Archive for hamburg ballet
February 2, 2008 at 12:13 pm · Filed under ballet, dance, choreographers, video, SUSAN, contemporary, website, students, hamburg ballet, john neumeier, performance, competition, tickets, switzerland, blogging, paris opera ballet, bejart
© Prix de Lausanne
Exciting news: The final competition round of the Prix de Lausanne will be broadcast live on Sunday 3 February, starting at 3.00pm CET (Central European Time). To watch the competition, simply click here.
The Prix de Lausanne is an international ballet competition that takes place every year in Lausanne, Switzerland. Dancers between the ages of 15 and 18 have been competing in this year’s 36th annual Prix all week long. Judging them are some big names: Altynai Asylmuratova (Kirov Ballet), Elisabeth Platel (Paris Opera Ballet) and Anna Maria Prina (La Scala Ballet). Hamburg Ballet’s Director and Chief Choreographer John Neumeier is serving as the 2008 President of the jury.
This year, the finals will not only feature the competitors, but will also showcase two of Neumeier’s works. The first will be his Opus 100, in tribute to the late choreographer Maurice Béjart. The second will be Yondering, which will feature students from the Hamburg Ballet School, the Paris Opera Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada.
If you weren’t able to purchase tickets to the sold-out performance or if, like me, you are not able to attend the performance in Lausanne, this is a most excellent and very accessible alternative. Also, for anyone who is interested, the Prix de Lausanne has set up a videoblog to chronicle the competition experiences of six participants. Check it out here.
Recent Posts by susan kim
July 13, 2007 at 7:02 am · Filed under dance, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, hamburg ballet, stuttgart ballet, alessandra ferri
Went up to Hamburg for a night this week to see a ballet we, in Stuttgart, are very familiar with 
It was sort of a special ocassion as I believe it was meant to be Alessandra Ferri’s last full lenghth ballet ever. The cast of this gala performance of Neumeier’s ‘’The Lady of the Camellias'’ comprised of dancers from the Paris Opera, Hamburg Ballet and of course Alessandra and Roberto. (Bolle)
Ferri totally knocked me out with her incredible portrayal and Roberto was an inspiration to any tall guy who might dream of playing Armand Duval 
I’m envious of those who get to see or perform in her Gala programs coming up in Italy and Japan. It’s hard to say goodbye to such an amazing artist…
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
April 16, 2007 at 5:29 pm · Filed under choreographers, studio, dancers, royal ballet, pacific northwest ballet, nycb, hamburg ballet, abt, san francisco ballet, choreography, CHRIS, morphoses, bolshoi ballet, christopher wheeldon, washington ballet, the ballet boyz, liv lorent
Photo by Yaniv Schulman
Hi there, Chris Wheeldon here with a first post for the Winger. I hope you guys will enjoy my posts recounting the adventures of building my new ballet company. I hope to also report on some of the experiences with some of the great dancers and companies I am fortunate enough to get to work with.
Wow, the last few months have been incredible. It’s been exhilarating, exhausting, and as much of a high-speed ride as anyone can endure in a short period of time.
Even before the actual work of forming a new dance company has begun in full, just announcing Morphoses brought with it a large amount of interest and expectations, and that alone has added to the intensity of each day.
Since January I have completed and premiered ‘Elsinore‘ (originally Misericordes) for the Bolshoi Ballet, rehearsed and staged Polyphonia in Seattle and Boston, as well as Carousel in New York and with three wonderful casts in San Francisco. I just returned from Washington D.C where Washington Ballet gave a fine performance of Morphoses (the ballet).
I feel fortunate for all of these experiences with different dancers and daily my respect grows for these wonderful people who embrace my choreography with every fibre, both emotionally and physically.
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company is still quite a long way in coming, although we will form as a pick up group for performances this summer. Our goals are longevity and a permanent company, which requires some serious time for planning and building a secure infrastructure.
