As the Royal Ballet’s founder choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton is to them what Bournonville represents to the Royal Danish Ballet. He nurtured Ninette de Valois‘s young company and gave it an identity through pieces created to help develop its dancers. Ashton’s creations for the Royal Ballet shaped the English style of ballet, combining classical purity with expressive qualities.

Marianela Nuñez as Sylvia and Rupert Pennefather as Aminta in Ashton's Sylvia. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

The current Royal Ballet season features such Ashton gems as La Fille Mal Gardée, Les Patineurs/Beatrix Potter and Cinderella, while the next 18 months will bring revivals of Sylvia, Rhapsody and Scènes de Ballet along with another taster of Cinderella, Les Patineurs and Tales of Beatrix Potter. There’s also a Royal Ballet DVD of his masterpiece Ondine due this week, so it’s high time for us to look at Ashton and his incredible talent for turning different concepts, narrative and abstract, into pure classical dance.

Frederick Ashton in a Nutshell

Sir Frederick Ashton. Photo: Anthony Crickmay / V&A Theatre Museum ©

Frederick Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador in 1904. He spent his early years in Lima, Peru. At age 13 he saw Anna Pavlova perform and from then on he knew he wanted to be a dancer (“She injected me with her poison and there was an end of me”). A year later he was sent to boarding school at Dover College in England but he would only start taking ballet lessons six years later. By the time he started training (in secret) with  Léonide Massine, the famous dancer & choreographer, Ashton was 20 years old.

When Léonide Massine had to leave England he advised Ashton to continue his studies with Marie Rambert. Ashton dreamed of becoming a great dancer, but the reality of his late start and particular physique dawned on him. Rambert had noticed Ashton’s ability with choreography and encouraged him to start creating pieces for her company.  He was 21 years old when he choreographed his first ballet, A Tragedy of Fashion (1926). He used designs by Sophie Fedorovitch who became a close friend and collaborator.

In 1928 Ashton was hired as a performer with Ida Rubinstein‘s company in France, dancing under the direction of Bronislava Nijinska. There he continued to learn more about choreography and became influenced by Nijinska’s work. Returning to London he carried on developing pieces for  The Ballet Club (later renamed Ballet Rambert).

Ashton’s ballet Capriol Suite was noticed by none less than Anna Pavlova. She asked him to create a piece for her but this dream collaboration never materialised as she died soon afterwards. However he did get to collaborate with renowned ballerinas Tamara Karsavina, Lydia Lopokova and Alicia Markova during his days of dancing and choreographing for The Camargo Society.

Ashton’s work also got the attention of Ninette de Valois and she started commissioning pieces for the Vic-Wells Ballet, her fledgling company and Ashton’s future home:

• In September 1931 he created Regatta, first of a series of collaborations. In 1935 he was officially hired by the Vic-Wells as a guest dancer and choreographer .

• During this period he created successful ballets such as Les Rendezvous (1933), Le Baiser de La Fée (1935), Les Patineurs, A Wedding Bouquet (1937) and Dante Sonata (1940). Ashton danced in many of these pieces but created most of the principal roles on Margot Fonteyn (who would become his muse) and Robert Helpmann.

Steven McRae as the Blue Boy in Ashton's Les Patineurs. Photo: Tristram Kenton / ROH ©

• Having joined the RAF, Ashton spent several years away from the stage during World War II. He returned in time to follow Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet’s move to its new home at Covent Garden and developed what he would later refer to as his “choreographic credo” – works as Symphonic Variations (1946) and Scènes de Ballet (1948).

• In 1948 he became an Artistic Director and later, in recognition of his contribution to the company, Associate Director (a more prestigious post at that time).

• In 1949 Ashton’s successfully premiered his first 3 act, full-length ballet à la Petipa, Cinderella. The ballet was included in the company’s American tour and despite Cinderella’s lukewarm reception overseas, Ashton was invited by NYCB to choreograph for them.

• In 1950 Illuminations premiered in New York at New York City Center. With designs by Cecil Beaton, Ashton’s first ballet for a US Company was a great success and captivated American audiences.

• His most successful ballet to date, La Fille Mal Gardée, premiered at Covent Garden in 1960 and is currently in the repertoire of more than 22 companies around the world.

• In 1963 Ashton succeeded De Valois as Director of The Royal Ballet a position he kept for 7 years. In recognition of his services he was awarded with the perpetual title of Founder Choreographer upon his resignation.

• During his directorship Ashton ensured Nijinska’s ballets Les Noces and Les Biches were frequently staged and that ballets by Tudor and Balanchine were brought to the repertoire. He also created ten further ballets including Marguerite & Armand, The Dream, Monotones I & II and Enigma Variations.

Ashton kept choreographing for The Royal Ballet well into the 80′s; mainly short pieces created on specific dancers for gala events or operas. His last work was Nursery Suite (1988) for the Queen’s Sixtieth Birthday Gala. He died on 19 August 1988 at his country home Chandos Lodge in Eye, Suffolk, at the age of 83.

Artists of The Royal Ballet in Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille Mal Gardée. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

Ashton’s Ballets

Ashton’s early ballets were created to develop the technical and interpretive demands of dancers from De Valois’s company. With their mix of lyricism, precision and vibrancy they were instrumental in shaping the English style: small &  speedy footwork with use of the upper body. Dancers often remark on his demanding choreography which, to audiences, should look completely effortless.

Sir Fred’s influences ranged from Pavlova and Bronislava Nijinska to his training in the Cecchetti system. He was renowned for structuring ballets; matching music to action and creating characters out of steps (good examples are Fille or Les Patineurs). He would go into rehearsal with an idea of the overall effect he wanted but without specific steps. Demanding from the dancers certain movements or shapes (ie. a tree, a fountain, etc), he would observe them, refine and revisit. The dancers were active parts of the choreographic process but it was always Ashton’s eye that would prevail.

NY Times critic Alastair Macaulay has likened Ashton’s choreographic skills to those of composer Haydn:

Ashton choreographs the way that Haydn composed: he takes a motif, adds to it, plays with it, changes its dynamics, sets it against something dissimilar, turns it inside out, extends it, transforms it. Notes on the Fred Step, 2004

Alina Cojocaru, Edward Watson and Joshua Tuifua in Ashton's Scènes de Ballet. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

One of Asthon’s most recognised and admired qualities was his use of classical vocabulary in dance making. Rather than resorting to a severe transformation of ballet steps (as Balanchine did) Ashton created works that were purely classical but felt modern at the same time. In his own words:

All ballets which are not based on the classical ballet and do not create new dancing patterns and steps within its idiom are, as it were, only tributaries of the main stream.

His ballets covered a wide range of styles:

• Comedy/Satire as in A Wedding Bouquet and Façade
• Narrative as in Le Baiser de la Fée, La Fille Mal Gardée, Apparitions and Nocturne
• Divertissements as in Les Rendezvous
• Abstract as in Symphonic Variations, Scènes de Ballet, etc.
  

Lauren Cuthbertson, Miyako Yoshida, Sarah Lamb and David Makhateli in Ashton's Symphonic Variations. Photo: Dee Conway / ROH ©

The Fred Step

Ashton might not have been overly superstitious but he always found a way to include a signature combination of steps as a personal tribute to his beloved Pavlova. Principal dancer Michael Somes said at the time “even when a new work was completed, room must had to be found for [Ashton's] signature step.”

Ashton called his lucky step the Pavlova (as it originated from a step she performed when dancing a Gavotte) but nowadays this combination is referred to as the Fred Step. It goes like this:

1. Pose en arabesque:  dancer steps onto one leg with the opposite leg stretched behind
2. Coupé dessous (sometimes in fondu): dancer extends leg down to the front with a step, picking up and placing the other foot behind the ankle.
3. Petit développé à la seconde: dancer slightly lifts foot behind the ankle along the supporting leg and extends to the side
4. Pas de bourrée dessous: Leg is brought to the back and dancer performs a series of “sideway steps” with the legs interchanging and the back leg finishing at the front in fifth position (see Pas de Bourrée under)
5. Pas de chat: A jump to the side with the knees bent ending in fifth position.

You can also check each of these terms separately in our Bag of Steps section.

The Fred Step can be found as early as 1933 in Ashton’s ballet Les Masques. The step is usually “hidden”, ie. it is not usually done by the principal dancer, but by a corps member or by a supporting character.

Finding the Fred Step

• Cinderella: in Act I the dancing master teaches this step to one of the Ugly sisters and Cinderella later tries to copy it.

• The Dream: done by Moth, the last fairy onstage, at the end of her dance as Oberon comes behind her.

• A Month in the Country: done by Natalia Petrovna and her admirer Rakitin as they exit the stage arm-in-arm, with their backs to the audience.

