A Personal Project
In this little series of interviews, we meet three girls from the Royal Danish Ballet corps, who each, in their own way, adds new value and potential for the company.
First out is American Beila Ungar, who has just made her debut as a choreographer under the Corpus umbrella.
Corpus hosts a series of small scale performances, or Pop Up’s, where interested dancers can curate a short performance where some choose a theme. Principal Amy Watson gave each dancer a shot at his or her dream role. Samuel Rees focused on the life of a corps dancer. Some get an outlet for their own choreography. As a reviewer, you can watch the results, but you cannot review them. In some cases this is annoying, especially when you are presented with real choreographic talent. This was the case when Beila Ungar presented her Pop Up, based on Jewish Klezmer music. I therefore asked for an interview to learn how she managed to create such a coherent and well-executed ballet.
A Danish Connection
22-year-old Beila Ungar was raised in Maryland, USA and is educated at Maryland Youth Ballet Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB), and BalletMet Columbus. She has attended summer programs at American Ballet Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater and Chautauqua.
In 2013, as a student in PNB’s professional division she was invited to take part of the Flemming Halby Dance Exchange program. Flemming Halby was a Danish principal dancer, who after his career at Royal Danish Ballet, became head teacher at Pacific North West Ballet School.
The exchange program facilitates that RDB students can study for 6 weeks in the Seattle school and the PNB students can attend RDB School for a similar period.
“I especially enjoyed Silja Schandorff’s classes and got a very good impression of both Copenhagen and the company.” When back in Seattle, Beila wrote to Silja Schandorff, enquiring about the possibilities to join the company. She wrote back with the happy news of a contract offer for the 2014-15 season. She joined with a group of foreigners, which has grown to 11 girls and 4 boys in the last two seasons.
A New Company
Beila’s first performance with RDB was in the rerun in John Neumeier’s successful production of “Lady of the Camellias”:
“It was the best start we could get. Not only does the ballet have many smaller and bigger roles to fill. It is also a ballet that really showcases the RDBs skillset as a dramatic company.”
Since then Beila has danced in a large number of productions and has had bigger ensemble roles in, for example, Liam Scarlett’s “Vicera”.
With her PNB background, any Balanchine ballet is especially appreciated. She has enjoyed being part of the recent production “Theme & Variations”.
Putting the Hand up
When the leaders of the in-house company Corpus asked if there were any dancers who wanted to host a Pop Up, Beila put her hand up.
“It has mostly been the boys who put themselves forward, and I wanted to bring in the girls perspective.”
Beila Ungar has choreographed a few pieces in school. One for dancers who needed something for a competition and one for the choregraphic workshop at Chautauqua. It was a field she wanted to develop more.
“My family is very much into Klezmer music. My parents played in a Klezmer band when I was growing up, so it was always playing in our home. My theme for the Pop Up was Jewish Weddings. I did not want to tell a specific story about a specific couple. Instead I focused on creating the atmosphere and interpreting the chosen songs”.
The ballet is choreographed for eight dancers and exchanged between solos, pas de deux’s and ensemble numbers. The ballet is named “Klezmer Khasene” and is accompanied by a local Klezmer ensemble.
It is a very coherent piace of work. The dancers interpret the songs and there is constantly interesting choreography going on.
Beila Ungar made a solo for Tobias Praetorius as part of the piece. Maybe it is because I have seen Praetorius in the brown boy’s solo from “Dances at a Gathering”, but I did get a sort of Robbins feeling during the ballet. She says of the solo; “I tried with this specific solo to illustrate the song “The Golden Peacock”. I worked a lot to create movement that personified the bird’s wings. It came very naturally for Tobias Praetorius. He really created wings.”
The Quest to Develop
One of the purposes with Corpus is to bring out choreographic talents within the company. “Klezmer Khasene” is one of the strongest and most coherent works coming out of the project. It is also a ballet with lots of audience appeal. The ballet ended with pulling audience members to participate in the dancing. Everybody had a great time.
In that respect it created memories of Ohad Naharin’s “Minus Seven” who had several successful runs with RDB, notably at the summer performance at Christiania, the alternative free city in Copenhagen. The RDB will make another visit to Christiania this summer, so it could be a good idea to include “Klezmer Khasene”.
Nikolaj Hübbe and Silja Schandorff are keen to bring out choreographic talent in the company. They gave up a big chunk of their production of “Swan Lake” to two budding in-house choreographers Gregory Dean and Oliver Starpov with great results. They also include new choreographers in outreach activities like “The Hübbery” and assign new talents to choreograph for RDB dancers taking part in international competitions.
This could open up more chances for Beila Ungar to choreograph more and display her talent.
“It has been such a great experience and I am keen to do more choreography. This is an area I would like to explore more,” concludes Beila.
I for one really hope to see more from her. You can never get too many well-made, coherent and interesting new ballets.
Photo:
Beila Ungar (Copyright (c) Royal Danish Ballet)
Scene from "Klezmer Khasene"
The final with participating audience (Photo Copyright (c) Karen Howard)
Great review of a fabulous talent. Congratulations, Beila..
Posted by: Paula Agulnik | April 17, 2016 at 09:31 PM
Beila = what a wonderful article about you and how you are involved with RDB - love that you are choreographing, testing edges of your talent - expanding possibilities - keep on keeping on -
Posted by: tara stepenberg | April 17, 2016 at 10:31 PM