"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
All rights reserved

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.   

Fille is to us what Napoli is to the Danes - but other countries love Fille too

La Fille mal gardée is to us what Napoli is to the Danes. Napoli. is their national ballet by their most famous choreographer even though it is set in Southern Italy.  Fille is English even though it is set in Normandy. How could it be otherwise with choreography by Ashton, music by Lanchberry and sets by Osbert Lancaster?

But wait. It is also very French as Brigitte Lefèvre explains in the clip above.   The very first production was in Bordeaux on the eve of the storming of the Bastille.  On the anniversary of that insurrection this year the Ballet of the Paris Opera are dancing Ashton's ballet at the Palais Garnier. If this film is anything to go by they can reclaim it for themselves. Quelle joie! Quelle delice. Here are the details if you want to see it.

But Fille is also Russian.  Ashton drew heavily on the experience of Tamara Karsavina who had danced the ballet in St Petersburg.  And now the compliment has been returned for Ashton's version was danced last year at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

And the Americans love Fille too for it is in American Ballet Theatre's repertoire.

The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet

Thomas van Damme and Nancy Burer in Embers

Photo Michel Schnater
(c) 2015 Dutch National Ballet, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

On 24 Nov 2013 I attended the first night of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's tour of the Netherlands (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 (25 Nov 2013)). I had come to Amsterdam to see Michaela DePrince as I had heard of her appearance in the documentary First Position and her performance as Gulnare  in the South African Mzansi Ballet's production of Le Corsaire. 

Through coming to watch her I discovered the Junior Company and was charmed by them. They are a very attractive group of young people. Their performances begin with a group photo projected onto a screen that suddenly springs to life. "We are young"says one. "We are international" says another. ""We are fun"says a third. "We are the Junior Company"they say in unison to tinkles of laughter. How can anyone not be charmed by such beautiful and vivacious young people?

The Junior Company's performance of  24 Nov 2013 was one of the most memorable I had ever experienced in the theatre. It was rewarded by a standing ovation which does not happen very often outside political party conferences. I doubted that I would ever see a performance like that one ever again.- but I was wrong, The opening night of the Junior Company's 2015 tour on 6 Feb 2015 at the same theatre won another standing ovation. In my judgment that opening night was even better than the last one.

Before the show there was a short speech by Ted Brandsen, the Dutch National Ballet's Artistic Director. As it was in Dutch which is a language that I have not yet mastered I could make out only a few words but it seemed to tell the origins of the Junior Company, its achievements to date (one of which was its successful visit to the Linbury last year) and an appeal for continued public support. At a reception after the performance I was told by several guests, including the wife of the gentleman in charge of fund raising and also by one of the retired principal dancers, that there is nothing like our Arts Council of England in the Netherlands and that ballet has to rely on box office receipts and individual and corporate donations albeit that one of the largest of those corporate donors is the local authority. If that is the case, the achievement of the Dutch National Ballet in attaining and maintaining the highest artistic standards is all the more remarkable.

The show that the Junior Company are taking on tour is called Ballet Classics and Modern Masters. It is described aptly on the Company's website as "a journey through dance history from the classics to new works created especially for the Junior Company" which

"begins with excerpts from famous classical ballets like Swan Lake and Napoli, which are followed by works by resident choreographer Hans van Manen (Visions Fugitives) and Embers by artistic coordinator Ernst Meisner. Furthermore dancer/choreographer Milena Sidorova presents her work Full Moon. The evening closes with spectacular new works by the young talented Spaniard Juanjo Arques (Surfacing) and Canadian choreographer Robert Binet (Blink)."

As in the last show each ballet is introduced by a short film of the dancers in rehearsal. That is an excellent way of presenting the work to an audience that is not used to ballet. It may not be necessary in Amsterdam and certainly not in London where audiences see a lot of ballet but this show is playing in towns and cities all over the Netherlands where audiences see much less dance. That same technique was used very effectively by Peter Brinson with Ballet for All which helped to create a new audience for dance in the United Kingdom between 1964 and 1979. Raising interest in dance seems to be part of the mission of the Dutch National Ballet too which it has advanced in a variety of ways including, most ingeniously, Bounden, a new dance app for mobile phones which Ernst Meisner and his dancers helped to develop.

Napoli: Riho Sakamoto, Veronika Verterich, Emilie Tassinari,
Yuanyuan Zhang

Photo Michel Schnater
(c) 2015 Dutch National Ballet, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

The first work of the evening was the pas de six divertissement from Napoli. I had seen the principals and soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet perform some scenes from that ballet at The Peacock on 9 Jan 2015 so they are fresh in my memory. As I said last month we don't see anything like as much as we should of Bournonville in the UK and I love that ballet. Although it is set in Southern Italy the Danes have adopted it as their own just as we have done with La Fille mal gardée. It is a colourful, exuberant work with sparkling dancing to a catchy score. The dancers on Friday were Riho Sakamoto, Veronika Verterich, Emilie Tassinari, Yuanyuan Zhang, Cristiano Principato and Martin ten Kortenaar. I don't think I have ever seen a happier performance of Napoli.