• La Fille Mal Gardée: done by the peasants in Act 1, scene one and reprised on both flute dances in Act 1, scene two. See video below:

Awards and Honours

• CBE in recognition of his work as choreographer and dancer, 1950.
• Knight of the British Empire, 1962
• Named Companion of Honour, 1970
• Member of the Order of Merit, 1977
• Member of the Legion d’Honneur, 1962 (France)
• Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog, 1963 (Denmark)
• Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award from RAD, 1959
• Gold Medal from the Carina Aria Foundation in Sweden, 1972
• Honorary degrees as Doctor of Letters from the Universities of Durham (1962) and East Anglia (1967)
• Honorary degrees as Doctor of Music from the Universities of London (1970) and Oxford (1976)

Ivan Putrov as Oberon and Roberta Marquez as Titania in Ashton's The Dream. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

Some of Ashton’s Works

• A Tragedy of Fashion (1926)
• Suite de Danses (Galanteries) (1927)
• Capriol Suite (1930)
• Façade, Regatta (1931)
• Les Rendezvous (1933)
• Le Baiser De La Fée (1935)
• Apparitions, Nocturne (1936)
• Les Patineurs, A Wedding Bouquet (1937)
• The Wanderer (1941)
• Symphonic Variations (1946)
• Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (1947)
• Scénes de Ballet (1948)
• Cinderella (1948)
• Illuminations (1950)
• Daphnis and Chloë (1951)
• Sylvia (1952)
• Homage to the Queen (1953)
• Romeo and Juliet (Romeo og Julie, 1955) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• Birthday Offering (1956)
• La Valse (1958)
• Ondine (1958)
• La Fille Mal Gardée (1960)
• Les Deux Pigeons (1961)
• Marguerite and Armand (1963)
• The Dream (1964)
• Monotones I and II (1966)
• Enigma Variations (1968)
• Tales of Beatrix Potter (1970)
• Meditation from Thäis (1971)
• A Month in the Country (1976)
• Tweedledum and Tweedledee (1977)
• Rhapsody (1980)
• Nursery Suite (1986)

Artists of The Royal Ballet in Ashton's Cinderella. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

Videos

• Margot Fonteyn in a solo from Nocturne [link]
• Roberta Marquez, Belinda Hartley, Laura Morera, Federico Bonelli, Ludovic Ondiviela and Steven McRae in Symphonic Variations [link]
• Miyako Yoshida in a solo from Scènes de Ballet [link]
• Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg in Cinderella, Act II Pas de Deux [link]
• David Makhateli and Marianela Nuñez in Sylvia, Act I Pas de Deux [link]
• Katherine Healy (Juliet) and Patrick Armand (Paris) in Romeo & Juliet [link]
• Thiago Soares and Darcey Bussell in the Birthday Offering Pas de Deux [link]
• Margot Fonteyn in Ondine, Act I [link]
• Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta in La Fille Mal Gardée [link]
• Robert Parker and Nao Sakuma rehearse BRB’s The Two Pigeons [link]
• Margot Fonteyn & Rudolf Nureyev in a documentary about Marguerite & Armand (extract) [link]
• Alessandra Ferri & Ethan Stiefel in The Dream [link]
• Zenaida Yanowsky, Iñaki Urlezaga and Edward Watson in Monotones II [link]
• Thiago Soares and Leanne Benjamin in Meditations of Thäis Pas De Deux [link]
• Lynn Seymour & Anthony Dowell in A Month in the Country [link]
• Tamara Rojo in Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan [link]
• Wayne Sleep and Graham Fletcher as the twins and Lesley Collier as Alice in Tweedledum and Tweedledee [link]
• Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lesley Collier in the pas de deux from Rhapsody [link]

Alina Cojocaru in Ashton's Scènes de Ballet. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

Sources and Further Information

1. La Fille Mal Gardée Programme Notes, Royal Ballet 2009-2010 Season
2. ABT Biographical Notes on Sir Frederick Ashton [link]
3. Wikipedia Entry on Sir Frederick Ashton [link]
4. Secret Muses: The Life of Frederick Ashton by Julie Kavanagh. Faber and Faber,  ISBN-10: 0571190626
5. Ballet Biographies by Gladys Davidson. Werner Laurie, London 1952.
6. Ashton Now by David Vaughan. Following Sir Fred’s Steps: Ashton’s Legacy. Edited by Stephanie Jordan & Andrée Grau. Dance Books 1996. ISBN-10: 1852730471. Ballet.co [link] 
7. Character and Classicism in Ashton’s Dances by John Percival. Following Sir Fred’s Steps. Ashton’s Legacy. Edited by Stephanie Jordan & Andrée Grau. Dance Books 1996. ISBN-10: 1852730471. Ballet.co [link]
8. The Influence of Cecchetti on Ashton’s Work by Richard Glasstone. Following Sir Fred’s Steps. Ashton’s Legacy. Edited by Stephanie Jordan & Andrée Grau. Dance Books 1996. ISBN-10: 1852730471. Ballet.co [link]
9. Notes on the Fred Step by Alastair Macaulay. The Ashton Archive, Danceview 2004 [link]
10. Can This Choreographer Be Saved? by Mary Cargill. The Ashton Archive, Danceview 2003 [link]
11. Chronological Listing of Ashton’s Ballets. Compiled by David Vaughan. The Ashton Archive [link]
12. Step-by-step guide to dance: Frederick Ashton by Sanjoy Roy. The Guardian, March 2010 [link]

A few days before we set off for Copenhagen we had the opportunity to chat to UK based Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup. Kim has consistently produced innovative, modern pieces using non-linear narrative. His film-school background is a visible influence on his style, with plenty of shifts, cuts and stories that are open for personal interpretation. Goldberg, his 2009 project with Royal Ballet Principal Tamara Rojo has just been nominated for an Olivier Award (Best New Dance Production) but the main focus of our conversation was Rushes, Fragments of a Lost Story a piece Kim created for The Royal Ballet in 2008 which is being revived for a run of 5 performances starting tonight. Rushes was choreographed on 2 separate co-creating casts: one with Carlos Acosta, Alina Cojocaru and Laura Morera, and another with Tom Whitehead, Leanne Benjamin and Tamara Rojo.

During the interview we touched upon another double project Kim is currently working on: 2 new ballets for The Royal Danish Ballet, one all-female and another all-male, using the same music in different orchestrations. Kim also spoke to us about his career, working with different dancers and the importance of narrative ballets nowadays. You can read a capsule biography of Kim here.

Kim Brandstrup. Photo: Henrik Bjerregrav ©

For those who are not very familiar with your work, can you describe your choreographic process? How do you start a piece and develop a theme?

KB: Each piece is different. Music is very important. Music and dancers. The casting is where I start. As you probably know I’ve worked with narrative quite a lot, even when I did contemporary dance and of course, I always have a story or have a type of content in the end, but what sparks me creatively is the dancing, how a particular dancer moves and the music.

Whenever I go in, whenever you walk into the studio, you are looking for something to surprise you, you are looking for something you haven’t seen before. Sometimes that happens as an organic development of what’s already there and sometimes if I delay that a tiny bit something is going to take place. I think that for the dancers it’s also something very important to feel, that it’s alive and it has to be alive in the studio. There is a tendency for the dancers to feel the piece it’s theirs only when they take it onstage and the studio is the kind of thing you have to get through in order to get the freedom…but I think the sense of play and experiment and risk taking and pure fun has to be there all the time.

How do you find working with The Royal Ballet? How does its strong dramatic style fit within your own?

KB: What I think is wonderful about The Royal Ballet is that it has a tradition, inhabiting a kind of fictional word, where the dancers continuously work with Ashton and MacMillan, doing dramatic, theatrical work. I always feel that the dancers are lovely human beings when they come on stage. I feel that this is something I can draw from and enjoy very much. Of course the company has a style but I always try to work with the individual. It’s one dancer and the particular way a dancer moves that actually turns me on, so I try to go in and find what’s unique to the individual.

When I did Rushes I worked with two casts simultaneously and even though you would say that probably the steps are fairly similar, what comes out is very different and I think that it is important, finding, giving creative room to these artists, these individuals.

Carlos Acosta and Laura Morera in Kim Brandstrup's Rushes: Fragments of a Lost Story. Photo: Bill Cooper / ROH ©

Can you expand on this concept of working with two different Principal casts leading to very different portrayals of the same characters?

KB: From the beginning I said I would like to have two casts and that I would like to work with them individually, so they never came on the same studio. I chose the dancers and said I didn’t want the second cast to stand in the background and learn it second hand, so we had complete separate rehearsals. The corps de ballet is the same in both but for the principals I set separate rehearsals because there is a kind of intimacy and trust that you need to build between the dancers and the choreographer.

Did any of the casts see the other cast?

KB: Only later on. For a long time they didn’t and I think that some of them might not even have seen the other. I haven’t asked them about it. I think they preferred not to, at least not during in the creative process. I think each cast trusted that I would develop the version that was right for them.

Some dancers have mentioned in the past that you are always changing things around [Kim laughs]. So how are you approaching the upcoming revival of Rushes?

KB: There are no cast changes, which is wonderful. Both casts are there, and it’s only a year and a half since we did it and those pieces are so tied to those people that I couldn’t even think of anybody else, although if I had to I would do it.

When you go in the studio you have to look at what’s in front of you: I know the music inside out, I know what’s supposed to happen that day but I am ready to scrap it when I see something better in front of me. The more experienced you get, the more open you become to let the wonderful artists you have take the piece in completely new directions and interpret the steps you give them. Once you’ve done something, the exciting bit is that the music and the steps settle in the dancers’ body and become second nature so you don’t have to do so much the second time around. But there’s also a certain kind of freedom when you revisit something. Suddenly you see new potential, things that you hadn’t and then you change it, like steps, structurally little things. You always look for something new, otherwise it wouldn’t be fun. You may see things you didn’t expect. Someone does something that is wonderful and you didn’t think it was possible; you have to grab it and use it.

