Giovanni and Melissa to dance van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes

Melissa Chapski and Giovanni Princic

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet, All rights reserved
Reproduction licensed by kind permission of the company

I have just found out that the piece that Giovanni Princic and Melissa Chapski will dance at the Cadogan Hall tonight is Hans van Manen's Trois Gnosiennes (see Natalia Kremen Ballet Foundation Gala "I Have a Dream" 18 June 2017). They danced that work in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre in Amsterdam on 14 Feb 2016 which I reviewed on 8 March 2016 in Trois Gnossiennes.  This is what I wrote in 2016:

"No performance by the Junior Company would be complete without a work by van Manen. In previous years the great man has come on stage to take a bow and the applause has exploded. Trois Gnossiennes with music by Erik Satie is of particular interest to British balletomanes because of its similarity to Ashton's Monotones. The music is sublime and so is van Manen's choreography executed sensitively by Chapski and Princic."

Since I found out about tonight's show in the early hours of this morning I have been consulting railway timetables to London but Sunday is the worst day of the week for a quick dash to London. I am trying to clear my desk in order to fly out to Amsterdam for Cristiano Principato's New Moves next week (see Principato moves to a Bigger Stage 30 May 2017).

For those who can make tonight's show, Princic and Chapski are two of the most promising young dancers I have ever seen. Van Manen is one of the world's greatest choreographers.  You are in for a treat.

Natalia Kremen Ballet Foundation Gala "I Have a Dream"

Giovanni Princic in Ballet 101

Photo Michel Schnater
Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet
All rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

In you are in, or can get to. London this evening, you may wish to see two fine young dancers. Giovanni Princic and Melissa Chapski of the Dutch National Ballet. They are taking part in the Natalia Kremen Ballet Foundation Gala, I Have a Dream at the Cadogan Hall at 19:00 this evening. I am a big fan of Giovanni and Melissa. I know it is short notice but I have only just learned about this gala from Facebook.  Had I known of it sooner I would have contrived to be there or would have arranged for someone to attend and review the show for this blog at the very least.

I googled "Natalia", "Kremen", "Ballet" and "Foundation" and found this page on the NK Ballet School website.  The author, whom I assume to be Ms Kremen, writes:

"NK Foundation is a non-profit organisation that provides financial support to ballet students of exceptional talent but limited means. 

The principal goals of NK Foundation are:

•  to assist children and young peopled with a talent for classical ballet and dance in their technical, artistic and creative development in the UK and abroad;

• to preserve and develop cultural values and traditions of classical ballet, including through providing financial support to students with a potential for excelling in this art form.

Our scholarships and bursaries give students a chance to attend ballet classes as well as to perform in stage productions, participate in examinations, attend numerous ballet events organised by Natalia Kremen Ballet School (NKBS) and cover expenses for ballet uniforms and equipment."

The website lists the trustees one of whom is Ms Kremen who danced with the English National Ballet after several years with the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow while another describes herself as the co-founder of BalletCo Forum.

Giovanni and Melissa will appear with two more of my other favourite dancers, Brandon Lawrence from Bradford and Delia Mathews of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Other performers include Kristina Kretova, Marianna Ryzhkina and  Andrei Merkuriev from the Bolshoi and Igor Kolb and Andrei Batalov of the Mariinsky and there will also be artists from the Vienna State Ballet, the Berlin City Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, La Scala and  Kyiv Modern Ballet.

Ticket prices range from £15 to £70. If you think £70 is a bit steep for a Sunday night performance in a concert hall, please remember that the object of the exercise is to raise money to enable talented kids of limited means to learn ballet.

I wish Giovanni, Melissa, Brandon, Delia and all the other artists toi-toi and chookas for this evening. I also wish Ms Kremen and her staff and students well with their school and foundation. If anyone who attends tonight's show would like to review it for me, I shall be pleased to consider his or her review for publication.

