The Principal dancer at the Stuttgart Ballet deals with his obsession for excellence every day. Yet he loves feeling the adrenaline before a performance and, in spite of wishing to have more time for himself, he has always fun on stage. Here he explains everything to Alessandro Bizzotto
“I have never seen anyone dancing Basilio in ‘Don Quijote’ like Adhonay”.
I am sitting on a large sofa in Tamas Dietrich’s office at the Stuttgart Opera House. I have asked no question about Adhonay Soares da Silva, yet the director of the Stuttgart Ballet naturally mentions him in the conversation. He promoted Adhonay to Principal dancer himself last season.
In spite of the fact of being very young, Soares da Silva has already danced several milestones of the classical repertoire: Basilio, of course, and prince Siegfried in “Swan Lake”, Colas in “La Fille mal gardée” and Solor in The Kingdom of the Shades from “La Bayadère”.
When I meet Adhonay on a rainy afternoon, a few hours before an evening performance of MacMillan’s “Mayerling” and before my conversation with Tamas Dietrich, he looks quite shy at the outset, extremely polite, and he makes me think he doesn’t like interviews in a way. Yet, after ten or fifteen minutes, he let out a laugh and somehow things change – I find him almost transparent as he honestly talks about himself.
Born in Brasil, he started studying ballet at the Centro Cultural Gustav Ritter in Goiânia before joining the Centro de Educação Profissional em Artes Basileu França.
What brought you to Stuttgart from Brazil?
Brazilian government has never supported culture and arts the way governments do here in Europe. When I was thirteen Tadeusz Matacz, the director of the John Cranko School, who had seen me dancing during a competition in Brazil, offered me a scholarship here… but, you know, I was way too young, I didn’t want to leave. They waited for me two years, till I went to Lausanne to compete for the Prix: after winning the Prix de Lausanne I could choose between several schools to finish my training, but the John Cranko School was still waiting for me. I had the feeling they were all there for me, you see, after waiting so long! I had no doubts when I accepted to come to Stuttgart…
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