Thomas Whitehead and Clara Barbera in Kim Brandstrup's Goldberg. Photo: Ben Delfont ©

We recently finished reading Different Drummer [Jann Parry's Biography of Kenneth MacMillan] and we were fascinated by how much of MacMillan’s choreography was inspired by cinema. We know that cinema is also your background and your passion. What’s your take on MacMillan?

KB: I am very fond of him. I think he is wonderful, there is a very strong narrative and dramatic centre to it and there is also the completely unique wonderful virtuoso quality of his work that’s been very inspiring to watch. I’ve been very lucky to see The Royal Ballet for the past fifteen years and seeing different casts do Manon, Mayerling… and also, enjoying the incredible individuality of how they do it. I feel that it keeps growing, it keeps developing, you see new things when a new generation takes over.

Would you say that there are elements in common between your style and MacMillan’s?

KB: It is always hard to say, I am sure I’ve been inspired by what I’ve seen of MacMillan. I think MacMillan has worked very much in the sort of traditional 3-act ballet, staying true to the tradition and pushing it. He pushed the limits and really did wonderful things with ballet. I think the narratives I started doing were probably a bit more cinematic, a bit more fragmented. You know, in classical ballet you have 3 different locations in each act and [in cinema] there is a sense of editing and jumping. All of those things are interesting to me, so probably the narrative comes out as slightly more condensed.

Steven McRae and Tamara Rojo are rehearsed by Kim Brandstrup. Photo: Ben Delfont ©

Speaking of traditional 3-act ballets, what’s your take on the regular scheduling of blockbusters such as The Nutcracker, Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty to keep ballet companies afloat?

KB: I think it is hard for companies to keep doing the same pieces over and over again. I know in America there are companies that survive on doing The Nutcracker for two months, it’s their bread and butter. But for a young dancer the creation of new work is important and so is the sense of them being a creative participant, to contribute, especially in early days. They need to experience that. So it is a problem and, yet, the classics too are important in the way that they pursue a particular kind of technical virtuosity that is very hard to achieve. Nothing trains you as a ballerina as much as Sleeping Beauty does, so it will always be a conflict.

What you have just described with Sleeping Beauty… it seems choreography based on classical vocabulary nowadays tends to suppress the type of technical virtuosity we are used to seeing in those blockbusters. Why is that?

KB: Of course I can only speak from my personal point of view. I look at the classical technique as a potential for movement. I try not to use it as a vocabulary. I always feel if you do set steps and if you put certain steps together it’s not so interesting. But if you have the technique, and the chops to do that, you have an incredible internal strength and power which can be used in all kinds of different ways so I hope that some of the things I do are virtuoso in another way. Affectionately I can relate to 19th century style and I love to see it, but I live now in the 21st century so I couldn’t use it as such, so I always say that I look for movement rather than steps.

Why do you think it is so hard now to create full-length ballets?

KB: It’s hard because that form was very utilised in the 19th century before there were films and television. The pacing of how you told a story was very different and now we have a much quicker sensibility in terms of perceiving an art. We clock it very quickly. For instance in film, it is a different storytelling. Also, some of the really strict formal mime is difficult for contemporary choreographers to work with, unless you do it as a homage, so part of the problem is how to construct a piece that moves and keeps you dramatically engaged.

I do think it’s possible but one has to really think of how to do a narrative ballet and of course, MacMillan is an example of someone who pushed the form. When he created his full lengths he was part of the house. He would pick out the dancers who would work for him, which is a very important part. And also to create such a big work you really need good support from the company.

When you started you had your own company, ARC. Can you elaborate on the pros and cons of running your own company as a choreographer?

KB: It was incredibly important for my personal development to have a company. I was in charge of my business, doing exactly what I wanted to do, I had a group of dancers around me that were there because they wanted to work with me and that I chose because I wanted to work with them. There was a sense of family, of trust in the studio. It was part of taking necessary risks. But at the stage where I am on my career now, it’s nice not to have the responsibility of “having a family”, fundraising, touring, the whole admin outside of the creative world that eats a lot of the time.

At the moment I am quite happy where I am. Of course sometimes I miss having that sense of family but on the other hand, it can also be exciting to meet a particular dancer anywhere and to be able to work together. You need different things at different times in your career and at the time I started 15-20 years ago, it was invaluable. It was a place where I could experiment. When I started out, nobody did narrative work in contemporary dance so it was the only place where I could do it.

Steven McRae in Kim Brandstrup's Goldberg. Photo: Ben Delfont ©

We know that you’ve been working with The Royal Danish Ballet in a couple of new pieces. What can you tell us about them?

KB: Well, the company has changed a lot, there is a new Artistic Director [Nikolaj Hübbe]. There has been a sort of big generation shift, I would say it’s younger. Nikolaj has really worked on the kind of technical side and has generated a physical excitement in the company and the kind of discipline that I think it’s great and needed.

I’ve done some initial work on the pieces that I am doing in May. I have been casting, just trying things, it looks good, the company looks in good shape. It’s an interesting project. Nikolaj wanted to separate the men and the women and make two programmes (MK Ballerina and MK Danseur Noble), so he asked me if I’d be interested. I said yes but I had two stipulations. One was that I could do a piece for the men and one for the women. I would use the same music, which has been written for it, in two different orchestrations by Danish composer Kim Helweg and then structurally they would be similar but for the corps, they would be physically very different. The second stipulation was that I wanted to bring a man in the last 5 minutes of the piece for the 12 women and viceversa with the men, so 12 men and 1 woman. I felt that the piece needed that.

For the music, we wanted to work with what there was in the repertoire, so there is a part that is Baroque and then there are strings, as they are also doing Serenade [as part of MK Ballerina programme], so it was orchestrated around what was available.

We know you are an avid reader so what’s on your bedside table right now?

KB: I’ve just been given Memoirs: Duc de Saint-Simon (Louis de Rouvroy). It is based on the years near the end of the reign of Louis XIV. It is a description of the reality of Versailles, what they were eating, how badly it smelled…

Are there any ballets you would like to choreograph to a book/story you have read?

KB: There is always some story. There is a wonderful play called Life Is A Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. [E. enthusiastically tells Kim she has recently seen Life Is a Dream brilliantly staged by the Donmar Warehouse in London with Dominic West in the main role]. It’s the one thing I would love to work on someday.

Kim Brandstrup’s Rushes – Fragments of a Lost Story is part of As One/Rushes/Infra triple bill which runs at the Royal Opera House from tonight until 4 March. For booking details visit the ROH website.

MK Ballerina and MK Danseur Noble will premiere at The Royal Danish Theatre on 20 May and 21 May respectively. The programmes will run until 5 June. For booking details visit The Royal Danish Ballet website.

The Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauties have just drawn to a close, giving way to the usual Christmas special of Nutcrackers. Notice anything in common? Both are Petipa ballets, both are amongst the safest for box office purposes, with blockbuster works such as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, their lavish costumes, orchestral music and vast ensemble of dancers, always in demand with regulars and first timers alike. Petipa ballets may be overly done, but they remain definitive classics, with great choreography which survived more or less unscathed over the years since their Imperial Ballet days.

In this post we look at Marius Petipa and the scale of his achievements. This Franco-Russian choreographer changed the face of ballet and created masterpieces – the first ballets that come to mind when one thinks classical dance – that continue to inspire generations of dancers, new choreographers and audiences.

Marius Petipa in a Nutshell

Marius Petipa. Photo: Mariinsky Theatre

Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was born on 11 March of 1822 in Marseille son of an actress, Victorine Grasseau, and a ballet dancer (and eventually ballet master) Jean Antoine Petipa . Petipa got drawn into the  ballet world early on, starting to train at age 7 in Brussels where his family had moved to. At the time, Petipa attended the Brussels Conservatory, where he studied music. He went to school at the Grand College.

Initially Petipa danced only to please his father who wanted to see him perform. However, he soon became enchanted with the art form and progressed so fast that he debuted at 9 in his father’s production of Pierre Gardel‘s La Dansomani. With the Belgian revolution forcing the family to move again, Jean Antoine secured a job as ballet master at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. There, Petipa completed his training under the watchful eye of Auguste Vestris. By 1838, he had a job as Premier danseur in Nantes.

The following year Petipa and his father toured the United States performing for audiences who had never seen or known about ballet. While the tour was disastrous it had plenty of historical significance. Performing at the National Theatre in Broadway, Petipa was involved in the first ballet ever staged in New York City. From there Petipa travelled to Paris were he debuted at the Comédie-Française (or Théâtre-Français), partnering Carlotta Grisi and at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opéra).