I have an awesome roster of dancers including Wendy Whelan and Maria Kowroski from City Ballet. Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg from Royal. Angel Corella from ABT .The Ballet Boyz from the UK and Anastasia Yatsenko from The Bolshoi. She was in my recent ballet ‘Elsinore’ and is absolutely beautiful . I was so impressed by her commitment to my work that she is coming to New York for our City Center season. We also have Gonzalo Garcia from San Francisco, Laeticia Guiliani from Florence, Helene Bouchet and Thiago Bourdin from Hamburg and Carla Körbes and Miranda Weese from PNB. In London Alexandra Ansanelli dances with Angel Corella in Balanchine’s Allegro Brilliante. The rest of the rep is some my work including ‘After The Rain‘ and ‘Polyphonia’ mixed with some Forsythe , Michael Clark and Liv Lorent. It’s going to be really exciting. I have also asked ex-City Ballet dancer Edwaard Liang to make a new duet. This along with two brand new works of mine will make up the world premieres for this season. Of course these dancers are on loan for the summer but we hope that sooner rather than later we will be able to hire some permanent members of Morphoses.
Over the past few months, people have been asking me why I want a small company of only 20 dancers. There are several reasons, but it took my experience with rehearsing ‘Carousel’ at San Francisco Ballet in March to help me to understand the reason that remains at the forefront.
During the two weeks I spent on the West Coast, I watched three casts blossom in my ballet ‘Carousel.’ Each one introduced me to something new in my choreography that I hadn’t seen before. What was most interesting, however, was how they inspired and shaped my ideas about the coaching of a ballet.
It is always an honor when a company asks for an existing ballet to be taken into their repertoire, but I have to admit that I have not up until now fully enjoyed the process of coaching dancers in existing roles. I have always focused on the next new ballet.
One of the things that was so rewarding about my time in San Francisco was working with two corps girls in the same lead role.
Being a choreographer is an honor in the sense that you can offer great opportunities to people you believe in. I think that there is nothing more rewarding than molding a young dancer in a leading role. No matter how rough things are to begin with, it is about persistence and a belief that in the end they can see it through. Too often ballet masters and choreographers give up at that crucial point in the process right before the breakthrough. It’s true that it can be frustrating when all you are getting are brief glimpses of full potential over a long period of time, but if you encourage and are patient and truly persistent in your demands, coaxing and often insisting, there is almost always a great pay off. You watch the dancer as they begin to understand their possibilities: that powerful moment when the intellectual understanding becomes physical understanding and the freedom of pure dancing takes over.
I can’t think of a prouder moment watching my three principal casts of ‘Carousel’. They all took great strides and had personal artistic triumphs. Mostly with the corps girls it was about coaxing natural and unaffected dramatic performances and combining that with a keener sense of the shapes their bodies made, using their articulation and physicality to express naturally. It is tough to shed the layers of pretense that we think amounts to acting onstage. Much of the purely classical work that we train for encourages a stylized approach to acting. I wanted both girls to be the honest in her interpretation. In the end they were both absolutely wonderful and I hope they discovered a new side to their gifts. This process with these three casts is ultimately for me what it is all about and why we do what we do. Using each other as artists to discover our potential in order to deliver generous and honest performances to the public. These dancers helped me to believe in the process and to trust in my instincts to not give up after one or two rehearsals when it seems that progress is slow. After all, dancers develop at different speeds both in the course of their careers and over the process of learning and rehearsing a single role.
I look forward to my next couple of trips to The Australian Ballet in Sydney for a staging of ‘After The Rain’ and then on to Houston for ‘Carnival of The Animals‘. I really hope to report on both trips.
Right now I am working on ‘The Nightingale and The Rose’ based on the fairy tale by Oscar Wilde . This is a new ballet for The New York City Ballet Spring Season. So far it has been a tough experience as I have some issues with the commissioned score, but think that’s another story !
Take care all. I am thrilled to be able to be a part of this excellent site.
CHRIS WHEELDON.
