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fall 2005

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"... it seems almost invidious to pick favourites when the overall quality, in terms of style, technique and acting, was so high - from the kids who feature in so many of the ballets to the company's incomparable roster of
senior character artists."

 

 

 



Bournonville's Legacy
The Third Bournonville Festival, held in Copenhagen June 3-11, honoured the bicentennial of the Danish choreographer's birth.

By: Michael Crabb


If August Bournonville's Napoli were the only work to have survived his long creative career at the helm of the Royal Danish Ballet - from 1830 to 1877 with only brief interruptions - he would still merit an honoured place in the annals of dance.

Napoli, first staged in 1842, is Bournonville's masterpiece. It is one of the greatest theatrical achievements of the 19th century and remains the company's signature work. The current Royal Danish Ballet production, dating from the early 1990s and given a joyously life-affirming performance June 4, was almost inevitably the defining moment of the third Bournonville Festival, held to honour the bicentennial of the Danish choreographer's birth.

Napoli is a captivating compendium of all that Bournonville held dear as an artist of the theatre. Here is a tender love story, gently infused with religious ardour and moral probity, set amidst the amiable hurly burly of ordinary, everyday life in early 19th-century Naples. It's a story told with such robust good humour, subtle observation of character, keen awareness of social dynamics and compelling naturalism that only the hardest of hearts could fail to be touched. Here, in its full splendour, the sheer genius of Bournonville the choreographer shines through in a seamless flow of dance and pantomime. Even allowing for its problematic second act where Bournonville's uncharacteristic brush with Romantic fantasy takes us to the supernatural Blue Grotto kingdom of the evil Golfo - the current production's intelligent version is by former Royal Danish Ballet star Dinna Bjørn - Napoli surges forward irresistibly toward its climactic, celebratory third-act pas de six and tarantella.
In the context of the festival, however, Napoli stood as more than a great work of dance theatre. It stood as the embodiment of a tradition, lovingly passed down from generation to generation within the extraordinary family that constitutes The Royal Danish Ballet. As we saw June 4 and again on June 11 - when Napoli, Act III provided the dazzling finale of the festival's closing gala - this ballet encapsulates the characteristics that make the Danish company unique in the world of dance.Today's Royal Danish Ballet dancers - a far more international company than even a decade ago - in
their hunger for challenging contemporary choreography sometimes question the continuing relevance of the Bournonville tradition. I was told on good authority that some try to avoid their periodic Bournonville classes and that there is talk of including smaller doses of those devilishly difficult Bournonville combinations into the centre work of the regular classes.
Still, one hopes the warm embrace of the festival's enthusiastic audiences will reinforce the company's confidence in the value of its unique tradition.

This was the third Bournonville Festival. The first in 1979, held to mark the centenary of Bournonville's death was, according to the respected Danish critic and historian Erik Aschengreen, the great choreographer's unjustly delayed, posthumous international breakthrough. Canadian audiences, interestingly, were sooner aware of Bournonville because of Erik Bruhn's association with the National Ballet of Canada from the early 1960s until his death in 1986.The Royal Danish Ballet, of course, had toured abroad before 1979, and critics, especially the British ones, had travelled regularly to Copenhagen from the early 1950s, but that first festival - reinforced by the publication of Kirsten Ralov's books detailing the classes of the Bournonville School - generated a new understanding of his importance in ballet history. The 150th anniversary of Napoli in 1992 occasioned a second festival.
 More than 100 critics and dance luminaries from around the world attended the latest event. Veterans of earlier festivals were best equipped to dissect and evaluate the current productions of the eight extant Bournonville ballets on display, along with the 1985 Ballet West reconstruction of Abdallah by Toni Lander Marks, Flemming Ryberg and Bruce Marks. The ravishing closing gala also included snippets from seven works that have not survived in their entirety including, naturally, the charming pas deux from Flower Festival in Genzano.

