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Denes Erdos/AP
GYOR, Hungary — Reka Zalai clocked out for lunch on Thursday within the high quality assurance division of an Audi vehicle manufacturing unit in Hungary.
However as an alternative of heading to her bizarre spot within the manufacturing unit’s lunch room, she walked to a close-by convention corridor close to the manufacturing line to observe a efficiency of knowledgeable up to date ballet troupe.
The Ballet Firm of Gyor, a metropolis in northwest Hungary that’s house to the sprawling automotive and motor plant, started rehearsing on the manufacturing unit in January after being pressured to shutter their rehearsal corridor in response to hovering power costs.
With nowhere to rehearse and scheduled performances approaching, the troupe approached the Audi manufacturing unit, a longtime sponsor, which supplied to host the dancers in a heated room on the plant for a number of weeks in the course of the coldest winter months.
In a transformed convention room on Thursday, the dancers honed their pliés and pirouettes, whereas row upon row of latest automobiles could possibly be seen in a distant lot via the ceiling-high home windows, and employees handed by exterior wearing vibrant purple coveralls.
Laszlo Velekei, the ballet firm’s director, stated that having the ability to keep the continuity of rehearsals after the dancers left their theater was important to preserving them in high type.
“Crucial factor in a dancer’s life is that they can not cease,” Velekei stated. “There’s a saying that we regularly repeat to 1 one other: should you miss someday (of rehearsal), it is no downside. If you happen to miss two days, then the dancer begins to really feel it. If you happen to miss three days, then the viewers notices, too.”
The Gyor Ballet’s rehearsal corridor is one among dozens of Hungarian cultural establishments which have briefly shut down for the winter season in response to exponentially rising power costs. Heating payments for some have risen tenfold since final winter, whereas excessive inflation and a weakening foreign money have compounded a dire financial outlook.
Denes Erdos/AP
Hungary’s authorities in July declared an “power emergency” in response to rising costs and provide disruptions linked to Russia’s warfare in Ukraine. It additionally made cuts to a well-liked utility subsidy program that since 2014 had stored the payments of Hungarians among the many lowest within the 27-member European Union.
Reka Jakab, a press spokesperson for Audi, stated the ballet firm wished to present one thing again for the plant’s 12,000 employees in return for the rehearsal house.
“They supplied to present one open efficiency for them every week, they usually had been additionally open to giving entry to the rehearsals at any time when the employees have free time,” she stated.
She stated many employees had by no means seen a ballet earlier than, however the responses have been very optimistic.
“A number of individuals stated that they might positively attend the following efficiency within the theater.”
Zoltan Jekli, a dancer with the Gyor ballet, stated that the troupe had overcome among the limitations of the brand new house by outfitting the ground with a layer of soppy PVC foam and bringing their very own gear to make it really feel like house.
“Each time I come right here, it fills me with good emotions and recollections and I feel everybody (within the troupe) feels the identical,” he stated. “We do not have the sense that we’re coming right into a automotive manufacturing unit. We prefer to be right here.”
Zalai, 28, stated she’s “all the time been amazed by ballet,” however that seeing it up shut and getting an opportunity to interrupt from her each day routine had been a very particular expertise.
“I used to be actually recharged by this half-hour. Time stopped for me,” she stated.
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