May 3th, 2020
The six part series on the Royal Danish Ballet School has finally reached its conclusion. Due to the Corona situation, which demanded that the final episode of the series was postponed for another week. However, finally we got to the ending episode where the featured appretencies finally got their future settled. Would they be offered employment in the RDB Company or have to look elsewhere?
Getting Trough
The two leading protagonists in the series, three year´s apprentice Victoria Bell and first year Schonan Greve were both prolonged, Victoria Bell as first year dancer and Schonan Greve as second year apprentice.
It was not possible to tell how many apprentices, the RDB School prolonged. However, only two students have been accepted into the company in 2020, Victoria Bell and Ludwig af Rosenborg. There has only been five dancers joining the company from the RDB School in the last years.
One of the reasons for the diminishing number of apprentices turning into dancers may be the decision to include an academic three-year high school education. It is difficult to serve two masters, and while the RDB apprentices are dedicated to both programs, they do get significantly less stage time and miss many opportunities to learn from the established dancers. Luckily, it looks like the school is currently having bigger intakes of apprentices, including several from other Nordic countries and from the satellite schools.
Nowhere to Dance
Although, Denmark have managed to diminish the Corona attacks, due to early action and closing down schools, workplaces and public entertainment, it has left the Royal Danish Ballet and other arts and entertainment providers without stages and audiences. The RDB has cancelled the annual summer tour. Every dancer in the company have received a vinyl floor for the private homes, so they can continue the daily schools and rehearsals at home.
RDB was forced to cancel three productions, which should have been performed in April and May. The big loss was John Neumeier´s big scale production “3rd Symphony of Gustav Mahler,” and reruns of “A Folk´s Tale” and Twyla Tharp’s Sinatra ballet “Come Fly Away”. Rumors has it that the Neumeier ballet will be part of the next season.
Like other big companies, RDB is currently sharing an impressive number of productions on its homepage kglteater.dk. So far, we have been able to enjoy John Neumeier´s “Romeo & Juliet”, “Napoli”, Christopher Wheeldon´s “Alice”, and Gregory Dean´s “The Forgotten Children” and Nikolaj Hübbe´s production of “Raymonda”. In addition, more production may follow.
New Ways to Celebrate
The RDB was scheduled to perform George Balanchine´s “Ballo della Regina” at a televised gala celebration our Queen´s 80th Birthday. The galla was cancelled but instead the RDB honored the Queen and the Danish public by putting “Ballo della Regina” on the internet and on kglteater.dk.
It is not yet clear when and how the Royal Danish Ballet can get back on stage and it is likely that some changes must be made to the numbers of audience. RDB will announce the repertoire and plans for next season on May12th.
Hopefully, we will be able to enjoy the RDB in real life performances rather sooner than later.
Photos: Copyrights (c) Royal Danish Ballet
1 Victoria Bell by Natascha Thiara Rydwald
2. "Raymonda" by Henrik Stenberg
3.Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas in "Romeo & Juliet" by Costin Radu
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