Dutch National Ballet Ballet connects dancers in lockdown 21 April 2020 YouTube
This is the first new ballet that I have reviewed since lockdown. It is on screen rather than a stage but it is fresh, relevant and eloquent. It expresses the anxiety, frustration, isolation and tedium that each of us suffers whether artist or audience member during these miserable times.
Ballet in Lockdown is a very short work to the music of a Rotterdam band called Di-rect. The track is "Hold on" which Di-rect recorded about ten years ago. It is certainly appropriate now. As it is on YouTubeI shall let my readers discover it for themselves. All I will say is that the film begins with solitary dancers in their homes wearing expressions that are the epitome of gloom. One by one they begin to bourée, to stretch, to turn, to lean or press against their walls as though in adjoining rooms. Icons of the individual dancers are assembled in gallery view. The very last frame of the dancers erect, facing the camera, their arms outstretched, their hands held high expresses hope and promise. An assurance that this plague will one day end, If we only hold on, I was moved by this piece. I have played it several times. Each time I have noticed something new. It is a gem that deserves preservation. I would love to see its transposition to a stage if that can be done.
This work was created by Milena Siderova who has an impressive portfolio of work. I had previously seen and admired Full Moon which she had created for Bert Engelen when he was in the Junior Company and Withdrawn for the company's New Movesin 2017, Full Moon was about those nights when it is hard to sleep where the bedclothes seem to have minds of their own, In that piece, Engelen struggled with his pillow to the music of Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. Withdrawn was more reflective. In my review I wrote:
"The finale was Milena Siderova's Withdrawn. Siderova had created Full Moon for Bart Engelen who is now with the Norwegian Ballet........... I expected much from her next work and I think that we got it. Withdrawn was a work for 10 dancers to the music of Emilie Satt's Butterfly. It appears to have been inspired by a passage from Carol Becker's essay Thinking in Place, Art, Action and Cultural Protection of a dystopian future in which human social interaction is replaced by the interaction of electronic devices. Each of the dancers carried a torch which I guess was reminiscent of the screen of a mobile phone. They seemed to wander in a sort of limber rather like the lost souls in surgical gowns in Tran-Phat's In Limbo that launched the show."
A work from her repertoire that I have never seen but would very much like to is The Spider which she crested in 2011. Her observation of the animal's movements and behaviour is knife-sharp. Their translation into dance is the best I have seen Petipa's Puss in Boots and White Cat duet in the last act of The Sleeping Beauty.
I wish more companies could attempt something like this. Video streams of past performances are all very well but they lack something. In another article, I compared it recently to encountering a stuffed animal in a museum. Better than nothing I suppose but there is no life to it.
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There is a great overlap between film and dance. It started long before The Red Shoes. Pavlova experimented with the camera as you can see from her clip of The Dying Swan In Leeds of All Places - Ashton Pavlova and Magic 18 Sept 2013. So, too, did Nijinsky as you can see from Hommage au Faun9 July 2013.
When I interviewed Kenny Tindall in "A Many Sided Genius" - Tindall on Casanova4 March 2017 we talked about the cinema which he refers to as "church". Tindal compared the work of a choreographer to that of the director of a film:
"The roles were similar and maybe even converging as techniques and technology that had been developed for the cinema were increasingly used in ballet. I recalled the filming of The Architect to which project I had contributed (see Tindall's Architect - How to Get a Piece of the Action - Literally!7 June 2014). I asked whether another film might result from Casanova. Tindall’s eyes sparkled. No concrete plans as yet, he said, but would it not be splendid to film Act I in Venice and Act II in Paris."
I was reminded of my conversation with Tindall when I saw New Moves on 24 June 2017. As I said in my review:
"The most dramatic work of the evening was Thomas van Damme's Convergence which he created for Skyler Martin and Clara Superfine to music by Gorecki. Superfine is yet another dancer whose career I follow closely (see Thank You Ernst 17 March 2016). Through superb use of lighting reminiscent of cinema, he seemed to force the dancers together. They seemed to approach each other but not as lovers, more like predator and prey. It seemed like a gripping narrative though the programme notes suggest something gentler:
"1. Independent development of similar characters often associate with similarity of habits or environment. 2. Moving toward union or uniformity."
