A ballet dancer warms up earlier than an open rehearsal on the Audi vehicle manufacturing facility in Gyor, Hungary, on Thursday. The Ballet Firm of Gyor is rehearsing on the manufacturing facility after being pressured to shutter its rehearsal corridor in response to hovering power costs.

Denes Erdos/AP

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A ballet dancer warms up earlier than an open rehearsal on the Audi vehicle manufacturing facility in Gyor, Hungary, on Thursday. The Ballet Firm of Gyor is rehearsing on the manufacturing facility after being pressured to shutter its rehearsal corridor in response to hovering power costs.

Denes Erdos/AP

GYOR, Hungary — Reka Zalai clocked out for lunch on Thursday within the high quality assurance division of an Audi vehicle manufacturing facility in Hungary.

However as an alternative of heading to her bizarre spot within the manufacturing facility’s lunch room, she walked to a close-by convention corridor close to the manufacturing line to observe a efficiency of knowledgeable modern ballet troupe.

The Ballet Firm of Gyor, a metropolis in northwest Hungary that’s dwelling to the sprawling automobile and motor plant, started rehearsing on the manufacturing facility 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 facility, a longtime sponsor, which provided to host the dancers in a heated room on the plant for just a few weeks through the coldest winter months.

In a transformed convention room on Thursday, the dancers honed their pliés and pirouettes, whereas row upon row of recent automobiles could possibly be seen in a distant lot via the ceiling-high home windows, and staff handed by outdoors wearing brilliant pink coveralls.

Laszlo Velekei, the ballet firm’s director, mentioned that with the ability to preserve the continuity of rehearsals after the dancers left their theater was important to retaining them in prime type.

“An important factor in a dancer’s life is that they can not cease,” Velekei mentioned. “There’s a saying that we frequently repeat to 1 one other: in the event you miss in the future (of rehearsal), it is no drawback. When you miss two days, then the dancer begins to really feel it. When you miss three days, then the viewers notices, too.”

The Gyor Ballet’s rehearsal corridor is certainly one of 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 forex have compounded a dire financial outlook.

Audi staff applaud ballet dancers throughout an open rehearsal on the manufacturing facility on Thursday.

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Audi staff applaud ballet dancers throughout an open rehearsal on the manufacturing facility on Thursday.

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 preferred 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, mentioned the ballet firm wished to offer one thing again for the plant’s 12,000 staff in return for the rehearsal area.

“They provided to offer one open efficiency for them every week, and so they have been additionally open to giving entry to the rehearsals at any time when the employees have free time,” she mentioned.

She mentioned many staff had by no means seen a ballet earlier than, however the responses have been very constructive.

“A number of folks mentioned that they might positively attend the subsequent efficiency within the theater.”

Zoltan Jekli, a dancer with the Gyor ballet, mentioned that the troupe had overcome a few of the limitations of the brand new area by outfitting the ground with a layer of soppy PVC foam and bringing their very own gear to make it really feel like dwelling.

“Each time I come right here, it fills me with good emotions and reminiscences and I feel everybody (within the troupe) feels the identical,” he mentioned. “We do not have the sense that we’re coming right into a automobile manufacturing facility. We prefer to be right here.”

Zalai, 28, mentioned 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 mentioned.