In 1841 he returned to Bordeaux as a Premier danseur with the company, studying under Vestris while debuting in lead roles in Giselle and La Fille Mal Gardée. It was in Bordeaux that he started choreographing full-length productions. In 1843 he moved to the King’s Theatre in Madrid where he learnt about traditional Spanish Dancing which would come in handy for making character dances later on. He was forced to leave Spain after being challenged to a duel by a cuckolded husband, the Marquis de Chateaubriand, an important member of the French Embassy. Back in Paris, he took a position as Premier danseur at the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg where he arrived in 1847. His father soon followed, becoming a teacher at the Imperial Ballet School until his death in 1855.

Upon his arrival in St Peterburg, Petipa was recruited to assist in the staging of Joseph Mazilier‘s Paquita (originally staged at the Paris Opéra). Helped by his father, he also staged Mazilier’s Le Diable Amoureux. Both productions were praised and Petipa’s skills brought much needed respite to a company then in crisis.

The Mariinsky Ballet in Petipa's Le Corsaire. Photo: Valentin Baranovsky / Mariinsky Theatre ©

Towards the end of 1850 Jules Perrot arrived as Premier Maître de Ballet (Principal ballet master) for the St. Petersburg Theatres. His main collaborator, composer Cesare Pugni, had also been appointed as Ballet Composer at the Imperial Theatres. Petipa danced the main roles in Perrot’s productions and served as his assistant, staging revivals such as Giselle (1850) and Le Corsaire (1858). In parallel Petipa started to choreograph dances for opera and to revise dances for Perrot’s productions.

Petipa was now choreographing more frequently, making ballets for his ballerina wife Maria Sergeyevna Surovshchikova. A rivalry with Arthur Saint-Léon, the new Principal ballet master after Perrot’s retirement (1860) developed, the two competing for the most successful production. But while Saint-Léon’s The Little Humpbacked Horse was very well received he flopped with Le Poisson Doré (1866) and Le Lys (1869) which led to his contract not being renewed. Not long afterwards Saint-Léon died of a heart attack leaving an opening for Petipa to fill the position of Premier Maître de Ballet (March, 1871).

Before being appointed ballet master Petipa had already:

• Had a huge success with La Fille du Pharaon (The Pharaoh’s Daughter, 1862), at that time the most popular ballet in the repertoire with over 200 performances by 1903;
• Revived Le Corsaire;
• Presented Le Roi Candaule at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre;
• Staged Don Quixote at the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre.

1898 photo of Petipa's ballet "The Pharaoh's Daughter", Mathilde Kschessinska as Princess Aspicia and Olga Preobrajenska as Ramzé the slave. Photo: Imperial Mariinsky Theatre.

When Don Quixote was lavishly restaged in St. Petersburg its composer Ludwig Minkus became official Ballet Composer of the Imperial Theatres, leading Petipa and Minkus into a fruitful collaboration, with La Bayadère (1877) becoming one of Petipa’s most celebrated works.

Minkus retired in 1886 and Director Ivan Vsevolozhsky did not seek a replacement official composer, allowing instead for more diversified ballet music. This paved the way for Tchaikovsky to collaborate with Petipa in The Sleeping Beauty (1889) and create one of the most successful classical ballets of all time. At that time Petipa was diagnosed with a skin disease which meant long periods away from work. For The Nutcracker (1892) Tchaikovsky worked with Petipa’s assistant Lev Ivanov who would frequently cover for Petipa together with Enrico Cecchetti.

The Mariinsky Ballet in Petipa's Le Reveil de Flore (The Awakening of Flora). Photo: Natasha Razina / Mariinsky Theatre ©

During his tenure as balletmaster Petipa also:

• supervised Ivanov and Cecchetti in the staging of Cinderella (1894) with italian virtuosa Pierina Legnani in the title role. Here she first performed the famous 32 fouettés en tournant later consecrated in Swan Lake;
• choreographed The Awakening of Flora (1894) with music by Riccardo Drigo;
• revived, together with Lev Ivanov, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (1895). Lev Ivanov worked on the second and fourth acts while Petipa was in charge of the rest. Together they turned this previously unsuccessful ballet into one of the all-time greatest;
• Continued working (coaching Anna Pavlova in her debut in Giselle) despite the deterioration of his health and persecution from new artistic director Vladimir Telyakovsky following an ill-received adaptation of Snow White (entitled Le Miroir Magique);
• Created a final ballet, L’Amour de la Rose et le Papillon, which was scrapped before its premiere by Telyakovsky due to the impending war with Japan.

Petipa retired to Gurzuf in southern Russia in 1907 at the suggestion of his doctors. He remained there until his death on July 14, 1910. A diary entry dated 1907 reads: “I can state I created a ballet company of which everyone said: St. Petersburg has the greatest ballet in all Europe.”

His Ballets

Petipa will be forever associated with lavish productions, character and classical dances, big ensemble and dramatic scenes in mime or in pas d’action (mime with dance). His dances combine the technical purity of the French school with the virtuosity of the Italian school. He was very involved in the creation of his ballets, researching subject matter extensively and working close with the composer and designer. He created choreography before going to the studio and teaching it to his dancers. He produced more than 46 original works and revised many more (e.g. Giselle), of which a large share is still being performed today.

The Mariinsky Ballet in The Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Natasha Razina / Mariinsky Theatre ©

Petipa’s ballets have survived more of less intact thanks to the availability of the  Stepanov Method of notation from 1891 onwards. The method combines the encoding of dance movements with musical notes, in two steps: first, the breaking down of a complex movement and second, the translation of the broken down/basic movement into a musical symbol. The project was taken over by Alexander Gorsky and eventually by Nicholas Sergeyev, a former Imperial dancer, who later brought Giselle to the Paris Opéra Ballet and The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Coppélia and The Nutcracker into The Royal Ballet. These notated versions became the standard choreographic text and have been adopted by nearly every major ballet company in the world.

A (non-exhaustive) list of his works

Original Works

• Le Carnaval de Venise (Pugni on a theme by Nicolò Paganini, 1858)
• The Pharaoh’s Daughter (Pugni, 1861)
• Don Quixote (Minkus, 1869)
• Les Aventures de Pélée (Minkus/Delibes, 1876)
• La Bayadère (Minkus, 1877)
• Roxana, la beauté de Monténégro (Minkus, 1878)
• Pygmalion ou La Statue de Chypre (Trubestkoi, 1883)
• La Fille Mal Gardée (with Lev Ivanov and Virginia Zucchi. Hertel / Hérold / Pugni, 1885)
• Les Pilules Magiques (Minkus, 1886)
• Le Talisman (Drigo, 1889)
• The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky, 1890)
• The Nutcracker (with Lev Ivanov – Tchaikovsky, 1892)
• Cendrillon (Staged by Ivanov and Cecchetti under Petipa’s supervision – Fitinhof-Schell, 1893)
• Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov – Tchaikovsky revised by Drigo, 1895)
• Raymonda (Glazunov, 1898)
• Las Saisons (Glazunov, 1900)
• Le Millions d’Arlequin (Drigo, 1900)
• Le Miroir Magique (Koreschchenko, 1903)
• La Romance de la Rose et le Papillon (Drigo, never premiered)

Revivals/Restagings

• Paquita (after J. Mazilier with F. Malevergne – Deldevez / Liadov, 1847)
• Giselle (after J. Coralli and J. Perrot with Jules Perrot and Jean Petipa – Adam / Pugni, 1850)
• Le Corsaire (after J. Mazilier with J. Perrot – Adam / Pugni, 1858)
• Le Papillon (after M. Taglioni – Offenbach / Minkus 1874)
• Coppélia (after Saint-Léon – Delibes, 1884)
• La Esmeralda (after J. Perrot – Pugni 1886)
• La Sylphide (after F. Taglioni – Schnietzhoeffer/Drigo 1892)
• The Little Humpbacked Horse (after Saint-Léon – Pugni, 1895)

Videos

• Vikharev Reconstruction of Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty with Yevgenia Obraztsova as Aurora, Anton Korsakov as Prince Désiré and Anastasia Kolegova as The Lilac Fairy [link]
• Vikharev Reconstruction of Petipa’s La Bayadère with Daria Pavlenko as Nikiya, Igor Kolb as Solor and Elvira Tarasova as Gamzatti [link]
• Ratmansky and Burlaka‘s restaging of Le Corsaire for The Bolshoi, with Maria Alexandrova as Medora and Nikolai Tsiskaridze as Conrad [link]
• Dance of the Animated Frescoes from The Little Humpbacked Horse, performed by students of the Vaganova Academy. [link]
• Vikharev Reconstruction of The Awakening of Flora with Yevgenia Obraztsova as Flora, Xenia Ostreikovskaya as the Aurora, Vladimir Shklyarov as Zephyr, Maxim Chaschegorov as Apollo and Valeria Martynyuk as Cupid.  [link]
• Pas de deux from Le Talisman by students from the Vaganova Academy [link]
• Pas de deux from La Fille Mal Gardée by students from the Vaganova Academy [link]
• Burlaka’s Reconstruction of the Paquita Grand Pas Classique with Svetlana Zakharova and Andrei Uvarov [link]
• Mikhailovsky Theatre‘s staging of the Grand Pas Classique from La Esmeralda [link]
• Ulyana Lopatkina as Odile and Danila Korsuntsev as Siegfried in Act III of Mariinsky’s Swan Lake [link]

Sources and Further Information

1. Biography of Marius Petipa: His Life and Work. ArticleMyriad.com [link]
2. Ballet Met Notes for Marius Petipa, Choreographer [link]
3. Wikipedia entry for Marius Petipa [link]
4. The Diaries of Marius Petipa. Edited and Translated by Lynn Garofola. Studies in Dance History, Society of Dance History Scholars. (1992) ASIN: B0006P1DJ6 [link]
5. Russian Ballet Master: The Memoirs of Marius Petipa. Edited by Lillian Moore and Translated by Helen Whittaker. Dance Books LTD (2009) ISBN-10: 0903102005 [link]
6. The Cambridge Companion to Ballet by Marion Kant. Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (2007). ISBN-10: 0521539862 [link]

Audience at "Kenneth MacMillan's Choreographic Imagination and Psychological Insight" Symposium. Photo: Charlotte MacMillan ©

Earlier this month we attended the Kenneth MacMillan Choreographic Imagination and Psychological Insight Symposium at Imperial College London. Celebrating the choreographer who would have been 80 this year, this full day event was held in association with The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) and the Institute of Psychoanalysis and drew on psychoanalysts, scholars and dancers sharing insights into MacMillan’s ballets, along with rare archival footage and live masterclasses. A full register will soon be available through the new Kenneth MacMillan official website (which goes live December 11) but here are some of our own notes and thoughts.

