The two dancers Jonah Cook and Ksenia Ryzhkova are also a couple privately.
(Photo: Ksenia Orlova)
When the curtain rises again in the National Theater in mid-September, it will Bavarian State Ballet come up with new faces. For example with Yago Gonzaga, previously engaged in Perm, or Julian MacKay, most recently under contract in San Francisco and now strengthening the ranks of the first soloists. Because there are gaps that will hurt the audience: Ksenia Ryzhkova and Jonah Cook leave Munich for Moscow. The path does not lead them to the Bolshoi, but to the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater. In other words, where Munich’s new ballet director Laurent Hilaire worked until the beginning of the Ukraine war. His successor at the helm is a twenty-four-year-old newcomer named Maxim Sevagin. What made Ryzhkova and Cook take this daring step?
The change of the dream couple – both are around thirty, also privately married and have two small children – documents the turbulence into which the Ukraine war has plunged the ballet world. Ryzhkova was born in Moscow, Jonah Cook is a British citizen. Both careers were significantly pushed by Igor Zelensky, ex-director of the State Ballet, who had to vacate the executive chair in early summer due to close relationships with Vladimir Putin. For his two protégés, this was apparently a decisive reason to now flee themselves, although they told the SZ on request: “Going to Russia was not our original hope at all.” Still, they think Moscow is a good option, and not just career-wise. On the one hand, Ryzhkova’s family lives there, on the other hand, Brexit has made Germany and Great Britain – in other words: Jonah Cook and his parents – “felt further away than ever”. The dancer thinks that Moscow no longer makes a big difference.
From Lake Starnberg to Red Square
Cook also cites political motives – a first in the dance industry. He takes a critical look at the current polarization of society: “Cultural norms in the West are shifting. What was a reasonable conservative opinion ten years ago has become something unspeakable.” Superficially, freedom of expression is being fought for, but actually it’s all about “who has freedom of speech”. And something else disturbs the dancer, who in Munich interpreted the entire repertoire with captivating originality and often performed alongside Ryzhkova: “The level of aggression of many Europeans towards normal Russian citizens is amazing – it will take generations until all this is over.”
Some colleagues have warned the couple about everyday life in Moscow. Jonah Cook doesn’t dispute that: “The simple question of whether you’ve ever been there usually makes you realize that you’re making unqualified judgments.” He also sees the politicization of the State Opera as problematic in recent months: “Until then, the focus was on art,” meanwhile artists could become “chess pieces in someone else’s game” – pawns in political poker. Whether that is better in Moscow is of course an open question.
Jonah Cook is not parting lightly from Munich, from his friends and colleagues at the State Ballet. The couple – still living near Lake Starnberg – will miss Bavaria. The most important experience for both: “That we got to know each other here”. May Russia welcome you. And give it back at some point.