Next Year in Amsterdam

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The Dutch National Ballet has just announced its programme from 16 Sept 2023 to 6 July 2024.  It includes new works by Wayne McGregor, Juanjo Arqués, Milena Siderova, Wubkje Kuindersma and Ted Brandsen as well as Giselle, Raymonda and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Frida.

Here are the works in chronological order:

• 16-30 Sep 2023 Four Temperaments  (a mixed bill consisting of The Four Temperaments  by George Balanchine, Frank Bridge Variations by Hans van Manen, The Chairman Dances by Ted Brandsen and a new ballet by Juanjo Arqués)
• 25 Sep 2023 New Moves (short pieces by up-and-coming choreographers within the company)
• 12 Oct - 19 Nov 2023 Giselle 
• 9 Dec 2023 - 1 Jan 2024 Raymomda
• 3 Feb-17 Mar 2024  Junior Company, Tenth Anniversary Tour  
• 8-25 Feb 2024  Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Frida 
• 9-24 Mar 2024 Wayne McGrego Oedipus Rex/Antigone 
• 30 Mar-14 Apr 2024 Dancing Dutch (a mixed bill consisting of contributions by Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, David Dawson and Milena Sidorova)
• 15-25 Jun 2024  Ratmansky Stravinsky Fairy Tales 
• 28  June 2024 Gala and 
• 5-6 Jul 2024  Dances of Tomorrow  End-of-year production by the Dutch National Ballet Academy.

Booking information is available on the Ticker Information page,

An event that took place last May which I have only just discovered is  In the Future, a collaboration between the company and dance groups from across the Netherlands.  In the Future is one of Hans van Manen's best-known works and the Junior Company has incorporated it into its repertoire (see "In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance 17 April 2016). The Junior Company danced that piece in a programme that included Irish, Indian, Lindy Hop and many other styles of dance. It must have been a wonderfully exuberant occasion.  The rehearsals and highlights of the show have been captured in a remarkable film entitled  Documentary In The Future: Professionals and amateurs celebrate the future of dance - HNB.   I recommend this film. It shows not only the rich diversity of dance in Amsterdam but is also an introduction to the many communities that live in that city. 

 

I have been coming to Amsterdam for nearly years by train, plane and car.  The quickest and cheapest but also the least comfortable way of getting there is by air.   Some airfares from Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester are very reasonable.  The Eurostar tends to be more expensive and travellers who live outside London have to add the return fare to St Pancras but there are advantages.  There is no need to queue with plastic bags of tiny bottles, mobile phones and laptops. Passport control can be cleared before boarding the train. Even a full standard class carriage is more spacious than any aeroplane. Even with the slow and temperamental onboard wifi, it is possible to keep in touch with the world.

Board and lodging are generally cheaper than in London.  For those on a budget, the Bastion chain of hotels is comparable in tariffs and standards of accommodation with Travelodge and Premier Inns.  There are no Bastion properties in the city centre but the Amstel is close to Overamstel underground station. That is only 2 stops from Waterlooplein, the station for the National Opera and Ballet auditorium.  There are several other Bastion hotels near the airport.  Hotels within walking distance of the auditorium such as the Ibis and Holiday Inn are more expensive but not outrageously so.  When I am in Amsterdam to work my first choice is the Radisson at Rusland. Close to the Radisson and not far from the auditorium is the Hemelse Modder (literally, "Heavenly Mud") which is my favourite restaurant in Amsterdam.  

There is already plenty of information about the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh's Museum and Anne Frank's house. Less well known but well worth seeing are the Jewish Museum and the Portuguese Synagogue just across the road from the National Opera and Ballet auditorium.  I spent the best part of a day and a half exploring the complex on my last visit to Amsterdam.

Eeaders can now understand why I visit Amsterdam so often,

"In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance

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Dutch National Ballet Junior Company In the Future 15 April 2018, 19:30  Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam

In the Future is a triple bill to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company.  It takes its title from Hans van Manen's masterpiece of the same name which in turn takes its name from David Byrne's setting of his own words:

"In the future everyone will have the same haircut and the same clothes.
In the future everyone will be very fat from the starchy diet.
In the future everyone will be very thin from not having enough to eat.
In the future it will be next to impossible to tell girls from boys, even in bed ....."

This is a visually arresting but also a very witty piece.  It opens to a repetitive, pulsating score suggesting an industrial process.  The dancers enter the stage in pairs coalesce into larger groups then separate into smaller ones again.  Each and every movement in completely synchronized just like the equipment and components on an assembly line.