Discussions among the foreign visitors revealed a strong
strain of nostalgia verging at times on fetishism and not always sympathetic to Royal Danish Ballet Artistic Director Frank Andersen's insistence on the need to maintain Bournonville as a living rather than ossified tradition.

American-born, former Royal Danish Ballet dancer Lloyd Riggins' new and simplified production of The Kermesse at Bruges was a symbolic flash point of disagreement. Bournonville's bustling 1851 folkloric comedy about three brothers and their personal journeys of self-discovery has until now been considered quaintly delightful in its unaffected joyousness and good humour. Without significant changes to the traditional choreography, Riggins has banished some of the crowd clutter and focussed the story more clearly. His objective is complemented by Rikke Juellund's stylized cut-out silhouette sets and
generally unadorned costumes.

Those strongly attached to earlier, cozier productions were horrified. "Absolute rubbish," was the harsh condemnation of one redoubtable British critic. Yet, without benefit of comparison, I am more inclined to favour American critic Tobi Tobias' thoughtful assessment, recorded in her immensely comprehensive 15-part online record of the festival to be found at artsjournal.com.

At least Riggins' was not a "concept" Kermesse revision. The essential Bournonvillean values remain intact and, if anything, the actual choreography is better exposed - allowing Royal Danish Ballet soloist Kristoffer Sakurai as the viola de gamba-playing brother Carelis an opportunity to shine. During the curtain calls, in the presence of Denmark's Queen Margrethe II - Her Majesty attended every performance - Frank Andersen hushed the crowd to announce Sakurai's promotion to the top company's rank. My, how the Danes howled their approval.

Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter's revisionist staging of The King's Volunteers on Amager should raise stronger objections. Schlüter, a former Royal Danish Ballet dancer and director of the company school since 1988, needlessly added a whole dream sequence for the philandering Edouard, set to Mozart's Don Giovanni music, to underline his wayward inclinations. Meanwhile, Karin Betz's sets and costumes - especially those for the women - did little to help.

Former Royal Danish Ballet and current New York City Ballet star Nikolaj Hübbe's production of La Sylphide suffered from scenic excess. As part of Andersen's strategy to prepare the company for the festival, Hübbe's staging was first presented two years ago. Apart from a certain urgency and thrust in the dancing and some slight tinkering with the mime sequences, this is a solid yet unremarkable Sylphide, but why designer Mikael Melbye chose to make James' home so palatial and the rocky scenery outside the window so un-Scottishly arid, remains a puzzle.

Hübbe will be staging La Sylphide for the
National Ballet of Canada this November, but
fortunately with sets and costumes from Sorella
Englund's Boston Ballet production. Similarly, Johan Kobborg - among the younger members of the influential Royal Danish Ballet diaspora - will stage the British Royal Ballet's first La Sylphide this October with more appealing sets and costumes from his alma mater's previous production.

Learned opinion also split on the suitability of Anne Holm-Jensen, Frank Andersen and Flemming Ryberg's revival of Far from Denmark. At its 1860 premiere, the condescending portrayal of various ethnic minorities was doubtless well intentioned. Now, in these politically correct times, its suitability is questionable.

Far from Denmark is a ballet the Royal Danish Ballet should reserve for its Danish audiences and those who willingly travel to the company's invitingly warm Royal Theatre. The Danes - certainly the older ones I spoke to - clearly relish this mildly affecting story of a young lieutenant on naval duty in South America who briefly forgets his fiancée to flirt with a local
lovely. The strong thread of olden-day patriotic fervour that informs the ballet seems to have a reassuring effect on Danes today, forced as they are to adjust to the social problems triggered by non-Nordic immigration.

 Dinna Bjørn and Eva Kloberg's 1995 production of Konservatoriet, which places the familiar Paris dancing school scene within the larger context of venal dance inspector Monsieur Dufour's matrimonial ambitions, was among the most charming of the festival. Nowhere does Bournonville better capture the style and atmosphere of the Parisian ballet world in which he trained.