To backtrack a little, my first exposure to MacMillan was a televised performance of his Romeo and Juliet Balcony Pas de Deux with Natalia Makarova and Kevin McKenzie. I remember being quite taken with the lifts where Juliet expresses her delight as Romeo tries to take her to the stars. So much could be said about young love and the feeling of one’s heart brimming with happiness with such economy of movement and no mime. I didn’t know much about MacMillan then but his work struck a chord with me. Later I had the opportunity to move to London and discover, via The Royal Ballet, the extent of his choreographic vocabulary, from full-length to short works, realising that MacMillan’s ballets were all about human emotions conveyed via eloquent steps.

At the time when MacMillan quit dancing and ventured into choreography, ballet was a decorative art form which provided an escape from reality. He set out to do exactly the opposite, turning reality and human suffering into compelling dance works. Putting this into context MacMillan’s biographer Jann Parry introduced the session speaking of how he eventually became the “outsider”,  the most common leitmotif found in his works, first seen in female characters (Laiderette, Anastasia) but later appearing as males (Mayerling, Different Drummer). Kenneth had not been bullied or lonely as a child, but the death of his mother when he was 12 and the difficult relationship with his father and brother set him on a constant search for a surrogate family and for his own identity. Parry also remarked that these events led MacMillan to search for psychoanalysts to help him understand his fears and anxieties and to deal with depression. Whilst he was fascinated with Freud, MacMillan also worried about what would happen to his creative spirit if he dug too deep into his sources.

Edward Watson as Crown Prince Rudolf and Iohna Loots as Princess Stephanie in a Masterclass of Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling. Photo: Charlotte MacMillan ©

We saw the practical extent to which MacMillan’s work and his creative sources provide rich psychoanalytical material. A panel headed by Dr. Luis Rodriguez de la Sierra (known to us from the “Connecting Conversations” series) offered links between MacMillan’s life experiences and his creative output. This panel juxtaposed the troubled relationship between brothers with the sibling relationship in Manon, where the older brother Lescaut “corrupts” and breaks her innocence by throwing her in Monsieur G.M.’s way; the fact that MacMillan’s father had been gassed in WWI (during the Battle of Somme) with the war aftermath from Gloria and his mother’s recurrent debilitating fits with Mayerling and Empress Elizabeth’s rejection of her attention-seeking son Crown Prince Rudolf. Another interesting discussion centered around  the fantasy of “dying together as an act of love”, an allegory present in Romeo and Juliet and in Mayerling and which the panel connected to Ernest Jones’s theory of a subconscious wish to return to the mother’s womb.

National Theatre’s Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner, the last person to work with MacMillan (in Carousel), demonstrated via video that MacMillan could convey in 5 minutes of dance “what would take a playwright 3 hours with words”. In a short pas de deux from Carousel we saw  how movement marks the evolution of the main female character, from tomboy to woman in love. Actress Nichola McAuliffe also talked about her experience with MacMillan as a stage director. She explained that British Theatre traditionally had actors “dead” from the neck below and that working with MacMillan made her think about the physicality of her characters.

Former Stuttgart Ballet dancers Vladimir Klos and Birgit Keil at the Kenneth MacMillan Symposium. Photo: Charlotte MacMillan ©

To illustrate MacMillan’s creative methods Birgit Keil and Vladimir Klos, former Stuttgart Ballet dancers who created roles in MacMillan ballets, described how he nurtured his dancers and sought a collaborative process. A fragment of the documentary A Lot of Happiness showed the choreographer rehearsing both dancers for a Pas de Deux based on Orpheus and Eurydice, giving them pointers of the type of movement he wanted and encouraging them to try different things. Royal Ballet Artistic Director, Dame Monica Mason also spoke of her experience. Tracing a parallel between Ashton and MacMillan, she said that the first one always expressed a preference for beauty and the second for reality, no matter how ugly that could be.

Speaking about “MacMillan’s subject matter” the eminent Financial Times critic Clement Crisp recalled audience reactions to the choreographer’s work, their discomfort with seeing “appaling grief represented by agonizing, ugly shapes”. A keen supporter who has seen every single MacMillan work (but for two short pieces made for ABT), Mr. Crisp eloquently spoke of the choreographer as a man of the theatre who knew about human suffering and found a way to show those terrible moments of life via fascinating and true choreography “which is ultimately what ballet is all about”, as well as in characters which “kept living after the curtain fell”.

Begoña Cao as Manon, Fabian Reimair as Lescaut and Antony Dowson as Monsieur G.M. in a Masterclass of Kenneth MacMillan's Manon. Photo: Charlotte MacMillan ©

The final section focused on MacMillan’s “Creativity In Spite of Adversity”, his courage to stand firm and travel to where he could realise his vision. Mr. Crisp recalled masterpieces Song of the Earth and Requiem which were created for Stuttgart Ballet after Covent Garden’s administration worried about the use of Gustav Mahler’s music for choreography and, in Requiem’s case, that sacred music could offend religious sensibilities. These points were illustrated with excerpts from the documentary “Out of Line” where Sir Peter Wright, Clement Crisp and Deborah MacMillan shared their personal views on the challenges faced by MacMillan at home and abroad and his special link with Stuttgart Ballet.

Edward Watson as Crown Prince Rudolf and Iohna Loots as Princess Stephanie in a Masterclass of Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling. Photo: Charlotte MacMillan ©

In addition to the masterclasses featuring two Mayerling pas de deux (Rudolf/Empress Elisabeth and Rudolf/Princess Stephanie) with Edward Watson, Cindy Jourdain and Iohna Loots from The Royal Ballet, and the Manon pas de trois (Manon/Lescaut/Monsieur GM) with Begoña Cao, Fabian Reimair and Antony Dowson from English National Ballet, the audience also had the opportunity to watch a full screening of MacMillan’s last work for The Royal Ballet, The Judas Tree*, with Irek Mukhamedov, Michael Nunn and Leanne Benjamin. This gruesome ballet (featuring a gang rape) touches upon the theme of betrayal in various ways. Original cast members Michael Nunn and Viviana Durante emphasised to the audience how MacMillan would let dancers discover the character during the creative process which, as Nunn said, “kept you on your toes”.

With so much background and valuable insights into Kenneth MacMillan’s universe, this was an event that will certainly enrich our experience and understanding of his compelling works. We now look forward to what the new official website may bring.

*The Judas Tree will be revived by The Royal Ballet in a Triple bill dedicated to MacMillan’s 80th birthday, together with Concerto and Elite Syncopations. These three pieces represent milestones in the choreographer’s career and different sides to his work. Concerto was the first piece he created for the Deutsche Oper Ballet as Artistic Director. Elite Syncopations, his ragtime jazz ballet, was made during his tenure as The Royal Ballet’s Director while The Judas Tree, his last work for the Royal Ballet, remains one of his most challenging pieces.

Alexei Ratmansky. Photo: MIRA / ABT ©

As long as there are choreographers like Alexei Ratmansky around our hopes for the future of classical ballet as an art form are renewed. Now one of the world’s most sought-after choreographers, Ratmansky started his career as a ballet dancer with the Kiev Ballet in the Ukraine. Dancing soon took him out of Eastern Europe to various companies in the West where he was exposed to different choreographers and styles. Absorbing all these influences he started developing his own choreographic language, a personal mix of influences by Petipa, Bournonville, Ashton, Balanchine and Tudor woven into narrative or abstract choreography.

His achievements as the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director and a winning streak of new works, including those for New York City Ballet (NYCB), put him center stage. This led to his recent appointment with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) as Artist in Residence, a role tailored so that Ratmansky can create new work for ABT whilst continuing to choreograph worldwide.

While we follow his ABT career with interest and keep crossing our fingers for more of Ratmansky’s work in London, we leave you with some interesting facts & web notes on him.