Van Manen created In the Future in 1986 for the Scarpino Ballet of Rotterdam but it could have been tailored for the Junior Company. It requires 12 very special dancers with very sharp minds and very agile bodies.  The young men and women who performed at the Stadsschouwburg on Sunday night are among the best on the planet.  Their artistic coordinator, Ernst Meisner, scored the world looking for them at competitions like the Prix de Lausanne and the Youth America Grand Prix and elsewhere. Watching those artists was a mesmerizing, awe-inspiring experience that swept the audience to their feet.

Of the towering choreographic geniuses of my youth - Ashton, Balanchine, Béjart, Cranko, MacMillan, Petit - van Manen is the only one left and he is still busy.  He is one of the reasons why the Dutch National Ballet is special.  He symbolizes its willingness to innovate and thereby renew itself. Van Manen's muse is the great ballerina, Igone de Jongh, and she was the Junior Company's ballet master for Sunday's performance.   In the trailer. Ode to the Master, de Jongh and van Mann dance together.  There could have been no stronger collaboration for this work.

© 2018 Jane Elizabeth Lambert
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The colours red and green were also used by the brilliant Spanish choreographer Juanjo Arqués in Fingers in the Air.  Click on the link to the left to see the video as it is the best way to explain the work.  Lamps no more than an inch long were distributed to the audience and carried by the cast. One emitted red light and the other green.  At various stages of the performance groups of dancers competed with each other - three men against three women or a soloist against a duet - and the members of the audience were asked to vote on which performance they preferred, Celebrity Big Brother style using their lamps. On the first vote, the women won. The jubilant females punched the air and continued to dance as the dejected males slunk away.  Perhaps this was the beginning of a whole new art form - reality ballet.

Towards the end of the work the lights went down. The dancers continued to dance but all that was visible was the movement of the reds and greens just like fireflies. The effect was magical and captivating especially when members of the audience lit their lamps too

I discussed the work with the choreographer after the show.  "What if the audience had chosen the men in the first vote?" I asked.  "The audience had been guided" Juanjo added. "Just like we were in the Brexit referendum," I suggested, "or the Americans who voted for Donald Trump?" The choreographer did not deny the possibility of a political dimension to his work though I got the impression he was more comfortable discussing the analogy with reality TV where the viewers are consumers.

Though the Dutch National Ballet is innovative it is also strongly rooted in a tradition and looks beyond Petipa to Bournonville.  The Junior Company's homage to that tradition was the Pas de Six and Tarantella from Napoli.  Though notionally set in Italy Napoli is associated primarily with the Royal Danish Ballet - much in the same way as Ashton's La Fille mal gardée is quintessentially English even though it is supposed to be located in pre-revolutionary France.  In their swirling skirts the women were enchanting.  The men in their breeches and white shirts and stockings were so dashing. This is a feel good ballet if ever there was. Coached by Ernst Meisner and Caroline Sayo Iura the dancers were magnificent.

I cannot think of a better choice of work than those three ballets to show off the qualities of the Dutch National Ballet.  It is that combination of innovation and classicism that distinguishes that company from the others.  From time to time representatives of the company thank me for my support.  "But I don't think I do" I explain "other than by sitting in the audience and being one of the company's Friends." I am not, alas, an industrialist or aristocrat who could donate what I would like to give and that company deserves.  All I can do is cross the North Sea to see its shows whenever I can.  Why wouldn't I?   This company has a je ne sais quoi that makes it great.  I say that in all seriousness and with all sincerity.

Junior Company - Five Tremendous Years

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In Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet 2 Dec 2014, Ernst Meisner. the Artistic Coordinator of the Dutch National Company Junior Company, told me how that company came to be formed:

“It has been a wish of Artistic Director Ted Brandsen for a long time to have a Junior Company to bridge the gap between school and company. While Christopher Powney was Director at the National Ballet Academy and placing the school on the international map, it seemed the right time to start such a young group. I was involved in setting the Junior Company up and it has been great to have the chance to develop the way we like this venture to go together with Ted and Christopher (now Jean-Yves Esquerre) during the years. We had a great start last year, with seven of the first group actually having joined the main company now."

I was lucky enough to attend the first performance of that company at the  Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam  which I reviewed in The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013.  On 15 April 2018 I am returning to the Stadsshouwburg to celebrate that company's fifth anniversary with a special performance of In the Future by the current members of the Junior Company.

According to the Dutch National Ballet's website, In the Future will be a triple bill consisting of the Napoli Suite (Pas de Six and Tarantella) by August Bournonville, Fingers in the Air, a new work by Juanjo Arques and In the Future by Hans van Manen.  it is described as "an attractive, yet daring programme for twelve dancers."  It differs from previous galas that I have seen where up to 8 new works were presented in a single evening.

