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The end of the road

Extravaganza
Colour of Love/: Yuan Yuan Wang
Polacca: Anna Lærkesen
La Stravaganza/ Angelin Preljocaj
The Royal Danish Ballet
May 19, 2006

by Eva Kistrup
copyright ©2006, Eva Kistrup

Danish Ballet Master Frank Andersen likes the concept of themed seasons. Last season was a Bournonville year. This season the theme is new choreography. Even though I agree with him on the value of having the dancers participate in the choreographic process, I wish, based on this season's repertoire, that the choreographers were chosen not so much by the themic criteria as on quality. Save for Jorma Uotinen's "Earth" and Tim Rushston's "Requiem," the bulk of new choreography for the company has been dull, unambitious and of little lasting value. We have seen ballets inspired by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, Heavy Metal, and, in this last programme, Chinese choreographer Yuan Yuan Wang could present no better subject than the "colour of love". On stage the always good and expressive Tina Højlund danced the subject of love in three ages supported by Jean Lucien Massot and a sofa, which did almost as many lifts as Massot. Around the couple a group of eight dancers moved without much reason or meaning. This banal work had the dept of an issue of "Cosmopolitan".

One would think that a company of RDBs standard, renommé and possibilities would be targeted by good choreographers, but instead it looks like Andersen not only has to do all the bidding but also has to settle for second rate dancemakers and whatever thin concepts they have on offer. Surely it would be more productive to engage a good choreographer on a longer contract, who could really get to know the dancers and create new ballets suited to the company's strength and try for a higher bar? Over the last ten years RDB has fostered two very good choreographers — Tim Rushston and Alexei Ratmansky — who left, one to head his own company and the other to become the director of the Bolshoi. It is beyond any question that their close relationship with the company and repertoire is the reason for the relatively high quality of their works for the company.

Another homegrown choreographer is Anna Lærkesen, who during Frank Andersen's first tenure, created a lot of ballets. Once a leading ballerina with a melancholic aura, her ballets resemble her own qualities as a dancer, but she did possess an ability to make ballets that brought out the qualities in the then-young, upcoming generation of dancers. This season, as one choreographer bowed out, Anna Lærkesen's most popular work, "Polacca," from 1992 was pulled in to fill the middle part of this programme.

"Polacca," a group piece to Chopin piano music, originally performed by piano and some numbers by janitchars Safri Duo, was created as a showpiece for the three blonde baby ballerinas Silja Schandorff, Christina Olsson and Rose Gad. Lærkesen managed to show the qualities and personalities of these dancers, especially the elegant and mystic Silja Schandorff and the sunny virtuoso Christina Olsson. The partners back then were Nicolaj Hübbe, Michael Weidinger and a young foreign virtuoso dancer, Victor Alvarez, who left the company after a short stay. "Polacca" was, like any other Lærkesen ballet, a poetic but incoherent mixture of humour, romance and tragedy. Originally the ballet included a wedding as well as a firing squad. The Polish theme was forced though folklore movements, even though the most featured gesture was the Hungarian Czardas, a typical idiosyncrasy of Lærkesen. This time around, even with a cast that included Schandorff, Gad, Caroline Cavallo and Kenneth Greve, it did not time-travel well. The 14-year gap showed how Lærkesen quoted from other roles done by her young brilliant first cast, and she had made several changes in the choreography, even omitting the wedding sequence and, as the janitshar duo was no longer attached to the performance, "Polacca" ended resembling a run-of-the-mill Chopin piano ballet.

Finally the evening concluded with Angelin Preljocaj's brilliant "La Stravaganza", originally made for NYCB. The work is an abstract meeting between two different cultures, a modern group performing to Vivaldi and a group dressed in Vermeer costumes moving to techno sounds, Preljocaj managed by this simplification to create an interesting clash of cultures, and his use of movement is very innovative, especially the Dutch girls' hand mills. A potential romance between a Dutch guy, danced by Sebastian Kloborg, and a modern girl (Camilla Rueløkke Holst) was handled with the lightest touch, just hinting at a Romeo and Juliet possibility without bringing it on full force. It was a treat to see a good professional choreographer creating a vision by using his skills and his ability to select and economize movements in contrast to the two other choreographers of the evening, who simply put on more and more steps to fill the void. Please return to Copenhagen soon, Mr. Preljocaj.

Next year's repertoire has been published, and the theme seems to be Blockbusters! Not only will we get a revisit of Peter Martins' "Swan Lake," this time on the new and larger Opera stage, but "Etudes" is back, and we will get a new "Sacre de printemps" by Jorma Uotinen. Both "Napoli" and "La Sylphide" are back in repertory, but unfortunately also Flemming Flindt's "Caroline Mathilde." The one good point about that production will be the chance to enjoy Thomas Lund in one of his best roles as the mad King Christian VII.

Following a very thin season for him, Lund was bestowed with the finest reward a Danish stage personality can get, The Reumert award for his contribution to Bournonville. The reward was fully merited but could he — please — be allowed to contribute a bit more and be given a broader repertoire? Silja Schandorff won the award as Dancer of the year and "Requiem" was ballet of the year.

This year has also seen the creation of Canons for Danish literature, and "La Sylphide," "Etudes" and "The Lesson" are now officially considered national heritage works. I do not understand the need for creating canons. For me culture is about diversion and the canon project seems an unnecessary simplification of our rich national culture. In a gala celebrating the canons, Johan Kobborg returned from Royal Ballet to perform "The Lesson" with Gudrun Bojesen and Silja Schandorff. But Bojesen was too much of a match for Kobborg, who seemed more timid than forceful in the part of the ballet teacher.

On another level of pop culture, Kenneth Greve won a celebrity charity show, where politicians, actors, designers and other celebrities was put on stage singing and performing. Greve, a strong performer in his own field, won by displaying a good singing voice and is now the household name he should have been years ago based on his dancing. Likewise Sebastian Kloborg, a current Romeo in the Neumeier production of "Romeo and Juliet," participated with a partner in an amateur television competition in the dancing category and did not make it past Round One. What is the ballet management thinking about in allowing this and supporting it? It becomes even more grotesque as these ventures take place at the same time that the company is running a marketing campaign stating that RDB is a world class company. Publicity is a good thing, but not at any price, and I fail to see the point in allowing a young company star to enter an amateur event and keeping the ticket price at the current level. It does not make sense and it shows that management lacks true confidence in the company's skills and the importance of the art form. Despite this, luckily there is a lot to be confident about. The level of dancing is generally high, the corps is dancing very well, and although it is difficult to pinpoint really outstanding young talent, there are several good dancers making their way through the ranks. If the confidence in the company was real and not just something said for marketing, it might also be easier to attract good choreographers to the company and let the RDB image be created by the quality produced rather than by advertising and cheap and wrongly aimed ventures into pop culture.

Photos (all by Henrik Stenberg):
First: Tina Højlund and Jean Lucien Massot in Yuan Yuan Wang's "colour of love".
Second: Silja Schandorff and Kenneth Greve in Anna Laerkesen's "Polacca."
Third: The ensemble in Angelin Preljocaj's "La Stravaganza."

Volume 4, No. 20
May 22, 2006

copyright ©2006 Eva Kistrup
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