Alexei Ratmansky in a Nutshell

Alexei Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg in 1968. He grew up in Kiev, Ukraine where his father – a former gymnast – worked as an aeronautics engineer and his mother as a psychiatrist.  At the age of 10 he was accepted into the Bolshoi Academy (Moscow Choreographic Institute) to train under the guidance of Pyotr Pestov and Anna Markeyeva. His classmates included former ABT star and current Berlin Staatsballett Artistic Director Vladimir Malakhov, current Bolshoi director Yuri Burlaka and Bolshoi star Nikolai Tsiskaridze.

From early on Ratmansky showed an interest in experimenting with choreography but despite his talents in performing and in creating dances he was not accepted into the Bolshoi. Instead, he joined the Kiev Ballet as a soloist, dancing leading roles in the classics. During this period he met his soon to be wife, fellow dancer Tatiana Kilivniuk and juggled his dancing career with studying at the Choreographers’ Faculty of GITIS (today, The Russian Academy of Theatre Art – RATI). There he had the opportunity to stage his first ballet, La Sylphide-88. Set to Shostakovich‘s music this was a short work given in one single performance.

In 1992 while on tour in Canada, Ratmansky and his wife were invited to join the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He continued creating small pieces, mainly for Tatiana, and became familiar with the works of Tudor, van Dantzig, Neumeier and Balanchine.

He quit The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and returned to Kiev in 1995 as a freelance dancer but left again to join The Royal Danish Ballet in 1997. During his seven years in Denmark, Ratmansky immersed himself in August Bournonville’s works. There he continued to create choreography whilst also becoming a principal dancer (2000).

Nina Ananiashvili soon spotted his talent and asked him to create short works for her international tours (the Golden Mask Winner Dreams of Japan, set to taiko drumming and flutes). The touring of these works boosted Ratmansky’s profile and led to his first commissions by the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi.

In 2002, he staged Cinderella for the Mariinsky and, in 2003, The Bright Stream, for the Bolshoi, as part of their Shostakovich celebrations. The Bright Stream had been originally created in 1935 by Fyodor Lopukhov to Shostakovich’s music but immediately discarded given Stalin‘s disapproval of “peasants on pointe”. Because of this Lopukhov was fired and Shostakovich never wrote a ballet score again. Reinventing the choreography on top of the original libretto, Ratmansky turned this “rejected ballet” into a great success.

Alexei Ratmansky Photo: MIRA / ABT ©

The Bolshoi Years

Golden Mask Prize winner The Bright Stream led to Ratmansky’s appointment as the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director in 2004. His mandate was to focus on modernising the company and reconciling the new repertoire with the classics.

The Bolshoi’s five years under Ratmansky have been celebrated as a golden age. The company rejuvenated and regained artistic credibility with new works. For Ratmansky it must have been a draining period with a lot of compromising and pacifying different personalities and artistic egos,  leaving him with little time and energy to choreograph. He has said in the past that Russia is not very friendly to choreographers given its emphasis on the classics and inherited traditions, with certains dancers limiting themselves to new opportunities and holding on to the belief that they can only be creative within the boundaries of the old repertoire.

During Ratmansky’s tenure 25 new ballets were acquired for the company including works by Balanchine, Roland Petit, Twyla Tharp and Léonide Massine. In addition to The Bright Stream he also successfully restaged lost ballets such as Class Concert, The Flames of Paris and a lavish and critically acclaimed reconstruction of Le Corsaire.

In addition to developing dances Ratmansky is also credited with nurturing and creating opportunitities for such new talents as Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev, Ekaterina Krysanova, Nelli Kobakhidze and Denis Savin, while also showcasing the artistry of dancers Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina and Svetlana Lunkina, by casting them in new roles.

Veronika Part, Marcelo Gomes and Paloma Herrera in Ratmansky's On the Dnieper. Photo: Gene Schiavone / ABT ©

From Bolshoi to ABT

Early in 2008, rumours started circulating of Ratmansky departing to NYCB as resident choreographer, to follow in the steps of Christopher Wheeldon. But the terms of NYCB’s offer would have restricted his ability to create work outside the company so, instead, he decided to join ABT as an Artist in Residence, a role that gives him enough freedom to pursue other collaborations.

Ratmansky’s Ballets

For Ratmansky, classical ballet can be kept alive as long as its human content is relevant, narrative being a particular trait in his works. Ratmansky often mentions that while for George Balanchine, one of his influences, it was all about the steps and abstraction, for him the steps are part of a conversation that blends craft and passion.

His works are considered musical and fluid, probably a direct influence from his experience with Bournonville. He considers his choreography to be instinctive, the product of an analytical reaction to the score and physical response to the music (he used to put on music and film himself to observe how his body reacted naturally). That explains his preference for a more naturalistic port de bras, open chested stands, patterns that are circling, dynamic and constantly shifting, with suggestions of folk dance, as is the case with his Russian Seasons.

Some of Ratmansky’s works

• A Fairy’s Kiss (Tchaikovsky, 1994) – Kiev Ballet
• Capriccio (Stravinsky, 1997) – Bolshoi
• The Charms of Mannerism (Strauss, 1997) - Postmodern-Theatre
• Poem of Ecstasy (Scriabin, 1998) – Mariinsky
• Middle Duet (Hanin, 1998) – Mariinsky
• Turandot’s Dream (Hindemith, 2000) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• Bolero (Ravel, 2001) –  International Ballet of Copenhagen
• Flight to Budapest (Brahms, 2001) – International Ballet of Copenhagen
• Nutcracker – Re-staging after Petipa (Tchaikovsky, 2001) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• The Firebird (Stravinsky, 2002) – The Royal Swedish Ballet
• Cinderella (Prokofiev, 2002) – Mariinsky
• Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saens, 2003) – San Francisco Ballet
• The Bright Stream (Shostakovich, 2003) – Bolshoi
• Leah (Bernstein, 2004) – Bolshoi
• Anna Karenina (Schedrin, 2005) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• Bolt (Shostakovich, 2005) – Bolshoi
• Russian Seasons (Desyatnikov, 2006) – NYCB
• Middle Duet (Hanon, 2006) – NYCB
• Le Corsaire – Restaging after Petipa, with Yuri Burlaka (Adam, 2007) – Bolshoi
• Jeu de Cartes (Stravinsky, 2007 ) – Bolshoi
• The Flames of Paris – New staging with use of original choreography by Vasily Vainonen, based on original libretto by Nikolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev (Asafiev, 2008. )
• Pierrot Lunaire  (Schoenberg, 2009) – For Diana Vishneva as part of her show Beauty in Motion
• Concerto DSCH (Shostakovich, 2008) – NYCB
• The Little Humpbacked Horse (Schedrin, 2009) – Mariinsky
• On the Dnieper (Prokofiev, 2009) – ABT
• Scuola di Ballo – Restaging after Massine (Bocherini, 2009) – The Australian Ballet
• Seven Sonatas (Scarlatti, 2009) – ABT
• Don Quixote – Restaging after Petipa (Minkus, 2010) – Dutch National Ballet

Awards and Honours:

• Golden Mask  for Dreams of Japan (1999)
• Golden Mask for Best Choreographer, The Bright Stream (2004)
• Knighted in Denmark (order of the Danish Flag) for his contribution to the arts (2002)
• Benois de la Danse for Anna Karenina production for the Royal Danish Ballet (2005)
• Golden Mask for Best Choreographer, Jeu de Cartes (2006)
• Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for The Bright Stream after the Bolshoi’s London tour (2006)

Paloma Herrera as Olga and Marcelo Gomes as Sergei in Ratmansky's On The Dnieper. Photo: Gene Schiavone / ABT ©

Videos

The following short extracts should give you an idea of how rich and varied Ratmansky’s choreography is and how widespread it has become.

• Extract of Russian Seasons as danced by Dutch National Ballet [link]
• Pas de deux from Anna Karenina, danced by Gitte Lindstrøm and Mads Blangstrup from The Royal Danish Ballet [link]
• Nina Ananiashvili in Leah, from Ratmansky Gala at the Bolshoi [link]
• Le Jardin Anime scene from Ratmansky’s Le Corsaire, with Svetlana Zakharova as Medora and Ekaterina Krysanova as Gulnare [link]
• Extract of Bolt, featuring Denis Savin, Anastasia Yatsenko and Andrei Merkuriev [link]
• Diana Vishneva and Andrei Merkuriev in Cinderella [link]
• A short feature on Scuola di Ballo for The Australian Ballet [link]
• Alina Somova and Vladimir Shklyarov in an extract of The Little Humpbacked Horse [link]

Extracts of Reviews and Selected Praise

Of The Bright Stream:

The final offering of the season was The Bright Stream. In 1935, when Shostakovich’s sunny score was staged in Moscow with choreography by Fyodor Lopukhov (and initially much liked), it drew down Stalinist wrath as “balletic fraud”, wholly irresponsible in portraying the nature of collective farming. It has been Alexey Ratmansky’s achievement to rehabilitate the piece, by rescuing the score and taking an amused look at its narrative and, most significantly, at the aesthetic and political conventions of ballet in the 1930s. Clement Crisp at the Financial Times (2007) [link]