I also happen to find A Folk Tale - staged by
Schlüter and Andersen in anticipation of the 1992
festival - a real charmer, although arguably only
the company's seasoned dancers have the
convincing mime skills to pull it off effectively. Even
Queen Margrethe's sets and costumes, which it is apparently fashionable among the cognoscenti to disdain, are unobjectionable and sometimes - as when the hillock rises to reveal a world of trolls, elf-girls and dwarfs - truly magical.

The festival was much more than a series of magnificent performances. Despite the competing bicentennial of Bournonville's pathologically neurotic friend Hans Christian Andersen, Copenhagen deployed a host of insightful companion Bournonville exhibitions. Among the best was a splendidly designed historic costume display, Tyl & Trikot, which revealed how closely
most successive Royal Danish Ballet designers have adhered to tradition.

For the visiting foreigners, there was a trip to Bournonville's rural villa and nearby grave. Royal Danish Ballet classes - sometimes sparsely attended by the over-worked dancers - were opened to guests. There was also a charming and
instructive presentation at the Old Court Theatre, led by Dinna Bjørn, explaining the connection between the comedia del arte tradition of the Pantomime Theatre at Tivoli Gardens - the world's longest operating amusement park - and the copious, plot-explaining mime Bournonville built into his ballets.

Guests and regular ticket holders shared the experience of watching samples from the daily, dancer-dreaded traditional Bournonville School, led by Schlüter and demonstrated by Royal Danish Ballet school students and company dancers up to
the highest rank. These dovetailed with the release of revised versions of Ralov's books - although now without the Laban and Benesh notations - wonderfully brought to life on a set of two DVDs.

As I've learned from past experience, Danish hospitality is lavish and unstinting and the festival's staff and regular members of the Royal Theatre went beyond any reasonable call of duty. There were backstage parties after every performance and guests were made to feel like visiting family members from afar. On two nights, Royal Danish Ballet members who had achieved 40 years of service - Schlüter and the consummate character artist Poul-Erik Hesselkilde - were fêted/roasted. Even Frank Andersen, in a performance that would do credit to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, joined a line of
tutued male companions to excerpt Swan Lake for the appreciative Schlüter.

As for the official dancing on stage, it seems almost invidious to pick favourites when the overall quality, in terms of style, technique and acting, was so high - from the kids who feature in so many of the ballets to the company's incomparable roster of senior character artists. Where I had reservations, it was more because of casting choices than an individual dancer's abilities.

The universally acclaimed dancing hero of the festival was 30-year-old Thomas Lund. He is the perfect Bournonville dancer in physique, temperament and technical facility and already, as a teacher, a fine upholder of the tradition. Lund is also a highly intelligent actor and, most important of all, among the most generous dancers I have ever watched. He shares his delight in dancing in such a naturally unassuming way you cannot help but love him.

Curiously, it was a non-Dane, American Caroline Cavallo, who consistently impressed me among the women, particularly for her stylish, dramatically alert Sylph, aptly matched in the second of two La Sylphide performances by the impossibly
handsome and in this role impassioned Mads Blangstrup.

It may have been merely the play of light that seemed to shape a grin on sculptor Theobald Stein's 1868 marble Bournonville bust, given a place of honour to the right of the proscenium throughout the festival. I prefer to think otherwise. If the famous ballet master's ghost benevolently inhabits the 1874 Royal Theatre that Bournonville lived to see built, he had every reason to be pleased.

Let us hope that the third Bournonville Festival will help keep The Royal Danish Ballet's distinguishing tradition vibrantly alive. <end>

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"There's something about peer
recognition that's really valuable. There were
five jury members and Susan Benson [a Canadian costume designer] was one of them. It's really nice to have people who do the same kind of work as you recognize
that your work has merit."



