballet. Due to the volume of material, the author decided to detect general styles, that
is, general “chapters” or “letters” (as will be defined in the article), with their specific
tendencies. From an analysis of the entire repertoire, performances can be classified
into three general groups. The first is classical ballet with a fixed choreography (in
Macedonia’s case, versions currently performed in Russia, that is, countries of the
former Soviet Union). The second group is performances classified as contemporary
regarding theme and music, but most importantly dance style. The third group is
the works where there is a symbiosis between classical ballet and folk dance, which
are referred to as national ballets. This group carries the most important and most
*Corresponding author: distinctive national features. Each of the aforementioned groups is in close interaction
Sonja Zdravkova Djeparoska with cultural politics, that is, current societal trends, which will be further elaborated.
(z.djeparoska@gmail.com)
Citation: Djeparoska SZ.
Macedonian ballet (1949 – 2024), Keywords: Macedonia; Macedonian national theatre; Ballet; Contemporary dance;
decoding of diverse choreographic Folklore; Repertory; Dance style; National ballets
“letters”. Arts & Communication.
2024;2(2):2730.
doi: 10.36922/ac.2730
Received: January 13, 2024 1. Introduction
Accepted: March 12, 2024 In the evening of January 27, a group of young enthusiasts aged 14 and 15 performed
Published Online: May 17, 2024 the play Walpurgis night in the Macedonian National Theatre. “That night on the stage
of MNT the art of ballet appeared in Macedonia” 1(p.5) . Since then, Macedonian ballet
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
1
This is an Open-Access article has created its history for 75 years in continuity . To avoid any confusion, the only
distributed under the terms of the professional ballet institution that is the focus of this research has changed its name a
Creative Commons Attribution- few times: Macedonian National Theatre (1945 – 2004), Macedonian Opera and Ballet
Noncommercial License, permitting
all non-commercial use, distribution, (MOB) (2004 – 2018), and National Opera and Ballet (from 2018).
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited. 1 The search for stage dance forms in the years before World War 2 is almost fruitless. The sole
data is the short existence of “dance chorus,” which complemented operas and operettas in
Publisher’s Note: AccScience the National Theatre in Skopje. However, no ballet performance is recorded, except for guest
Publishing remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in performances by foreign artists. Because of that, we determine 1949 as the starting point of
published maps and institutional this research. More details for the theatre at the beginning of the 20th century can be found
affiliations. in the book The Theatre on Macedonian Soil, XX Century, editor J. Lužina. 32

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2024) 1 doi: 10.36922/ac.2730