Khisamov D.N., Bogdanova P.B., Melovatskaya A.E. Deconstruction of Classical Ballet Structure in Vyacheslav Samodurov’s Ballet “The King’s Command”

This article examines Vyacheslav Samodurov’s ballet “The King’s Command” (2018) through the lens of structural transformation. It applies a methodology of binary analysis of closed and open structures to explore the process of deconstruction of classical ballet heritage in contemporary choreography. Specifically, the paper traces how the hierarchical, logocentric structure of the Imperial Ballet is transformed into a postmodern rhizome. The analysis is conducted on three levels. At the compositional level, a linear plot gives way to collage, and the performance disintegrates into a network of autonomous episodes and historical allusions. At the dramatic level, cause-and-effect relationships and psychological motivation are discarded, replaced by the “logic of dance”, which demonstrates the collapse of the “supreme truth” of classical narrative. At the choreographic level, strict academic vocabulary is decanonized, giving way to plastic eclecticism, and the centers of gravity shift. The authors conclude that V. Samodurov, in “The King’s Command”, utilizes the principles of the classical structure of M. Petipa’s ballets but transforms them into a non-classical, postmodern one. Tradition, however, is not broken, but rather developed within the logic of cyclical transformations. The proposed binary analysis methodology is practically applicable, allowing art historians and ballet practitioners to grasp the underlying mechanisms of artistic language transformation in the postmodern era.