Alexei Ratmansky, who completely rechoreographed it for the Bolshoi in 2003, didn’t have to worry about toeing the party line and was free to do whatever he wanted with Shostakovich’s jolly music and Piotrovsky and Lopukhov’s lighthearted libretto. His new production honours them both with wit and compassion, and a stream of wonderful — and very funny — choreography…All in all, the best new ballet to come out of Russia in years. Debra Craine at the Times (2006) [link]

Of Bolt:

Though I hope other choreographers will give sharper visual style to this unusual and instantly appealing music, I feel that Ratmansky deserves the highest credit here. He may not have produced a definitive new Bolt, but he has given the full ballet score to the world to play with, a marvellous gift. Ismene Brown at The Telegraph (2005) [link]

Of The Little Humpbacked Horse

This ballet is life-affirming and rich in humanity. Ratmansky’s choreography is masterly, and has a clear form and shape. His narrative is clear, and each scene is of the right length. The final transformation scene of Ivan into a young tsar is effective and witty. The two classical duets are full of heart-warming tenderness. The duets for Ivan and the Humpbacked Horse in Act I are spirited and lively. Kevin NG at The Saint Petersburg Times (2009) [link]

Of On the Dnieper:

Ratmansky, as always, produces lovely movement—the solos for both men are particularly telling. And he never loses his touch with groups of dancers, their extended passages both coherent and effective in themselves and reflecting the emotional trajectory of the story. Robert Gottlieb at The New York Observer (2009) [link]

Mr. Ratmansky gleans every bit of story possible from the Lifar-Prokofiev original and makes the most of it. (…) What Mr. Ratmansky captures beautifully with these characters (and less eloquently with Natalia, described in the program as “grief-stricken yet noble”) is what it is like to be torn by opposite emotional impulses. The choreography’s other felicities include some lovely subtleties of ensemble and striking instances of dancers standing or moving with their backs to us. Alastair Macaulay at The New York Times (2009) [link]

Of Russian Seasons

His “Russian Seasons” finally received its world premiere on Thursday evening at the New York State Theater, and it was worth the wait (…) It would be too easy to say that the choreography owes its originality to its inspirations from folk dance, though it does make happy use of such dancing. Mr. Ratmansky is a fountain of movement ideas, with sweeping stiff arms and vigorous floor-stamping and clapping and every sort of catlike pose, from freshly funny to deeply tragic. Intimations of character and personality never get in the way of pure dance. John Rockwell at The New York Times (2006) [link]

Leaving the theater, I could have danced for joy, especially if I had been choreographed by Ratmansky. A new choreographer has come to light – and the dance world is a better place. Clive Barnes at The New York Post (2006).

Of Concerto DSCH

Concerto DSCH is an endlessly suspenseful choreographic construction, with passages of breathtaking dance brilliance. Again and again, you find yourself thinking, “I didn’t realize this was going to happen after that,” and “What exactly were those steps that flashed by just now?” Better yet, it’s marked by tender pure-dance poetry. Alastair Macaulay at The New York Times (2008) [link]

Certainly “Concerto DSCH” seems at first glance – even second glance – a weird name for a ballet, but Alexei Ratmansky’s new work created for New York City Ballet on Thursday night is a gold-plated, copper-bottomed hit. Clive Barnes at The New York Post (2008) [link]

Sources and Further Information

1. Alexei Ratmansky’s Biography from the Bolshoi’s Website [link]
2. Alexei Ratmansky’s Biography from the Benois de la Danse Website [link]
3. ABT’s Alexei the Mild? by Robert Greskovic. The Wall Street Journal. June 2009 [link]
4. Interview with Alexei Ratmansky by Natasha Dissanayake. Ballet.co Magazine. July-August 2004. [link]
5. Freelance Freedoms. Alexei Ratmansky in conversation with Marc Haegeman. Dance Now Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 4. Winter 2008/09.
6. Ballet’s future Russian Ahead by Leigh Witchel. New York Post. October 2009. [link]
7. Ratmansky Takes Manhattan by Marina Harss. The Nation. September, 2009. [link]
8. Bolshoi Director May Take Job at City Ballet by Gia Kourlas. The New York Times. February 2008 [link]
9. For Bolshoi Ballet, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back by Nora Fitzgerald. The Washington Post. February, 2007 [link]
10. Alexei Ratmansky and the new Bolshoi by Margaret Willis. Dance Magazine, November 2004. [link]
11. New Home, New Job and New Moves for Alexei Ratmansky by Roslyn Sulcas. The New York Times, May 2009. [link]
12. The Bolshoi in Paris: An interview with Alexei Ratmansky by Patricia Boccadoro. Culturekiosque, February 2004. [link]
13. Alexei Ratmansky by Roslyn Sulcas. The New York Times. November, 2009 [link]

The Royal Ballet's Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor. Photo: Nick Mead / ROH ©

Concepts such as coding, decoding, generative systems, algorithms, computer programming, neuroscience and cognitive mapping seem more akin to geek lingo than ballet choreography and yet all these notions inform Wayne McGregor’s dance making.

Having trained in modern dance, McGregor is the first resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet to come from outside the company. Literally and figuratively breaking the line of succession, he said at the time of his appointment that he would not try to be like Ashton or MacMillan. Indeed, while his predecessor MacMillan  looked for inspiration in the human soul, McGregor seems intent on examining the human body and the sensorial experiences and responses derived from it.

Wayne McGregor in a Nutshell

Born in Stockport in 1970, McGregor studied dance at University College, Bretton Hall (Leeds University) and at the José Limon School in New York. In 1992 he started his own company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance and in the same year was appointed choreographer-in-residence at The Place, London.

He was appointed the Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet in 2006 following successful productions such as Qualia, Engram and the much lauded Chroma. In addition to regularly creating works for Random Dance, he has also choreographed for several ballet and opera companies around the world, including San Francisco Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, English National Opera and La Scala.

His interests outside dance have resulted in several other associations which include curating a festival for the Royal Opera House (Deloitte Ignite, 2008) and choreographing movement for movies, plays (“Fram” at The National Theatre and the recent “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”), musicals and art galleries (the Hayward Gallery, Canary Wharf and the Pompidou Centre).

McGregor was involved earlier this year in a collaboration between The Royal Ballet and Royal Opera companies – directing and choreographing the Baroque double bill of Acis and Galatea and Dido and Aeneas, which have been recorded for DVD release. His new production for The Royal Ballet, Limen, premieres this week.

McGregor’s dance vocabulary is full of contrasts. It combines speed with clarity of movement, fluidity with angular moves and sharp edges. Sometimes his choreography may also incorporate elements of classical ballet and the majority of his pieces for the Royal Ballet have featured female dancers en pointe. Although he says he has not completely discarded the possibility of narrative works, this vocabulary is generally used to create and structure abstract pieces with a contemporary relevance inspired mainly by visual arts, architecture and, last but not least, by science.

Using science to understand art and creative processes is a topic that fascinates McGregor. Since 2002 he has been involved in a research project with a group of neuroscientists (from the Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego) and psychologists to explore questions around how choreographic ideas are transmitted to dancers. Via this project he also hopes to learn more about how he and his colleagues actually do what they do. His appointment as the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer extends beyond creating ballets for the company and  involves nurturing, inspiring and transmitting all this creativity and knowledge to future generations of choreographers.

Often in my own choreographies I have actively conspired to disrupt the spaces in which the body performs. Each intervention, usually some kind of addition, is an attempt to see the context of the body in a new or alien way. Wayne McGregor

Sarah Lamb and Federico Bonelli in McGregor's Chroma. Photo: Johan Persson / ROH ©

Works for the Royal Ballet

Symbiont(s) – The Clore Studio (2000)

Definition: An organism in a symbiotic relationship

Conceived for the intimate space of the Clore Studio (ROH) in close collaboration with the dancers, Symbiont(s) was McGregor’s first piece for The Royal Ballet at a time when Anthony Dowell was still the company’s Artistic Director. It also marked the first time McGregor choreographed a role for dancer Edward Watson, now a leading presence in most of McGregor’s works. It featured seven dancers in a series of duets, solos or trios en pointe and off pointe. Its central duet danced by Watson and Deborah Bull was later used on tour. Symbiont(s) won a Time Out award for Outstanding Achievement in dance.

Brainstate – Linbury Studio (2001)

Brainstate was a collaboration between dancers from The Royal Ballet and from Wayne Mcgregor’s own company Random Dance (18 male and female dancers in total). It was done as a closing piece for an “all McGregor” evening alongside other work by Random Dance and a re-staging of Symbiont(s).

Qualia – The Royal Opera House main stage (2004)

Definition: A raw & sensory experience

Qualia marked Wayne McGregor’s debut on the big ROH stage, following an invitation from Monica Mason, who had just been appointed as the Royal Ballet’s Artistic Director. It featured four lead dancers (Edward Watson, Ivan Putrov, Jaimie Tapper and Leanne Benjamin). Its highlight was a “sensorial” pas de deux for Watson and Benjamin which would later be used in various galas.

Engram – Linbury Studio (June 2005)

Definition: Patterns of neuro-physiological change thought to relate to storage of memories in the brain.

