Eva Kistrup

Making Ballet so Much Smaller

 

 

 

 

CORPUS + Sebastian Matthias:

GHOSTING

CORPUS

A-salen, October 26, 2018

 

Looking at the Royal Danish Ballet this season so far, the theme seems to be turning ballet into film. Not only in the case of Marcos Morau ´s  “Carmen”, which made almost impossible to see the dancers, as the video and film equipment, as well as the dominating screen, took first place. Yesterday, the in-house company CORPUS premiered a new production, where the key ingredients also was live pictures. The audience was asked to use their own cell phones to follow the action.

I will not argue the likeability of electronic devises becoming a greater part of the audience experience. However, neither “Carmen” nor “Ghosting” managed to make good results of the mix. Seeing any kind of dance on a standard iPhone reduces the performers to ant size.   

While CORPUS try to sell the ballet as giving each audience member his or her own individual experience, the gains are limited. Taking your eyes from the phone, what you get is the standard CORPUS experience where the group of five dancers move, talk and try to integrate the audience in the performance. Some audience plays along. Others simply looks down.

Contrasts

 

 

 

 

Dance2Go

 

Jiri Kylian:

“Symphony of Psalms”

 

Harald Lander:

”Dvorák Pas de Deux”

 

Oliver Starpov:

“My Daddy Loves Sugar…”

October 23, 2018

 

Royal Danish Ballet

The Old Stage

 

Dance2Go was the first of the many concepts, Nikolaj Hübbe has introduced during his term as Artistic Director of Royal Danish Ballet. The aim of these concepts is to attract a broader and younger audience.

The recipe for Dance2Go is a classical ballet from the repertoire, a modern ballet and a Pas de deux. The ticket price is low. However, do not expect a full orchestra. Before each ballet, a film will run where dancers introduce the audience to the ballets they will see.

However, in the most of Nikolaj Hübbe´s tenure, the Royal Danish Ballet together with the opera and drama departments has been subjected to budget cuts. Generous donors have counteracted a lot of these.

However, especially the last series of cuts has become visual. More programs are danced to recorded music. The number of productions and performances are lower. Soon the company will do a +20 performances of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Alice” in the Christmas run, while other high class productions is left with 6 – 8 performances. There is almost no margin for errors.

 

Born to the Job

 

 

Interview with Silvia Selvini

October 22, 2018

 

Maybe Nikolaj Hübbe´s biggest achievement during his 10 years residentiary as artistic director of Royal Danish Ballet has been the development of the female corps to a high level where the corps presents beautiful performances of “Swan Lake”, “Jewels”, “La Bayadére” and “Raymonda.” Bringing the retirement age down from 48 to 40 in 1992 necessitated a bigger intake of younger dancers from abroad to fill the gaps. Several of these dancers has developed into soloists and principals.

During the festival in June, Nikolaj Hübbe promoted four more dancers to soloists, one homegrown talent, Astrid Elbo, and three dancers from abroad, Argentinian Wilma Giglio, Korean Ji Min Hong and Italian Silvia Selvini, who has now been five years at RDB, is educated at the famous “La Scala Ballet School” in Milan.

However, joining the ballet school demanded some tough decisions.

“I had to leave my family to join the school and live with my brother in Milan. It was a difficult step for a young child,” say Silvia Selvini.

Because “La Scala Ballet” has stuck with the 48 year retirement age, there was only room for the company to hire one of her year. Silvia Selvini had to look abroad to find another company. Following a short stint in France, she joined RDB five years ago and have not look back since.