Melissa Chapski

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On 14 Feb 2016 I attended the Junior Company's performance of Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre in Amsterdam (see Ballet Bubbles 16 Feb 2916). One of the artists who particularly impressed me was the young American dancer Melissa Chapski. She appeared in La Vivandiere (see Photos of La Vivandière – Pas de six 19 Feb 2016) and Trois Gnossiennes (see Trois Gnossiennes 9 March 2916).

Chapski and the Italian dancer, Giovanni Princic, were the beneficiaries of a crowdfunding campaign in May (see Crowdfunding for the Ballet 25 May 2016). In that article I wrote:

"I argued in Ballet as a Brand? How to bring More Money into Dance for Companies and Dancers 13 March 2014 that more money could be raised for the arts by licensing, merchandising and sponsorship. The Dutch National Ballet have been particularly innovative in that regard. One of its most imaginative initiatives has been its collaboration in the design and marketing of Bounden, an award winning dancing game for two players (see Bounden - Something that appeals to my Interests in Technology and Dance 17 Dec 2013, Bounden Part II - How it works 1 Feb 2014 and Bounden Launched 28 May 2014). The company's latest fund raising method has been crowd funding."

That is exactly the sort of initiative that I should like companies in this country imitate.  I concluded the article with the observation that "the rewards of giving will be not only the dancers' gratitude but also 'great personal rewards' which I surmise to be great performances some of which could be in London."

Chapski has recently appeared in the above video advertising the Dutch radio station NPO's Christmas programme. The caption "Geniet van kerst op NPO Radio 4" means "Enjoy Christmas on NPO Radio 4." She dances beautifully and this is one of the early rewards of the crowdfunding campaign.

Opportunities not just for Dancers

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When I visited Amsterdam in February I toured the studios and workshops of the Dutch National Ballet. The tour included the wardrobe department and I saw many of the costumes for Mata Hari shown in the film above (see Double Dutch Delights 17 Feb 2016). Later in the day I attended Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre which opened with a speech by Ernst Meisner in which he said that the Junior Company provided opportunities not just to outstanding young dancers but to technicians and support staff.

My ears pricked up because one of the members of my ballet class at Huddersfield University is a young fine arts and design student with a passion for ballet who happens to be half Dutch. She has already been accepted for a summer placement with the Royal Opera House and hopes to make her career in the theatre. On my return to Yorkshire I told her about Ernst's speech and my tour of the Stopera and she asked me to find out more about the programme for her.

Yesterday the company's press officer Richard Heideman sent me the requested information.  The company recruits its costume designers from the Stichting  Meesteropleiding Coupeur (Master Tailoring Institute) in Amsterdam. The Institute runs a three year training course in partnership with the Dutch National Ballet, the National Opera and other companies much in the way that the Junior Company provides a bridge between ballet school and the senior company.

Anyone who is interested in the programme should contact the institute at:

Stichting Meesteropleiding Coupeur

Jan Maijenstraat 11-15
1056 SE AMSTERDAM
T 020 820 1153
E info@meesteropleidingcoupeur.nl

www.meesteropleidingcoupeur.nl

Yesterday I wrote about the crowd funding intuitive for the young American dancer Melsissa Chapski and the Italian Giovanni Princic (see Crowdfunding for the Ballet 25 May 2016). The donations page is in Dutch which Nadja van Deursen who is in charge of fund raising for the National Ballet thought might be a problem for us Brits who are notorious monoglots. Actually I don't think it is because Dutch is the nearest relation to English and I can understand most of what is written or said to me in the Netherlands including Ernst's speech though that may be because I studied German which even more closely related to Dutch at secondary school. Be that as it may she has suggested that those of us who are not Dutch can donate to Melissa and Giovanni's scholarship fund through this page and I have just done so.