As he has mastered the technique of building suspense, I look forward to seeing whether van Damme will use that technique in his future work."
I have not had to wait very long. He used the same technique in Girls Nightwith Riho Sakamoto and Yuanyuan Zhang, This is one of a number of short films that Thomas van Damme has made with Youanyuan Zhang as The Ballet Couple. They have their own YouTube Channel, Facebook page and Twitter stream. They describe themselves as:
"Professional ballet dancers in love enjoying life and youtube.
Follow us in our life with our special jobs and crazy adventures!
Tell us about your adventures and experiences with dance or other.
Love,
Yuanyuan & Thomas"
You have already seen enough of them to appreciate their talents. Just imagine their potential.
Photo Michael Schnater (c) 2017 Dutch National Ballet All Rights Reserved Reproduced with kind permission of the company
I reviewed last Monday's New Moves gala on 27 June 2017. I have now received some lovely photos by Michael Schnater of the performance from Richard Heideman, the company's press manager which I shall publish over the next few days. Here is the first which I believe to be a shot from Clotilde Tran-Phat's In Limbo. More tomorrow.
Standard YouTube Licence Dutch National Ballet New MovesMusic Theatre, Amsterdam, 26 June 2017 20:15 I have been following the Dutch National Ballet for several years now and have seen some great shows such as Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari and Coppelia (see Brandsen's Masterpiece14 Feb 2016 and Brandsen's Coppelia12 Dec 2016) and Natalia Makarova's La Bayadère (see Dutch National Ballet's La Bayadere14 Nov 2016), but never have I admired that company more than I did last night. New Moves is a gala of work by some of the company's most talented young choreographers. All of those pieces were good and several were outstanding. I cannot think of any other company that stages galas like New Moves every year and I struggle to think of another that would be capable of doing so.
The programme began with Clotilde Tran-Phat'sIn Limbo. This was a work for 8 dancers choreographed to a score by Nicholas Robert Thayer. The title and programme notes suggest that the choreographer was inspired by the following words of Dante:
"Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out, but even Hell itself would not receive them for fear the damned might glory over them" (The Divine Comedy, Hell Canto 8).
All but one of the dancers appeared in what seemed to be surgical gowns. That other dancer was in a tight fitting skin coloured costume. It ended with all the dancers in similar costumes and some words spoken in English which I believe to be those of John E Visitc. Having read the programme notes after seeing the piece and having once read Dante I guess the white gowns perhaps represented spirits trapped in a region from which they could not escape. It complemented the last work of the evening which was also about a sort of limbo.
Chanquito van Hoewe was the only choreographer with two works in the show. He is a talented singer-songwriter as well as an accomplished dancer and choreographer and he took to the stage with a guitar in his second piece. A woman just behind me in the auditorium whooped with a piercing ululation the moment he picked up the instrument. The first of his works was a solo for Daniel Robert Silva whom readers will remember was my outstanding young male dancer for 2016 (see The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Young Dancers of 201628 Dec 2016). It was called Echoes Through Time and the programme notes indicate why:
"As we all take our journey on this planet of life
Life will always seem to change
Life will always die
Life will always be born
Life shall always seem to be cruel
Life shall always and forever be beautiful
As life travels through the echoes of time in our own minds."
It was danced beautifully by Silva. As he took his applause he appeared at one point quite overawed by the audience's response. He thrust his head no his hands as though he was about to burst into tears.
Bruno da Rocha-Pereira, who, like Silva, is from Brazil danced Pages without End (which he had created in collaboration with Robin van Zutphen) with yet another compatriot. Priscylla Gallo. This was a beautiful duet to the music of Max Richter When she came back. Gallo is one of several hugely talented artists who began their careers in the Junior Company and whom I follow closely. It was one of my favourite performances of the evening.
