Eva Kistrup

Two to Tango

 

Gregory Dean:

”Blixen”

Royal Danish Ballet

Second Cast

November 16, 2019

The Old Stage

 

When the casting of “Blixen” first was announced, it became clear that Kizzy Matiakis would dance first cast Karen Blixen from adolescence to 77 year old. Regarding the second cast Gregory Dean would split the role between Ida Praetorius as the young Karen Blixen and by retired star Gudrun Bojesen as the older version. I worried about the second solution. I could not have been more wrong.

While Kizzy Matiakis made a fine and believable portrait of a life span, the double act of Ida Praetorius and Gudrun Bojesen made the character´s development stronger. It seemed like we got two more years at the beginning and the end. Blixen became both younger and older and the story bigger.

Without Words

Gregory Dean:

“Blixen”

Royal Danish Ballet

The Old Stage

November 9, 2019

 

The Danish Author Karen Blixen died in 1962, aged 77. She was in her fifties before she started writing novels and short stories, so her legacy is relatively small. Never the less she is one of the most famous Danish authors on the international scene. She was mention as a possible Nobel Prize winner. However, she lost out to Ernest Hemingway.

As she wrote in English, having lived most of her adult years in Kenya, she attracted a big international group of readers. Karen Blixen was a larger than life person, who lived an interesting but also challenging life. Born in a wealthy family with close links to the aristocracy, many doors were open for her.

Her mother´s rich family invested big sums in the coffee farm she started in Kenya with her husband Bror Blixen-Finicke. In 1985, the film based on her biographical novel  “Out of Africa” starring Merrill Streep, created a new buzz around Karen Blixen´s life and work.

Since then every second year, a new biography on Blixen and her relatives has been published. At present five new movie projects based on Karen Blixen, her family or writing are under development – and now one ballet.