Interview with Signe Roderik
August 21, 2018
Signe Roderik has documented the Royal Danish Ballet for many years as a photographer and recently as a filmmaker. Her series of three films about the Bournonville tradition, the character dancers and the ballet children have received many accolades.
For myself and many in the Danish ballet environment, Signe Roderik´s film is as an outstanding witness account proving the value of Bournonville and the Danish tradition for strong character dancing. As the current artistic director has gone rather cold on Bournonville, the character dancers is reduced to free-lance employment and the ballet school struggling to bring out the quality and the quantities of homegrown stars. Signe Roderik´s film´s offers the proof we need.
However, Signe Roderik is not the one to rest on the laurels. The success as winner 'best director' at Fine Arts Film Festival, Los Angeles for "The Art of Silence" and winner "best short film" at Berlin Short Film Festival and the cooperation with the dancers is now pulling her in a new direction. Signe Roderik is currently working on several ideas that involves both staging ballet productions a swell as more filmmaking.
Finding her Heroes
Signe Roderik has covered the Royal Danish Ballet as a photographer for many years. She has seldom done stage photos. Her force and interest has been in documenting the rehearsal process and getting behind the façade.
One of these assignments was to document the process where a group of RDB dancers and apprentencies was given the task to create a performance without a choreographer. The project was titled Interregnum:
“It was a special experience to capture the youngest dancers in the group and discovering how talented and strong they were. I am very fond of my photos of Tobias Praetorius and Oliver Starpov. As young as they were, they already showed the strength and special talents as respectively dancer and choreographer.”
Signe Roderik´s pictures from the interregnum project catches the young artists so well. I myself must admit that I have used these pictures several times when I need a good photo to illustrate the young dancers growing success. Especially the portrait of the dedicated upcoming choreographer Oliver Starpov, where Signe Roderik captures his aim so beautifully.
Meeting Bournonville and Birkkjær
In 2015, Principal Ulrik Birkkjær asked Signe Roderik to document the US Bournonville tour he was organizing. Ulrik Birkkjær did not want pretty stage photos; instead, it was the back stage life of the dancers he requested. In addition to a very fine series, the tour also introduced Signe Roderik to the qualities of the Bournonville repertoire.
“The experience from the tour and being close to the dancers did not only raise my interest in Bournonville. It made me realize that instead of photographing ballet, I should move on to film it. Also meeting with leading international ballet critics, expressing their love for the Bournonville tradition, gave me the motivation for starting the film project”, says Signe Roderik and continues:
“I was so touched to see how the New Yorker´s embraced Bournonville. It made me curious and I wanted to understand Bournonville´s legacy and his world. What was the New Yorkers could see in Bournonville that I have missed or not seen the value in?”
Making Bournonville count
Signe Roderik then decided to make the films combining the roles as producer, writer and director. When the two first film was finished, Nikolaj Hübbe saw the result; he invited Signe Roderik to include the film in the upcoming festival.
The first film focused on the style and dramatic content, the second on the mime tradition and the companies mime artists, and finally the last one focusing on the children of the ballet school.
The ballet environment, including the Friends of the Royal Danish Ballet along with other foundations such as “Queen Margrethe & Prince Henrik's Foundation” supported the projects financially, Dancers and mime artist gave their time, and there was large support from the ballet critics.
When the two first film were shown shortly before the festival, it was clear in the ballet environment that Signe Roderik had made a real miracle. In each their way, the two films managed to empower the ballet audience. Not only did the film catch the Bournonville genius and the unique skillset of the mime artists, recently reduced to free lancers. The films became a beautiful tribute and strong reminder of why we need to keep Bournonville as the true star of Danish Ballet. Especially one of the segments, a no makeup/no costume setting displayed the intensity of “La Sylphide” caught the attention.
My own review read:
First out is RDB’s young stars, Ida Praetorius & Andreas Kaas in “The Flower Festival in Genzano Pas de Deux”, bringing all their youth and charm, as well as strong dancing skills. It appeared as charming and fresh as when Mette-Ida Kirk and Ib Andersen brought “The Kermes in Bruges” to live at the 1979 Bournonville Festival.
The athletic and masculine fight by Marcin Kupinski and Sebastian Haynes in the “Jockey Dance” followed. It looked as fresh as it could have been choreographed this month.
Finally, Sorella Englund and Ulrik Birkkjær performed the central confrontation of Madge and James from “La Sylphide” in practically normal clothes and no stage make up. It was mind blowing. It could have been a scene from an Ingmar Bergman movie.
