Royal Danish Ballet Dancers at SMK
Oliver Marcus Starpov:
"Untitled"
February – March 2018
At present RDB is rolling out a charm offensive to broaden the audience. A great deal of the activities is linked to the planned ballet festival in June.
In order to boost the festival Nikolaj Hübbe appears on Facebook in films where his visit football clubs and boxing parlors etc. to spread the message that ballet is for everyone.
On the commercial side, RDB is also entering new territory. The RDB dancers are appearing in the spring catalog of a leading department store.
The program for the festival do also include several outreach activities, including live streaming a new ballet that will include popular Danish singers to a nearby museum, where there will be an outdoor party.
The big question are, will this campaign bring in a new audience?
Using other venues
However, other outreach projects could bring the RDB new customers.
SMK, the Danish state museum for art is now hosting its second season showing new choreography by RDB dancers at the museums evening openings. The artists in question selects a work of art and creates a short ballet inspired by the work.
Now in its second season the event pull in a large audience between 100-200 persons for every performance. It gives the museum a new audience and it could easily also bring more people to RDB. However, RDB is not using the open opportunity. There is not as much as one flyer available nor does Mette Bødtcher, the brilliant presenter and spokesperson for the ballet mention the opportunity to flog what is available on the home stage.
It is a big opportunity to get more audience. It is certainly easier to sell a ticket to a person living in the Copenhagen area, and who has an interest for art and a positive experience with ballet.
In general, I do not review performances like the SMK ballets made by first time choreographers with limited time. However, I will make an exception, which is cleared with the artist in question.
Lone Star
Oliver Marcus Starpov has over the last seasons placed himself as an outstanding choreographer with an impressive handful of creations, like “Beginning& Endings”, the Russian and Spanish Divertissements in “Swan Lake” and several shorter works. He is presently busy choreographing “My Daddy loves Sugar” for ten male dancers and will also be part of the three choreographers/three singers creation for the festival. There is no doubt that Nikolaj Hübbe recognizes his talent. However, I am not sure if he really recognizes how big it is.
Starpov´s creation for the SMK project showed yet again not only his originality as a choreographer, but also how outstanding a performer he is.
His work at SMK, named ”Untitled” was inspired by Nairy Baghramian’s ”As long as it takes.”
"What I find particularly interesting is that the artist has used a very solid construction and changed it to a fragile and vulnerable object. It led me to the fact that a boy/man/artist is supposed to have an ultra-strong appearance, showing a perfect image and never talk about a breakdown etc. That became my inspiration for the solo,” says Oliver Starpov.
The combination of the artwork, using only a corner of a very big room and Oliver Starpov dancing inside the work of art created a very special experience. Especially as Oliver was crying through most of the ballet.
The performance really supported his concept and displayed how strong a dancer and performer he is. It became a very special experience, partly because you could not transfer the solo to anywhere else. It could only exist in the museum. There will be no afterlife as part of “Hübberiet”, the RDB Summer Tour or any other concept.
It received a very strong and emotional reaction from the audience. “Untitled” proved not only SMK´s project of mixing art and ballet, it also proved how good ballet could touch an audience.
Nikolaj Hübbe does not need to tour the supermarkets, football grounds and boxing parlors to raise the interests in ballet. With an artist and performer like Oliver Starpov, he holds a very strong card. That is the real miracle.
Photos:
Copyright (c) Joakim Sass Züger.
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