Hans van Manen's Lifetime Achievement Award

Hans van Manen 10 Nov 1986

Author Roland Gerits
(c) 1986 Dutch National Archive: all rights reserved
Creative Commons Licence

Hans van Manen has been a huge name in dance for as long as I can remember. He is resident choreographer of the Dutch National Ballet but his works are performed by major companies throughout the world including several in this country. I have reviewed Scottish Ballet's performance of his 5 Tangos (No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015), Northern Ballet's performance of his Concertante and, of course, several performances by NDT2 and the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company.

It was at performances by the Junior Company in Amsterdam that I actually saw the great man. On both of those occasions the audience exploded in applause and every man, woman and child in the auditorium rose to his or her feet in unison.

A few days ago (not long after his birthday as it happens) Richard Heideman (the press officer of the Dutch National Ballet) tweeted that van Manen had just been awarded a lifetime career award (Grand Prix à la Carrière) by a jury of distinguished critics in Cannes (see Hans van Manen krijgt carrièreprijs in Cannes 19 July 2016 RTL Boulevard). According to the report previous recipients of this award have included Maya Plisetskaya, Alicia Alonso and Vladimir Vasiliev.

Huge congratulations to Mr van Manen and long may he continue to delight dancers and audiences around the world with his creations.

Ballet Central's Only Performance in the North

Yesterday I wrote about Nederlands Dans Theater 2 (see NDT2 at the Lowry 24 April 2016) and I have written a lot over the years about the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company. None of our leading companies has a junior company as such but Ballet West, the Central School of Ballet and the Northern Ballet School all have performance companies. It is a thrill to watch those excellent young men and women on stage and through this blog I try to encourage them all.

Central's performance company is called Ballet Central which consists of the final year students on its BA (Hons) Degree course. Its website claims that

"Central School of Ballet is the only classical vocational school to offer an Honours Degree and pre-professional touring experience on such a scale. It has been a springboard for hundreds of dancers into the dance profession."

The School was founded by Christopher Gable who was the artistic director of Northern Ballet during its golden age and it has produced many of my favourite dancers including Hannah Bateman, Sarah Kundi, Dominic North and Rachael Gillespie as well as several of my favourite choreographers such as Paul Chantry. Christopher Marney and Kenneth Tindall. Two of the artistic directors that I respect the most, Sharon Watson of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Cassa Pancho of Ballet Black are associated with the School, Watson as an artistic advisor and Pancho as one of its patrons.

Ballet Central is now making its annual tour with an interesting programme which will include works by Gable, Marney and Watson. This year is special because it is the company's 30th anniversary and the work that I am looking forward to seeing most is Marney's War Letters which featured on the cover of this month's Dancing Times. I loved that work when it was performed by Ballet Black three years ago and it will be interesting to see another company's interpretation. One obvious difference from the cover photo is that Ballet Central will be using British uniforms instead of American ones for its male dancers.

One of the dancers on tour is Jasmine Wallis who impressed me in Marney's Carnival of the Animals for the Chelmsford Ballet Company last year (see A Delight Indeed 22 March 2015). Marion Pettet, the Chair of Chelmsford Ballet, saw Ballet Central when it came to Chelmsford a few weeks ago and tipped Wallis as someone to look out for.

Despite their connections with Phoenix and Northern Ballet, Ballet Central's touring schedule allows only one stop in the North and that is at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds on Thursday, 28 April 2016. There are still one or two seats left towards the back of the auditorium. Last year's show was dazzling (see Dazzled 3 May 2016). The thirtieth anniversary tour can hardly be less exciting.

NDT2 at the Lowry

Standard YouTube Lincence

Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Mixed Programme, Salford, 19 April 2016

Last Sunday I saw the Hungarian National Ballet perform The Sleeping Beauty in Budapest (see Sir Peter Wright's The Sleeping Beauty in Budapest 23 April 2016). The next day I saw the Royal Ballet dance The Winter's Tale at Covent Garden (see The Winter's Tale Revisited - Some Ballets are better Second Time Round 20 April 2016). The day after that, I saw The Nederalmds Dans Theater 2's mixed programme at The Lowry. Three excellent but very different performances by three great companies in three great cities on three consecutive nights, I enjoyed them all equally.

The Nederlands Dans Theater ("NDT") describes itself over modestly as "one of the most productive dance companies in the Netherlands, if not in the world."  It is certainly one of the most celebrated. It was founded in 1959 by Benjamin Harkarvy, Aart Verstegen, Carel Birnie and some 18 dancers from the Dutch National Ballet to focus on experimentation with new forms and techniques of dance. It has taken its direction from some of the world's biggest names in dance including:

• Hans van Manen who has been associated with the company almost from its formation first as a dancer, then as a choreographer and finally as its artistic director between 1961 and 1971 which was when I first became aware of van Manen's works and started to follow them;
• Jiří Kylián who was the company's artistic director between 1975 and 2004; and
• Paul Lightfoot who has directed the company since 2011.

The NDT is based not in Amsterdam, the Netherlands's cultural and commercial centre but in the smaller and much more sedate political capital of The Hague.

NDT2 is the NDT's junior company consisting of some of the world's best classically trained young contemporary dancers. Those dancers, who are in their late teens and early twenties and recruited from all parts of the world, spend three years in the junior company before graduating into the main company NDT1. For a number of years there was also a third division of the company known as NDT3 for dancers over 40 but that was discontinued in 2005 (see Harris Green Dance: Where Age 40 Doesn't Mean the End of Everything 20 Aug 2000 NY Times). I had not noticed that the elder company had been discontinued and asked about in a question and answer session with two of the English speaking dancers after the show.

We were treated to six works at the Lowry last Tuesday:

• Schubert choreographed by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot to Schubert's String quintet in C - Adagio;
• Sad Case by the same choreographers to the music of  Perez Prado Mambo no. 8, Perez Prado Muchachita, Alberto Domínguez Frenesí, Ernesto Lecuona Always in my heart, Perez Prado Caballo Negro, Ray Barretto Watusi, Trio Los Panchos Perfidia and Perez Prado Maria Bonita;
• Some Other Time also by those choreographers to Max Richter's Thermodynamics; I was just thinking; Broken Symmetries for Y; When the northern lights / Jasper and Louise; A sudden Manhattan of the mind; This Picture of us. P.; Found song for P.; H thinks a journey; Lullaby from the Westcoast sleepers ans So long Orpheus;
• Edward Clug's mutual comfort to Milko Lazar's PErpeTuumOVIA;
• van Manen's Solo to Johann Sebastian Bach's Violin suite no. 1 in D minor Correnta and Double; and
• Alexander Ekman's Cacti to music by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mahler.

I enjoyed all those works but my favourite by a country mile was van Manen's Solo. I have said many times that van Manen is my favourite living choreographer and it was his work that I had come to see. It did not disappoint. A powerful work by three magnificent young dancers, Gregory Lau, Helias Tur-Dorvault and Paxton Ricketts.

Lau opened the show and was part of the closing piece. For me he stood out even among his exceptionally talented colleagues. In praising him in this way I do not infer that he towers above the others in any regard but the programme allowed him an opportunity to shine and he was dazzling. None of the women eclipsed the others. Each had a different style and contribution to the choreography and I admired them all equally.

The company has just performed in Scotland and is moving on to Newcastle, Bradford, Birmingham, Plymouth, Brighton, Nottingham and London. If you live anywhere near those cities you should try to see them. Of a great three day feast of dance van Manen's Solo was the pièce de résistance.