Caroline O'Brien: Canadian Costume Designer
O'Brien was recently honoured by the World Stage Design Gallery Exhibit for her work in Matjash Mrozewski's Virgin Queen.
By: Denise Sum

"Art is the lie that tells the truth," Picasso once said. Dance, especially, is an art built on illusions. The labour and dedication that go into creating a ballet remain concealed from the viewer, and so the talents of those working behind the scenes are often overlooked.It is significant then that the work of Canadian Caroline O'Brien gained recognition when it was selected by an international jury for the World Stage Design Gallery Exhibit. Fifty-five out of 244 costume submissions were displayed at Toronto's Royal York Hotel in March 2005. O'Brien's entry was a piece designed for Matjash Mrozewski's Virgin Queen, created in 2002 for Toronto Dance Theatre.

O'Brien has been the National Ballet School's resident costume designer since 1989, while collaborating with several dance organizations in Canada and abroad. Currently an instructor at Ryerson University, she is also devoted to passing on her expertise.

Speaking to O'Brien in the National Ballet School costume shop, she is jovial and warm, and her passion for the art comes across clearly.

DS: How did you become interested in designing for dance?
CO: My father was a shoe designer and my mother was always doing needlework or knitting. I have been sewing and drawing since I was a small child, but I didn't start in theatre until part way through university. Somebody introduced me to
the theatre in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I had my first job doing alterations for costumes and that gradually led me to Stratford. I worked in Banff, at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto and at the National Ballet of Canada. I started as a stitcher, and then gradually opportunities came up so I was able to do some design work.

DS: What was it about dance that interested you after having worked in theatre?
CO: I liked the aesthetic, the ethereal world and the magical quality that dance offers.

DS: You've collaborated with several choreographers. How involved is the choreographer in the costume design process?
CO: It's a full spectrum. Matjash is a graduate of the National Ballet School and we met here when he was a student, and so I've done lots of work with him. He used to come with the colour, the style, everything. Now he gives me much broader strokes, but in his mind he still has everything clearly mapped out. He might come with one concept or one colour, and we go from there.Some people are very clear and know exactly what they want and some can't even make decisions in the fitting, so it becomes totally up to me.

DS: Do the dancers have any input?
CO: I really like to have their input. It's something I learned from the dancer Peggy Baker. She always maintains that if the dancers feel good about their costumes and feel comfortable in them, they will perform that much better. If it's a classical piece, they don't have much say, they just get to wear it. But we can change an aesthetic or a line to make it more flattering
for their physique. For new works, I like to make sure that they're involved in the decisions. If they don't feel good, there is room to negotiate.

DS: You've designed for both classical and modern dance, which have very different aesthetics. Do you have a preference for one or the other?
CO: I don't feel more comfortable in one or the other, but I'm consciously aware of the differences. The body type is very different. For the classical dancer, I know that there's a certain body type that is inherent to that aesthetic and I know that certain things won't change. The modern dancer tends to be more athletic, just differently developed. The footwear also really affects their posture and how they move.It's fun doing tutus because dancers are so excited to get their first tutu. When they wear a tutu they love it, they feel so pretty. "Princess for a day" is what I always say about wardrobe. When we do contemporary work, it's great because it's always a balance of fashion influence and costume design.

DS: Do you see trends in costume design in the same way that there are trends in fashion design?
CO: For sure. If I go through a rack of costumes that are 30 years old, I can probably pinpoint what year that fabric was available or that look was popular. Even though there might be a historic aspect to it, you can generally tell when it was done based on what that particular fashion influence might have been. But function is always really important, much more so than in the fashion world.

DS: How do you approach a period piece like Virgin Queen, where historical accuracy could be limiting to the movement?
CO: The main costume was an Elizabethan gown, but a dancer still had to dance in it. So we skipped all the foundation garments. It didn't have a corset or all the petticoats, but we did a hip-roll and the petticoat was a combination of silk organza and tulle so it was really lightweight while still giving shape to the skirt. The skirt itself was Italian taffeta and we put a rope at the bottom so that it would really swing and have some nice movement in it, as well as some very light boning to give it some shape. Those are the sorts of things that you can do.

