Bare
Bones Bournonville
The Principals and Soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet
Prudential Hall
New Jersey Performing Arts Center
Newark, New Jersey
January 29, 2004
by
Nancy Dalva
copyright
2004 by Nancy Dalva
Since the
1950s, Denmark has been dispatching chamber troupes as dancing ambassadors
to America, most famously to Jacob's Pillow. How fitting to see them on
a freezing cold night in the depth of winter, when one could well appreciate
August Bournonville's fondess for Italy, so lovingly depicted in Napoli.
For the most part, the current troupe (directed by Peter Bo Bendixen)
presented excerpts from the full length ballets of nineteenth century
Danish master August Bournonville—pas de trois, pas de deux, and
divertissements—in no particular order, on a bare stage, and without
sets. Thus, the Bournonville is merely of academic interest: what the
steps are, how the dancers do them, and the like; or merely of insider
interest: how X looks substituting for Y, how B looks compared to C, how
D is being featured instead of E, and so forth.
These
nuggets of dancing were not designed as party entertainments, or little
vaudeville acts, or as transposable units of showing off. (Bournonville
was not an early Merce Cunningham, melding snippets of this and that into
Events.) They are elements of a whole, and that whole is the story ballet.
All the fun and unforced gaiety and naturalness and meaning is not merely
gone in this kind of bare bones presentation. It isn’t there in
the first place. In some places, notably Napoli, one can perhaps
intuit what is going on, in the background folderol with the strolling
girls and the tambourines, and the turning of one dancer to another as
if to chat, but it appears distracting, and a distortion of the design,
when in the framework of the scenery it is not. (For a visual correlative,
see the accompanying photo and mentally remove the background. See what
I mean?)
I wish I could say that these dancers were so effective that the story
is simply embodied in their steps, because they dance with conviction
and without irony, which cannot be easy if you are a short muscular man
stuck in a pair of velvet short shorts and knee socks, leaping around
with a perky village maiden. Yet there is Thomas Lund, a genuine and true
exponent of the bounding yet modest Danish style, in need of a tailor
in the pas de deux from WillemTell (dated 1873, which makes it
very late Bournonville indeed).
A trio from Conservatory (1843) preceded this duet, and the Act
II Divertissement from La Sylphide (1843) followed. Here, there
was enough story to make clear the reason for the dancing, thanks to Nicolaj
Hübbe, guesting with his native troupe, and enjoying himself mightily–or
so it seemed, and that was all one needed to enjoy oneself.
The single best moment of Hübbe’s forthright and very handsome
kilt-clad James was in his mime—specifically the fluttered fingers
over the head that say to the sylph, “Can you fly for me?”
You needed no knowledge of anything outside the action—no background
in mime, no prior knowledge of the story—to know what he was asking.
And fly Gudrun Bojesen did, in featherweight skimming jumps that effortlessly
ascended, as if she could stay in the air for as long as she liked. Air
was her element. She was not surprised to be flying; she was not showing
off; she was merely showing what she was. The drama came not from her
solo, nor in Hübbe’s, but in their contrast. His jumps were
grander than hers, larger, and full of projection because for him, flight
was an accomplishment, not an attribute.
Hübbe is one in a succession of Danish dancers to become a principal
with the New York City Ballet, following Peter Martins, Adam Lüders,
and Ib Andersen. They were all to one extent or another golden princes,
with the exception of Lüders, the Hamlet of the bunch. (Sean Lavery
and Peter Boal would seem to be their American cousins—that is,
New York-bred Danes.) If for no other reason than to see what Balanchine
saw when he worked for the Royal Danish Ballet before coming to America,
the Danes are of interest to someone whose civic ballet is NYCB.
However, on this occasion in Newark, one saw more why the Danes wanted
to get out of Copenhagen and get to New York. It was to dance something
with some edge. This explains the new work thrown into the middle of the
program. The new stuff is Tim Rushton’s, and it has all the tedious
weirdness of so-called “modern ballet,” which is not modern,
or really ballet, but simply contemporary.
One of these barefoot pieces, called Nomade (2001) was a grey-garbed
ritual involving some kind of doom, with lots of Graham-esque contractions
carried out by a corps hip thrusting in unison across the stage like a
conga class gone Norse, and a bizarre passage featuring a quotation from
(or amazing coincidence with) Balanchine’s Serenade, namely
the part where the ballerina falls to the ground after letting down her
hair. Same fall, same place on the stage, different composer. Here it
was Arvo Pärt.
The second of these pieces, Triplex (2001), is a perky trio begun
in silence, which was promising, and continuing to Bach. It couldn’t
decide if it was Twyla Tharp in her Bix Pieces phase (which would
have been heaven), or something along the lines of Eliot Feld or Heinz
Poll. Rushton was born in England but danced with the Danes and lives
in Copenhagen. His work happens to look good on a bare stage with only
a colored backdrop for decor, and the dancers are invested in it.
They cannot have intended to make Rushton seem a more relevant choreographer
than Bournonville. But they did. Theirs is a doomed mission, these stars
of the Royal Danish Ballet taking Bournonville to the world in snippets,
which they carry out credibly, and most charmingly. Is it their fault
that Bournonville out of context is not Bournonville at all, and that
they are all dressed up, but nowhere?
Photo:
Napoli Act III, the Royal Danish Ballet, full company. Photo:
Martin Mydtskov Ronne
Reviews
of the Royal Danish Ballet's week in Washington, D.C.:
Napoli
opening night
Napoli
cast changes
La Sylphide
Bournonville's Next
Steps; What's in Store For, and After, the III Bournonville Festival?
Originally
published:
www.danceviewtimes.com
Volume 2, Number 5
published February 2, 2004
revised
February 3, 2004
Copyright
© 2004 by Nancy Dalva
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Leigh Witchel
David Vaughan
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