The only ballet to require a dramaturge was Bastiaan Stoop'sBrighter than Gold. It was also one of the few works for which the choreographer had commissioned costumes from a designer rather than relying on the company's wardrobe. Thr dramaturge, in this case, was Fabienne de Vegt and the designer Dieter de Cock. The work was a solo for Nathan Chaney dressed in a hoodie. Above him was a single light bulb which was explained as follows in the programme notes:
"In an abandoned window
Light vs darkness and vice versa a never ending battle.
Like the endless times she told me to leave, knowing I would stay. Left alone, the same own non-goodbye ...... Choosing between nothing and emptiness, either way, just me. My energy and my prode hoping that door will one day open once again."
The music, Jon Hopkins's atmospheric Abandon Window, seems to have been the inspiration for the work.
Van Hoeve's second work, Hopeless Romantics, was a solo for the talented Canadian dancer Theo Duff Grant whom I first saw in Ballet Bubbles last year. Van Hoeve sang his own composition Shame on Me. In the programme notes, van Hoeve stated that he had created a new wave ballet for the "hopeless romantics" such as the characters in Swan Lake and Tristan and Isolde and perhaps even members of the audience. It was a very popular piece and earned deafening applause.
The first half was rounded off with Christopher Pawlicki-SinclairVoyagers which drew its inspiration from the NASA probes through interstellar space carrying images of life on earth. This was an upbeat piece for eight dancers to Peter Gregson'sHeld and Time. The audience loved it and so did I.
During the interval, I met Remco van Grevenstein who had very kindly reviewed the company's Onegin for me earlier this year (see (see Onegin 2 April 2017) and another of my Dutch Facebook friends who teaches ballet in IJsselstein some 30 miles south of Amsterdam. My teacher friend was accompanied by two of her students. I asked whether I could attend one of their adult ballet classes next time I am in the Netherlands and was told that I could. I warned my friend that I was hopeless at pirouettes but I enjoy jumping to which one of the students offered to jump with me. One of my teachers refers to her teachers and students as a "family". I think that is right but I would go so far as to say that there is such a thing as a "worldwide adult ballet family".
Sebastian Galtierhad created Step Addition to the music of René Aubry's Steppe for the Noverre workshop in Stuttgart some tears ago and had brought it back to Amsterdam to see how a Dutch audience would take to it. Danced beautifully by Daniel Carmargo, one of the company's principals, and Nancy Burer, one of my favourite young dancers, it went down a treat with the crowd. He said in the programme notes that he hoped that the audience reaction would give him inspiration to do some more. He should now have all the inspiration that he needs so we can look forward to more work from him.
As well as coordinating the whole event (see Principato moves to a Bigger Stage30 May 2017), Cristiano Principato created, and danced in, my favourite work of the evening. He based his work on the music of Herny Purcell, our first great composer. This was a work for four dancers and his casting was impeccable. He chose Silva to accompany him in the first and last movements and Khayla Fitzpatrick and Fabio Rinieri to dance the others. Della Lo' Milano dressed Principato and Silva in 18th-century century wigs and jackets. They turned and travelled in complete unison. Fitzpatrick appeared in a mask which Rinieri lifted. In his programme notes Principato remarked:
"this ballet wants to explore the essence of being an artist and performer. It shows how we 'wear' a different identity on stage and how demanding it is to completely become another character and forget whatever has been going on in our personal life, the moment we take out mask off."
I was reminded of the scene in Kenneth Tindall's Casanova where Casanova meets Bellino. The removal of the masks charts the development of trust as I described in Casanova Unmaskedon 16 Feb 2017. Like Tindall, Principato shows what some critics call musicality. I prefer to use the term "sensitivity to music". Principato's teacher Ernst Meisner shows that quality in all his work as does Tindall. It is odd that Purcell's work is not used more often as it works well in ballet. José Limón used Purcell's music in The Moor's Pavane which Birmingham Royal Ballet dance so well (see Birmingham Royal Ballet brings Shakespeare to York18 May 2016).
The most dramatic work of the evening was Thomas van Damme's Convergence which he created for Skyler Martin and Clara Superfine to music by Gorecki. Superfine is yet another dancer whose career I follow closely (see Thank You Ernst17 March 2016). Through superb use of lighting reminiscent of cinema, he seemed to force the dancers together. They seemed to approach each other but not as lovers, more like predator and prey. It seemed like a gripping narrative though the programme notes suggest something gentler:
"1. Independent development of similar characters often associate with similarity of habits or environment.