In all, the three segments, supported by the reviewer´s comments makes the case for Bournonville.
He is as fresh, as talented and as indispensable as he has ever been.”
A New York Meeting
When showing the three film in Denmark at several venues, in Los Angeles and at a recent festival in New York, Signe Roderik was surprised by the audiences’ very emotional reactions:
“Somehow we have found a way to connect the artists and the audiences.”
For the New York event, Sorella Englund, the famed mime artists was supposed to be on the festival team. She had been teaching in Canada this summer, but could not get a visa to join the team in New York. Luckily, Alban Lendorf the Danish star at ABT made himself available:
”Watching Signe Roderik's film “When I Dance” at Walter Reade Theater July 2018, took me back to when I was in the Royal Danish Ballet School and felt like I have been given a microphone. The way the children thought about dance and ballet and what it does to them, I remember a very similar feeling, but not being able to express it. Probably because I lacked the vocabulary, which I still do in many ways. The power of the word is very important, but I think sometimes a word makes us put things in boxes and we have a very particular association with it," says Alban Lendorf
One of the ballet children from the film, Sylvester also got a taste of communicating to new audiences.
NY Times Critic Alastair Macaulay wrote this on is twitter account:
“At the end of the third film, Lendorf and I turned to each other and said that some of what Sylvester and his co-star Ella said about the nature of dance, theatre, and performance brought us close to tears because it was so true (we wondered if they were reading a script); during this subsequent discussion, it emerged that Roderik had just let the two children speak in many conversations over a year, with many cups of hot chocolate - wonderful.” Sunday 22 July.
“We were all amazed of the emotional reception of the films. This was not a Copenhagen audience, so no national bias here. During the festival, we talked a lot about the reactions. Was it possible that we had found the key to really touch an audience, even an American one, who is used to an altogether different style of ballet? That made us think about how we could get in contact with the large group of non-ballet audience in Denmark”, says Signe Roderik.
Entering new Territories
At present, Signe Roderik is taking on another new role, involving herself in the choreographic process:
”I am currently working on several ballet projects. It is too early to open up on what we are doing. However, for me it comes as a natural development of my former projects. It will be interesting to see where we get and whether my experience and curiosity can be used on the other side. My next film project is a poetic travel into the destiny of an artist. The theme is how art can be both a savior and a destructor.”
In addition to the film project, Signe Roderik is actively involved in creating story-telling ballets:
”I love telling stories and I love telling them through dance. It is such a gift to work with talented dancers, who are so dedicated and open to new ideas. I feel blessed to be working with some of the best Danish and international dancers.
I hope to l get more opportunities to work with the classically trained dancers on projects where we can celebrate their dramatic skills and reach an audience with good storytelling.”
Some of the dancers, Signe Roderik has worked with on the film project sums op their experiences:
"Working with Signe Roderik often feels like a gentle love declaration. In the creative process Signe Roderik, almost unnoticed, expose the artists' abilities by supporting one's faith in one's own artistry. Signe Roderik has a clear vision, but her improvisational work-method offers everybody involved an inspiring space to grow, that makes the work feels like a playful game. Signe Roderik's film and imagery possesses a rare porous sensibility, with its portrayal of the ballet's wordless movements, through time and space, and makes it an equal dance partner - a poetic partner that guides us behind the curtain and illuminates the beauty of dance. With "The Art of Silence" Signe Roderik brings a cultural legacy and rare art form to testimony." Says Morten Eggert, Character Dancer, The Royal Danish Ballet.
Company Ballerina Ida Praetorius also sums up her experiences:
“Bournonville Today is not like other ballet movies. When I watch ballet films, I often find that some of the energy, which occurs between dancers as well as dancers and the audience, can be lost. It does not translate to the film media. Signe Roderik’s film Bournonville Today is indeed an exception. Bournonville Today is poetic and refined in its expression, and the film demonstrates honest and beautifully the thoughts and emotions I associate with dancing Bournonville's ballets. The film is innovative and at the same time faithful to the soul of ballet.”
It will be very interesting to follow these projects and see what Signe Roderik and the dancers can bring to the stage and film. There are lot of enthusiasm for the project, and - as importantly -high skill sets from the dancers and director. Story telling is in the DNA of the Danish dancers. This could be an amazing and needed development for the dramatic tradition.
Photos:
1. Portrait of Signe Roderik by Barney Cokeliss Copyright (c) Signe Roderik
2 -5 Still photos from the production of the three films Copyright(c) Signe Roderik
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Posted by: Thebalm | November 01, 2018 at 05:34 AM