Crowdfunding for the Ballet

Melissa Chapski and Giovanni Princic

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet, All rights reserved
Reproduction licensed by kind permission of the company

I argued in Ballet as a Brand? How to bring More Money into Dance for Companies and Dancers 13 March 2014 that more money could be raised for the arts by licensing, merchandising and sponsorship. The Dutch National Ballet have been particularly innovative in that regard.  One of its most imaginative initiatives has been its collaboration in the design and marketing of Bounden, an award winning dancing game for two players (see Bounden - Something that appeals to my Interests in Technology and Dance 17 Dec 2013, Bounden Part II - How it works 1 Feb 2014 and Bounden Launched 28 May 2014).

The company's latest fund raising method has been crowd funding. On 12 May it launched a campaign to raise scholarships for two outstanding young dancers, the Italian Giovanni Princic, and the American Melissa Chapski (see Crowdfunding Campaign for Juniors Melissa and Giovanni on the Dutch National Ballet's website). The above photo shows them in van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes which I covered on 9 March 2016.

Van Manen is one of the big names mentioned on the website who train the Junior Company's dancers. Others include its principals, Igone de Jongh and Marijn Rademaker. The aim is to give those dancers a "last little push to reach their final goal: getting to the top of the ballet world". Readers can do that using their debit or credit cards through the donations page of the company's website.

As I said in 70 Years of the London Ballet Circle 10 May 2016 Ernst Meisner's name cropped up more than once in my conversations with dancers, dance administrators and teachers in this company. That is largely because he spent 10 years with the Royal Ballet and we regard him with great affection as one of our own but also because of his work with the Junior Company providing a bridge between ballet school and the company. I asked whether any company here had thought of setting up a junior company and was told that it would be something that they would all like to do but that it would cost too much money. If that is the case, maybe the Dutch have shown us a way to raise that money.

Returning to Giovanni and Melissa I do hope a generous contribution to their scholarship comes from this country.  The rewards of giving will be not only the dancers' gratitude but also "great personal rewards" which I surmise to be great performances  some of which could be in London.

Trois Gnossiennes

Melissa Chapski and Giovanni Princic

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet, All rights reserved
Reproduction licensed by kind permission of the company

Hans van Manen has delighted audiences around the world and inspired dancers and choreographers for as long as I can remember. I have seen the great man  at the Stadschouwburg in Amsterdam on 24 Nov 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013) and 6 Feb 2015 (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015). He got a standing ovation each time and no wonder for he is a national treasure whom the Dutch revere.

Van Manen appeared at those performances because the Junior Company include one of his works in their tour each year. This time it was was Trois Gnossiennes which he created for the Dutch National Ballet on 20 Oct 1982. The music that he used for this ballet is by Erik Satie, the same composer who inspired Sir Frederick Ashton to create Monotones. That is another ballet I love very much.

The dancers in the photos are Giovanni Princic from Italy and Melissa Chapski of the USA. I admire them both enormously.

Melissa Chapski and Giovanni Princic

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet, All rights reserved
Reproduction licensed by kind permission of the company

They work very well together.  Earlier in the performance Princic had danced a masterly Ballet 101 and Chapski had charmed us in the Pas de Six.  My review of the whole show is Ballet Bubbles 16 Feb 2016.

Audiences in this country will gain an opportunity to see more of van Manen's work when the Netherlands Dance Theatre tours the UK next month. I hope to catch NDT2 in Bradford and at The Lowry. 

Photos of La Vivandière – Pas de six

Emilie Tassinari and Theo Duff Grant in La Vivandière – Pas de six

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet

All rights reserved

Reproduction licensed by the Company

I reviewed the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's matinee performance of Ballet Bubbles on 16 Feb 2016.  The company has kindly sent me some gorgeous photos of the show which I shall upload over the next few days.  

The above photo shows the enormously talented Emilie Tassinari and Theo Duff-Grant in which the dancers trace the steps of Fanny Cerrito and Arthur Saint-Léon.  In the following photo Duff-Grant dances with Melissa Chapski, Hannah Williams, Clara Superfine and Lisanne Kottenhagen.

 La Vivandière – Pas de six

Photo Michel SchnaterCopyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet
All rights reserved
Reproduction licensed by the Company

More photos of that lovely performance tomorrow folks.