2. Moving toward union or uniformity."
As he has mastered the technique of building suspense, I look forward to seeing whether van Damme will use that technique in his future work.
Passing Shadows by the company's principal, Remi Wörtmeyer, was another gripping work though more for the choreography than the staging. There was an explosion of applause before the curtain began to fall as Wörtmeyer spun his fellow Australian Juliet Burnett of the Flanders Ballet inches from the floor. This was a work for four dancers to Rachmaninov's Cello Somata in G Minor Op 19 Slow. This was a work for four dancers the other two being Jingjing Mao and Clemens Fröhlich. Wörtmeyer is credited with painting the sets and designing the costumes though they were sourced from the company's wardrobe and props departments.
The finale was Milena Siderova's Withdrawn. Siderova had created Full Moon for Bart Engelen who is now with the Norwegian Ballet. In that work, Engelen struggled with a pillow to the Dance of the Knightsfrom Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet which impressed me greatly when I first saw it (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet8 Feb 2015). I expected much from her next work and I think that we got it. Withdrawn was a work for 10 dancers to the music of Emilie Satt's Butterfly. It appears to have been inspired by a passage from Carol Becker's essay Thinking in Place, Art, Action and Cultural Protection of a dystopian future in which human social interaction is replaced by the interaction of electronic devices. Each of the dancers carried a torch which I guess was reminiscent of the screen of a mobile phone. They seemed to wander in a sort of limber rather like the lost souls in surgical gowns in Tran-Phat's In Limbo that launched the show.
The audience rose as one as soon as the curtain rose and we stayed on our feet through all the curtain calls. There were bouquets for all the dancers, the men as well as the women. And such original bouquets too. They seemed to be arranged around gladioli. We clapped until our palms were sore and cheered until we became hoarse and rightly so for we had seen something wonderful.
I would dearly have loved to have congratulated Principato and his team of dancers and choreographers in person at the party that followed the show. I know from the opening night galas of 2015 and 2016 that the company knows how to celebrate and the company had given me a voucher for the bar. But I had a plane to catch in the morning and it was already late. In order to be sure that I would make my flight, I had booked into an hotel near the airport. I found to my cost after last September's opening night gala that the underground and suburban railway services in Amsterdam close down very much earlier than those in London and that taxis fleece their fares mercilessly at night. Even Uber is expensive after dark. I could not afford to be caught out a second time.
Throwing a party for the audience on special occasions is a lovely idea for it cements the relationship between the company and its patrons. The Dutch National Ballet seems to cherish its patrons and they, in turn, support the company. Too often in England, I often get the feeling that the audience is almost an irrelevance. I suspect that may be because companies here rely so much on Arts Council England for their funding. It is different in Wales, or at least in Newport, where I detect a similar bond between Ballet Cymru and its audience to the one that subsists between the Dutch public and their National Ballet. That may be one of the reasons why I warm so much to the national ballet companies west of Offa's Dyke and east of the North Sea.
Standard YouTube Licence Last year I nominated Cristiano Principato of the Dutch National Ballet as our outstanding young choreographer of the year (see The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Young Choreographer28 Dec 2016). I chose Principato because of his enormous achievement in assembling some of the world's most promising young dancers for a benefit performance for the Italian charity, Casa Alessia, in Trecate, a small industrial town in North West Italy (see From Italy with Love1 July 2016).
In that show, Principato performed some of his own work including Palladio which he contributed to the Dutch National Ballet's New Moves in 2016 (see Palladio4 June 2016). I described that ballet as "a very sophisticated work and quite a remarkable piece for one so young." I should add that Principato had only recently celebrated his 21st birthday. Equally impressive, however, was Principato's management of the gala. I exchanged a few words with him after the performance in which he told me that he had been responsible for everything.