Because I had been married for many years to a Sierra Leonean national who loved ballet as much as I do and knew a lot more about it, I was thrilled to learn about a young American dancer of Sierra Leonean origin.  She was already carving an enviable reputation for herself by winning the Youth America Grand Prix. her film First Position and early reviews of her performances in New York and her guest appearances in South Africa (see Michaela DePrince 4 April 2013).  When I learned that she had moved to Amsterdam my heart leapt (see No Holds Barred  4 Oct 2013).  I bought a ticket for the Junior Company's first show and booked a flight to Amsterdam.

When I eventually saw DePrince I described her as "quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while" but she was not the only dancer who impressed me that night. So, too, did Sho Yamada who partnered DePrince in Diana and Actaeon and all the other brilliant young people whom I saw on 24 Nov 2013 and subsequently.  On my last visit to Amsterdam just over a month ago I was overjoyed to see Yamada and Riho Sakamoto top the bill in Don Quixote (see A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote 1 March 2018).

I have got to know several of those dancers.  When the outstanding young dancer and choreographer, Cristiano Principato, brought friends and colleagues from the Dutch National Ballet and other major companies to Trecate, a small town in Piedmont to raise funds for the charity Casa Alessia, I attended and reviewed their show (see From Italy with Love  1 July 2015).  The next year Principato arranged an even more ambitious programme of new choreography in Amsterdam called New Moves I was there for that too. One of the dancers who accompanied Principato to Italy was Thomas van Damme. Van Damme.  Van Damme also showed enormous talent as a choreographer in  New Moves 2017 but he also shows extraordinary talent as a film maker (see The Ballet Couple 8 Sept 2016). In that regard he reminds me so much of our own Kenneth Tindall.

If you can't make the Staddshouwburg next Sunday you get another chance to see it on 28 June 2018 at the Korzo Theatre in the Hague, The International Court, the International Criminal Court and a branch of the European Patent Office are also to be found there though only a lawyer would be interested in that kind of thing.  One of my ballet teachers danced there in The Lion King but he has now returned to Manchester.

If you miss In the Future  I recommend the opening night gala on the 8 Sept 2018 which is followed by a party a which you can meet the dancers and choreographers, Giselle, Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella and Rudi van Dantzig;s Swan Lake.  There is now a direct train to Amsterdam from St Pancras and yesterday The Guardian published the Top 10 affordable hotels, hostels and B&Bs in Amsterdam.   

Esposito for the Junior Company

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In Prizes, Prizes, Prizes 7 Feb 2017 I congratulated the winners of the Prix de Lausanne.  The winner of the first scholarship was Michele Esposito who also won the Contemporary Dance Prize and Best Swiss Candidate award. The video shows him at the finals as Solor from La Bayadère. 

Michele has decided to join The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet (see The Prize winners 2017: their choices! 20 March 2017 Blog Prix de Lausanne).  Having followed the Junior Company almost from its inception I cannot think of a better place to launch his career.  As I said in Dutch National Ballet's New Season and a New Vlog from Tim and Salome 21 Feb 2017:

"there will be a lot of work for the Junior Company. They will begin their annual tour of the Netherlands with In the Future which will feature the work of the same name by Hans van Manen. According to the website, this work was created by Hans van Manen in 1986 for Scapino Ballet and it has also been danced by Stuttgarter Ballett and Introdans Ensemble for Youth. It is described as "an energetic, swinging, amusing and surprising work, with wonderfully inventive costumes by Keso Dekker." They will also dance Narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe in which Ernst Meisner collaborated with Marco Gerris to produce a work that is described as "Hiphop meets Ballet." I saw a scene from this work in the 2015 gala and loved it. Finally, the Junior Company will celebrate its 5th anniversary in Junior Company 5 Years with a special gala at the Stadsschouwburg. Having attended one of the first (if not the first) of those galas in 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013) this will be a special performance for me too - if I can only get a flight and ticket for it."

I am also glad to report that three of the prize winners are coming to London:  Taisuke Nakao of Japan to the Royal Ballet School where he will be joined by Lauren Hunter of the USA while Stanislaw Wegrzyn of Poland is on his way to the Royal Ballet.

Marina Fernandes da Costa Duarte of Brazil will go to the Bavarian State Ballet, Koyo Yamamoto to the Tanz Akademie in Zurich, Diana Georgia Ionescu to the Stuttgart Ballet and Fangqi Li of China to ABT's Studio Company.

I congratulate all the winners on their selections and I wish them all the best in their careers.