DS: How difficult is it to stay within the budget?
CO: Sometimes it's tricky. I'm often given a budget for the whole show including labour and materials. If I decide to spend more money to get a really good material, then it affects my labour. So I end up working for less, but maybe the final look will be that much better. That's what happened in Virgin Queen. We spent a lot more on materials because it made this
spectacular effect and then it affected the labour budget in the end, but it was worth it.

DS: Do you ever experience a mental block when designing?
CO: Do you ever have fear? Yes, always. The most terrifying thing is a sheet of paper and a pencil in your hand and somebody expecting you to show them tomorrow what it is that you want to do.

DS: What are your greatest sources of inspiration?
CO: Other art forms are really significant. I go to see a lot of performances and art galleries. Definitely the fashion trends are big ones and just whatever exists in nature. I've done all kinds of reading on sacred geometry and patterns that exist in organic matter and things like that. I do sculpture as well, which has been inspired by some of those things. How proportion
plays into the human body and how that relates to things that exist in nature are really pertinent in designing a costume.

DS: Are there any other artists that you might say have influenced you?
CO: Peggy Baker is a huge influence because we've worked together for a long time and I really respect and admire her. A lot of fashion designers have influenced the kind of things I like to do. I love Madeline Vionnet. [Barbara] Karinska, [a Russian/American costume designer (1886-1983)], was a big influence.

DS: When you're designing, how much is driven by art theory and principles of design, and how much is instinctive?
CO: When I started out I was much more affected by the sorts of things that I knew and the people I could call on to bail me out! Now I really ride on instinct. I will often go to a rehearsal and won't measure a dancer because I can just look and have a sense of what that figure is and how the shapes and contours happen. Maybe that's a little bit because of the sculpting that I do. I get a 3-D sense of what I want to do, then I cut fabrics and I get a more organic finished product. The alterations that I have to do after fitting are often minimal.

DS: What did it feel like to be one of two artists representing Canada at the World Stage Design Gallery exhibit?
CO: It was humbling. There's something about peer recognition that's really valuable. There were five jury members and Susan Benson [a Canadian costume designer] was one of them. It's really nice to have people who do the same kind of work as you recognize that your work has merit.

DS: With these kinds of events, do you think that stage designers are starting to get more recognition?
CO: I don't know if it's true or if I just want it to be. With somebody like Santo Loquasto, who's designing all over the place, I don't think there's any question that he gets credit and recognition for what he does. So it's getting better. I don't know if Karinska always got credit for the things that she did at that time. As the rest of the world evolves and so many
people are claiming rights to be who they are, maybe designers will get more credit as well.

DS: Do you plan to continue with dance-related projects in the future?
CO: The next work that I have is a ballet Matjash was asked to do at The Royal Ballet in London. But if somebody called me from Stratford
tomorrow, would I take it? Sure.

DS: What do you enjoy the most about your work?
CO: There's a real burst of adrenaline when you first get a project and you don't really know what it's going to be yet. Then there's another
adrenaline rush when you have to do the sketches and get the shopping done. Finally, there's the push to get it on stage. There's always a burst
of energy, and then a bit of a break, and then lots of energy again, and

then a break. I like the rhythm of it. No two days are alike. It keeps you moving! <end>

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TABLE OF CONTENTS: Fall 2005 Issue [top]

Features
  • Centre Stage: The National Ballet of Canada's Aleksandar Antonijevic
    by Denise Sum
  • Dame Beryl Grey: A Passion for Dance
    by Kathrine Sorley Walker

Departments
  • Dance Notes
  • Obituaries
  • Commentaries from Vancouver, the Prairies, Montréal, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Britain, Italy, Denmark, France, Australia and New Zealand.
  • Reviews of The Holy Body Tattoo, The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, Suzanne Farrell Ballet and Hamburg Ballet
  • Book Reviews
    by Elizabeth Godley and Kaija Pepper
  • Notebook
    by Michael Crabb

 


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