The next work was Embers by Ernst Meisner. I have not yet seen much of Meisner's choreography but everything that I have seen I have liked enormously. His Saltarello was the highlight of last year's show and this performance of Embers by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme to the haunting music of Max Richter was my favourite this year. Quite simply, it is one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen. Its beauty had me close to tears. Like that of our own Christopher Marney, Meisner's work reminds me very much of Cranko's who is my all time favourite choreographer. London audiences have been reminded of Cranko's genius by the Royal Ballet's production of Onegin which I shall see on 16 Feb - my 66th birthday present from I to me. Sadly Cranko died very young but happily we now have Meisner and I just can't get enough of his work.

Next up was the first pas de deux by Siegfried and Odette in Swan Lake danced beautifully by ten Kortenaar and Zhang. The version that the Dutch dance is by Rudi van Dantzig. I've seen this ballet many times and  thought I knew it well but I learned a lot from the video of the rehearsal. "If you position yourself you will naturally turn"  said Igone de Jongh to Zhang. "You don't need to make yourself turn". Then later "You don't want to leave..... but you leave." No doubt compelled by Rothbart's spell. I understood not only the mechanics of the choreography but also the emotion of the piece so much more.

Bart Engelen, Full Moon

Photo Michel Schnater
(c) 2015 Dutch National Ballet, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Milena Siderova's Full Moon was such fun. The music to Romeo and Juliet boomed across the auditorium but there was no sword fight, crowd scene or bedroom pas de deux. Just Bart Engelen clutching a cushion. Engelen is a beautiful young man. Tall and muscular, blond and slender. He contorted himself into all kinds of shapes as Ed Watson did in the first act of Winter's Tale. "This pillow has such a force" explained Siderova in the film. "You can't let it go". I wondered why the company had placed this work immediately after Swan Lake and then it dawned on me. Siegfied saw Odette by moonlight and she was also under a force, namely Siegfried's spell that she could not let go. And why Romeo and Juliet? Well it is a good tune but perhaps the lovers were sent to their by a force that they could not let go.

The first part of the show was rounded off by Hans van Manen's Visions Fugitives. He is one of the all time greats in ballet and I have admired his work for for as long as I can remember. This was the first time this work had been danced by the National Ballet. It was classic van Manen. A gorgeous score also by Prokofiev. Stripy costumes for each pair of dancers in different shades of blue. Wonderful architectural shapes.  Flowing choreography. Beautiful dancing by Burer, Verterich, van Damme, Zhang, ten Kortenaar and Ryosuke Morimoto. Here and there a touch of humour. The crowd loved it as did I. And when he was coaxed on to stage to take a bow the applause exploded. 

I was dazzled by the part one. Most of the audience beetled off to the bars or the loos but I needed space and time to take in all that I had seen. I found my phone and tweeted: "The English language does not contain enough superlatives".

There was more good stuff in part two. Robet Binet's "Surfacing" which was also commissioned for the show. "Get closer. Closer. Closer, Smile more, That's nice" said Binet on the film to his dancers, Sakimoto, Principato, Burer and the company's very latest recruit Antonio Martinez. "Chassé as though you were skating." As Meisner reminds me of Cranko so Binet reminded me of van Manen. More interesting group shapes. The same fluidity. Similar pairing of dancers in costume as well as style. And even the same sort of touches of humour. The audience seemed to recognize the likeness and acknowledged him with the same thunderous applause as they had given van Manen when Binet came out to take his bow. This was the first time I have seen Binet's work and I can't wait to see more.

The last work Blink by Juanjo Arques was pure delight, In a way it encapsulated everything we had seen that evening. The exuberance of Napoli. The fluidity of the Meisner, van Manen and Binet. The touches of humour along the way. His music was also by Richter, His dancers were Verterich, Sakamoto, ten Kortenaar, Morimoto and Engelen. I talked to him about the ballet at the reception after the show. He explained that there was so much misery in the world right now with terrorism, war, austerity and more. We need a bit of levity. He is a charming man kissing me three times on our introduction and again when we said goodbye. "Because I am Spanish" he explained. Spanish he may be but he has danced with the English National Ballet and he knows what we Brits like. This is a work that is sure to appeal to us when we see it at The Linbury in June.