Recent Posts by christopher wheeldon
February 8, 2007 at 11:58 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, brooklyn, opera house, brooklyn academy of music, hamburg ballet, john neumeier, lloyd riggins, set design
Posted by Sloan
City/Train.
Last night I crossed the river and headed to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see the Hamburg Ballet in John Neumeier’s Death in Venice.
I’m not even sure where to start in trying to describe this production. I think I was already excited by the beautiful design that brought me here in the first place. I love BAM’s website, and the photo they are using to promote this piece is stunning. On top of that, Hamburg Ballet’s website is also unusually beautiful and well organized. Arriving to the theater, we were confronted by all the chic New Yorkers, Isabella Rossellini among them, who know how good BAM’s programming is and are willing to brave the frigid temperatures to see some great art.
Our seats were in the third row of the mezzanine (fantastic) and as we sat down we got to take in the slick looking drop, which I guess is a diagram of a gondola. Also, the stage had been built out over the orchestra pit, adding a great amount of depth to the stage, and also exposing the white marley (i.e. fancy dance floor material) which was lit so that it appeared to glow. In plain view on the extended stage area were a black chair, a camera, and a grand piano.
The lighting throughout the piece was beautiful, and it is interesting to note that it was also designed by the choreographer. When the drop/curtain first rose, the light spilled onto the extended stage in an exact line, as if a door of light were opening across the width of floor. So cool.
I’m not going to get into the story, even though I probably should. There’s a lot goin on there. It’s an adaptation of the novella by the same name, written by Thomas Mann. It worked very well, the timeless theme of a struggling artist, and a rather depressing ending.
I usually try not to post photos from other websites, but this piece was just so beautiful, there’s no way I can do it justice by trying to describe it. Images © Holger Badekow
The piece began with Lloyd Riggins (the lead character, Aschenbach, a revered but frustrated choreographer with an appropriate black turtleneck) on stage with Laura Cazzaniga who portrayed multiple roles within the piece. The first few minutes were silent, except for a big sigh by Riggins. I had the feeling that I was at a play rather than a dance performance, which is a good thing.
The set design was incredible as well. For the first portion of the piece there were two large panels on either side of the stage with space between and space behind from which dancers appeared. At one point the background between the two panels became a mirror (Aschenbach is a choreographer and this seemed to be when he was working). The effect was really amazing from our seats, as we could see the back of the dancer, the glowing white floor, and the rows of audience members before him. At another point, it was actually raining in the background area, with a bit of fog and the wonderful sound of the rain.
Later the side panels disappeared, and for this scene, tall skinny panels floated across the space. The scale and simplicity of the design made the perfect environment in which to display the beautiful dancing.
This was one of my favorite scenes, with drops that look like trees reflected in water.
Edvin Revazov portrayed Aschebach’s infatuation/inspiration, Tadzio, wonderfully. The interaction between the two of them was intense.
In the section entitled Metamorphosis, Aschenbach sits in a hairdresser’s chair… “We are only so old as we feel in our hearts and minds. A man in your position has a right to his natural hair color.”
When watching Lloyd Riggins, I felt as if I were seeing the performance of a great actor, as well as dancer. No detail was missed or thrown away in order to get to a snazzy step. It was all important and intentional. Edvin Revazov was right there with him, and reminded me a bit of a blonde Clark Kent.
The music was also effective, with a recurring theme of the same Bach piece, played by different instruments in different places throughout the work. This was interspersed mostly with Wagner, and a little Yngwie Malmsteen thrown in.
Something extra which I thought was interesting, was that when I got my “BAMbill” I recognized the cover art as a piece of art I had just scene in the lobby. In the program it says that the proceeds from the sale of this art goes towards supporting BAM. So does BAM commission a new piece every season which is then sold, or is it donated? Either way, a neat idea. The piece is by Melora Kuhn.
Also, this chandelier was crazy. Good crazy. Microphones out of some mystery material that looked like it might glow in the dark. It’s in the upstairs space if you want to visit it.
Oh, and of course we can’t forget the requisite ceiling shot. This is a pretty good one.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