I am glad to say that Principato's talents have been recognized by his company for he has been put in charge of New Moves 2017. This is an "annual event where dancers of the company get the opportunity to develop their choreographic talents will be like a gala performance, with a party to follow." This year there will be contributions from Thomas van Damme who was also in Trecate last year as well as Bruno Da Rocha Pereira, Sebastien Galtier, Chanquito van Hoeve, Matthew Pawlicki-Sinclair, Milena Sidorova, Bastiaan Stoop, Clotilde Tran-Phat, Jozef Varga, Remi Wortmeyer and Jared Wright. In previous years the show has taken place in a studio. This year it will be performed on the main stage of the Music Theatre or Stopera.
Last year, as a special treat that happened to coincide with my birthday, I was allowed to walk on the stage of that theatre as part of the New Friends Tour (see Double Dutch Delights 17 Feb 2017). I remarked that
"From the audience's perspective the theatre is massive but from the performer's it has quite an intimate feel."
To be put in charge of such an event at age 22 is a remarkable achievement. Did Kevin O'Hare do anything like that at the same age? I ask myself, or, indeed any of the artistic directors of the world's other great national companies? Could Principato be one of their successors?
I described Edmonds's work as the most polished and dramatic which was not surprising given her talent and experience. Having also been impressed with Fuse, I thought she would be a shoe-in for my outstanding young choreographer title.
Palladio was one of several works created for the Gala for Alessia at Trecate by Cristiano Principato who is one of the Dutch National Ballet's most talented young dancers. This is what I wrote about his ballet in From Italy with Loveon 1 July 2016:
"In the video about the ballet Cristiano explains that it is about a young girl who breaks her heart but recovers and moves on. It explores her sadness but then her strength as she creates new relationships. Cristiano cast all the Amsterdam dancers in this piece including himself. This is a very sophisticated work and quite a remarkable piece for one so young. Though completely original I could see the influence of Meisner - but not just Meisner for I was also reminded of Jerome Robbins. Balanchine and Jose Limon's The Moor's Pavane. Most choreographers' early works are quickly forgotten but I don't think this will be one of them. I think it will be performed time and again, I might add that I think it will be popular in England as Cristiano's choreography is well suited for dancers trained in the English style."
Cristiano created that work before his 21st birthday which makes it all the more impressive.
Given a fair wind this talented young gentleman can look forward to great things. He is, of course, a fine dancer but he can also direct and manage. At Trecate he acted as artistic director, choreographer, principal dancer, lighting engineer - you name it he did it. Don't be surprised if he ends up running one of the world's great ballet companies or opera houses one of these days.
There was one other new work that I saw just before I went to Italy which I really should mention. That was Small Steps created by Cara O'Shea who is one of my teachers at the Northern Ballet Academy. Small Steps is about the Kindertransport which rescued large numbers of Jewish children from Nazi Germany. I saw it at the Leeds CAT end of term show and wrote in Small Steps and other Pieces - Leeds CAT End of Term Show2 July 2016:
"Small Steps was a very beautiful work and I was profoundly moved by it for two reasons. The first is that the dancers were about the same age as the children who were sent abroad. They looked so bonny but also so lost and vulnerable. The second is that Cara chose very appropriate music - Arvo Pärt's Für Alinaand Spiegel im Spiegel, Lee Holdridge'sInto the Arms of Strangers, the intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni'sCavalleria Rusticana and Paul de Senneville's Marriage d'Amour. The ballet explored the conflict in the parents' minds and the pain of separation. Although she challenged her dancers her choreography was restrained and sombre - and as I have said before profoundly beautiful."
Cara is a fine teacher who is loved and respected by each and every one of her pupils - none more than me - but she is also a talented dance maker. I hope we shall see more from her.
Cristiano has been asked by his company to create a new ballet called Palladio as part of its New Moves programme for its up and coming young choreographers on 24 June 2016. Cristiano discusses his work in this video.
He will also get a chance to show this work to his father and other members of his family as well as their friends and neighbours at the Gala for Alessia at the Silvio Pellico Theatre in Trecate just outside Novarra on the 28 June 2016 (see The Beautiful Dancers at the Gala for Alessia8 May 2016).