I saw the show as the guest of the company and they treated me royally. They gave me a seat in the stalls in the middle of the 12th row (more or less where I had been last time) which is probably the best place in the auditorium to see a show. That was kind of them but the invitation to attend the party after the show was even kinder. I met the dancers all of whom are beautiful. Some strikingly so. I owned up to writing their profiles in December. I met Ted Brandsen and Ernst Meisner and personally conveyed good wishes from David Nixon and Mark Skipper of Northern Ballet on the off-chance that I might see them. I met Bart Engelen's mum and told her how I admired her son's work - compliments that they both accepted graciously. 

I also got a chance to meet the press officer, Richard Heideman, who had helped me so much with my feature on the Company. Yesterday he sent me all the photos of the performance, three of which I have used today. As this is unlikely to be my last review of those works I expect to use them all. My thanks to him and everyone at the Dutch National Ballet who made my trip to Amsterdam so memorable.

Junior Company's New Season

Last year I was lucky enough to see the opening night of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company at the Stadsshouwburg in Amsterdam (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013). Tomorrow is the opening night of their new season in the same theatre and I hope to be in the audience tomorrow to cheer them.

This year's programme seems at least as good as last year's. It begins with excerpts from Swan Lake and Napoli, (yum) and is followed by works by Hans van Manen (Visions Fugitives) and Embers by Ernst Meisner. Next comes Milena Sidorova's Full Moon. The evening closes with spectacular new works by Juanjo Arques (Blink) and Robert Binet (Surfacing).

Tomorrow's opening is followed by a tour of the Netherlands and in June they are coming back to London as part of Sprinboard.  As a foretaste of their visit enjoy the pas de deux of Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme at Amsterdam Central Station last month.

Royal Danish Ballet Soloists and Principals in celebration of Bournonville

August Bournonville

Photo Wikipedia

Because ballet was introduced to us by Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes we tend to think of it as an art form that began in renaissance Italy, developed in 18th century France and flourished in 19th century Russia under Marius Petipa. Almost every classical company of any size includes at least some his works or those of his pupil Lev Ivanov in its repertoire. But there is another important tradition, that of the Royal Danish Ballet and its great choreographer August Bournonville. Principals and soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet have performed a selection of extracts from Bournonville's work at The Peacock Theatre off Kingsway on the 9 and 10 Jan  2015.

I saw the show on Friday the 9 Jan 2015 and was thrilled by it. It consisted of the following works:

• A Folk Tale (pas de sept)
• Flower Festival in Genzano
• Jockey Dance
• La Sylphide (Act II)
• Conservatoire (pas de trois) and
• Napoli (Act III).

All of the works were by by Bournonville and save for La Sylphide all were new to me. 

Through this show I was introduced to some remarkable dancers: Gudrun Bojesen who danced the sylph in La Sylphide,  Ulrik Birkkjaer who danced James and Sorella Englund who danced Madge, the witch. The scene that was chosen for the celebration shows James (who is supposed to marry Effie who is a real person) fall in love with the sylph. He is duped by Madge into acquiring a shawl that is poisonous to sylphs as a gift for the sylph. He wraps it around the sylphs body and she immediately expires. One wing falls from the sylph's tutu followed by another. She is carried away by her fellow sylphs. These are two fine virtuoso and one great character role which those dancers performed magnificently. As I have said many times before La Sylphide is my favourite Romantic ballet and I can't see enough of it. I already have my ticket for the performance of the Queensland Ballet in the summer (see Looking Forward to 2015 - My Choices 29 Dec 2014).

The other Bournonville work that is fairly well known in this country is Napoli. According to the programme

"Despite its southerly theme, Napoli has become the 'Danish National Ballet' - the costumes are Italian, but the joie de vivre is Danish, The third act with the pas de six, which is a purely classical composition, and the taratella, inspired by the Italian folk dance, has become the calling card of the Royal Danish Ballet."

This was the bit that we saw with glorious dancing by Susanne Grinder, Amy Watson, Kizzy Matiakis, Femke Slot, Andreas Kaas and Sebastian Haynes.

Haynes was impressive in Jockey Dance. Whenever one reads a biography of Bournonville or a history of ballet one is told that his great contribution was the development of an important role for the male dancer. Jockey Dance, which was Bournonville's last ballet according to the programme, is a great example of that. Two horsemen try to outdo each other in a race. The other was Marcin Kupinski, one of the company's principals. Needless to say he was exquisite.

My only criticism of the evening is that it was not enough. I would have liked to have seen the whole of La Sylphide and Napoli and I would have liked to have seen them on a big stage with scenery and an orchestra. In short I would like to have seen a season of their work at Covent Garden or The Coliseum. It has been 10 years since the company's last visit and I don't propose to wait that long until I see them again. I am getting used to crossing the North Sea to see the Dutch National Ballet and I am now checking out airline schedules for Copenhagen.