Part of the “Inspired by Ashton” programme, Wayne McGregor cast two of the Royal Ballet’s most classical dancers, Alina Cojocaru and Federico Bonelli, for a pas de deux set to art rock music (By Canadian group “Godspeed You Black Emperor” or GSBE). Engram showed these dancers under a different light, combining McGregor’s notions of angularity and rhythm with classical steps. 

Chroma –  The Royal Opera House main stage (Nov 2006)

Definition: The purity of a color or its absence from white or grey

For Chroma, McGregor worked with a small group of ten dancers. Some were already familiar with his work, others less so. It was the first time McGregor’s male muses Steven McRae, Eric Underwood and Edward Watson appeared together in one of his works (this trio re-appeared in Acis & Galatea and will be seen again in Limen) alongside ballerinas Alina Cojocaru, Tamara Rojo and Sarah Lamb. Chroma is McGregor’s only piece for the Royal Ballet which is performed completely off pointe.

Featuring a minimalist set designed by architect John Pawson to make the audience focus on the dancers’ very detailed articulations and in the “colour” provided by their own movements, Chroma was made in three weeks. The work is set to music by modern composer Joby Talbot, including several orchestrated tracks from The White Stripes (Aluminun, Blue Orchid and The Hardest Button to Button).  A hit with audiences and critics alike, Chroma won a number of prestigious dance awards, including the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award (Best Dance Production).

Nimbus – The Royal Opera House main stage, as part of “The World Stage Gala” (Nov 2007)

Definition 1: a cloud or atmosphere about a person or thing; 
2: an indication (as a circle) of radiant light or glory about the head of a drawn or sculptured divinity, saint, or sovereign; 
3: a rain cloud

Nimbus was created one year after Chroma, specifically for the “World Stage Gala”. It was McGregor’s first official piece as the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer. Set to Schubert’s Impromptu in G flat A, it is a 10-minute short work performed by Marianela Nuñez, Zenaida Yanowsky, Eric Underwood and Edward Watson.

Infra – The Royal Opera House main stage (Nov 2008)

Definition: Below

Alongside his productions for operas Dido & Aeneas/Acis & Galatea, Infra is perhaps the closest Wayne McGregor has come to narrative work.  Juxtaposing his choreography with Julian Opie‘s LED backdrop of pedestrians, a haunting score by Max Richter and lighting by his longtime collaborator Lucy Carter, it infers relationships, ruptures, actions and reactions against the backdrop of our chaotic modern lives.

Dido & Aeneas – Acis & Galatea – The Royal Opera House main stage (March 2009)

McGregor directed and choreographed the Baroque operas Dido and Aeneas (a production he had originally done for La Scala) and Acis and Galatea bringing a rare collaboration between The Royal Opera and dancers from The Royal Ballet. Both productions have been recorded for DVD release.

Limen – The Royal Opera House main stage (Nov 2009)

Definition: 3. Psychology, Physiology. The threshold of consciousness.

Limen, McGregor’s new 26-minute piece for 15 dancers (eight men and seven women) premieres this Wednesday. According to the choreographer it will be a meditation on ‘thresholds of life and death, darkness and light, reality and fantasy’. As he has done before with Chroma (John Pawson) and Infra (Julian Opie), Limen will feature an artistic collaboration with Japanese contemporary conceptual artist Tatsuo Miyajima.

Miyajima has designed a giant wall of blue LED lights flashing on and off which will reflect the individuality of each dancer and their unique personal movements. Limen will be set to a cello concerto by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho whose distinct sounds combine orchestral music and electronics.

A list of McGregor’s choreographies for Random Dance, including current piece Entity as well as past productions Erazor, Amu and AtaXia can be found here

Videos

• A short feature on Chroma [link]
• A short feature on Infra [link]
• Trailer for Infra [link]
• A short feature on Limen [link]

Eric Underwood in McGregor's Chroma. Photo: Dee Conway / ROH ©

Extracts of Reviews and Selected Praise

Of Qualia

At moments the choreography is in danger of seeming like a box of McGregor’s cleverest tricks – shapeshifting moves that flash through the dancers’ bodies, kaleidoscopic patterns of shape and line. But there is a genuine seam of strangeness in the work and, with the help of an eerily atmospheric score by Scanner, McGregor seems to put his dancers in touch with a future the rest of us haven’t really glimpsed. Judith Mackrell at The Guardian [link]

Of Engram

Cojocaru can make almost anything look good, but both McGregor and Brandstrup clearly understand how Ashton’s ballerina-worship can serve a dancer of today. McGregor turned her into a vision of fluidity in Engram, morphing between classical purity and eerie abandon. Dancer Federico Bonelli was her shape-maker, manipulating her to pulsating music by Montreal art-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A video montage of Ashton and his muses was a reminder of how he delighted in showing off a dancer’s virtuosity. Jann Parry at The Guardian [link]

Of Chroma

Chroma is exceptionally well judged. The 30-minute piece for 10 dancers is sombre and playful in turn, with the flesh-coloured costumes evoking an intense humanity, and the stunning “infinity” set by architect John Pawson both revealing the dancers and immersing the audience. Lucy Carter’s votive candle-like lighting intensifies the effect. Sarah Frater at The Evening Standard [link]

It is osteopathy as choreography, bones and musculature pulled and twisted, the dance fighting to escape from the sinuosities, the flexings and contractions of the body. It is movement introverted, self-obsessed, self-regarding, brilliantly done by its cast (who were deservedly cheered to the echo) and unable to escape from its formulaic, almost dogmatic manner. Clement Crisp at The Financial Times [link]

Of Infra

Beneath the ordered surface of our daily routine, McGregor tells us, complicated forces are at work. We must connect, because all else is terror and the void. Edward Watson, clearly McGregor’s male muse, seems to pulse with angst – all torque, sinew and pale intensity. Eric Underwood burns with almost as cool a flame, and 20-year-old Melissa Hamilton, plucked from the corps de ballet, slashes the choreography to the bone with glittering, scalpel precision. Luke Jennings at The Guardian [link]

It’s a perfect abstract representation of the lines, quoted in the program, from T. S. Eliot’s “Wasteland”: “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn./A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many.” The dancers, who slowly accrue onstage as Max Richter’s haunting melodies for strings begin over random noises (machines, voices), are the flesh-and-blood incarnation of the digital crowd above, and Mr. McGregor imbues them with a touching humanity, even as they move in unimaginable ways. Roslyn Sulcas at The New York Times [link]

Upcoming Performances at the ROH

Agon/Sphinx/Limen – 4-18 Nov 2009, as part of The Royal Ballet’s Autumn Triple Bill.

New Watkins/Rushes – Fragments of a Lost Story/Infra – 19 Feb – 4 March 2010, as part of The Royal Ballet’s Winter Triple Bill.

Chroma/Tryst/Symphony in C – 22 May – 11 June 2010, as part of The Royal Ballet’s Summer Triple Bill.

Sources and Further Information

1. Wayne McGregor’s Complete List of Works from Random Dance’s website. [link]
2. Wayne McGregor Official Website [link]
3. Wayne McGregor, a biography by Judith Mackrell. From the Chroma programme
4. Wayne McGregor interviewed by David Bain. Ballet Association Report, June 2007. [link]
5. Discover Limen on the ROH Website [link]
6. Wayne’s World: When Ballet met Science. Euan Ferguson, The Observer, October 2009. [link]
7. Wayne McGregor: Zen and the Art of Dance. Interview with Wayne McGregor by Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, October 2009. [link]
8. Step by Step guide to dance: Wayne McGregor. By Sanjoy Roy, The Guardian [link]
9. Dido & Aeneas DVD [link]

Kenneth MacMillan, one of the leading choreographers of the twentieth century, is credited with pushing the boundaries of classical ballet and challenging audiences to look beyond the idealised world of fairy tales into the reality and discomfort of their own mortal existence.

With ballets that probed into all extremes of the human condition MacMillan found a deeper way to engage the viewer, to make us empathise with the emotions flowing from his expressive choreography. As part of his 80^th anniversary celebrations The Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Royal Academy of Dance are sponsoring a full day symposium which will explore the relationships between physical expression and emotional impact in the choreographer’s work.

Leading MacMillan interpreter Edward Watson, one of the symposium’s participants, has just finished a critically acclaimed run of Mayerling at Covent Garden, dancing the challenging role of Crown Prince Rudolf. We were delighted that Watson agreed to talk to us about the choreographer’s legacy and the way into MacMillan’s complex, yet so very human, characters:

Edward Watson. Photo: ROH/ Charlotte MacMillan ©

Let’s start with your recent performances as Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling. How much physical and emotional commitment does the “toughest of male roles” require and how do you resurface from each performance?

EW: There is no other way to go about it without being totally physically and emotionally committed to it. I don’t you think you can separate them, it’s all one thing. You just get yourself ready to commit musically, emotionally and physically, all of those things, to enter on it, to be believable and credible. In terms of how you feel afterwards…

Because it is such an intense role…

EW: It’s really intense and every show is different, but I never sleep after Mayerling, I am still awake at four in the morning. It’s completely draining, you feel drained after Act II. Actually after Act I you feel like you’ve done three acts already so… it is funny to get yourself ready for it. You don’t want to give yourself out too much at the beginning, otherwise you are not going to have enough energy to the end. In the first act I am always trying to pace myself and, knowing how you are going to feel at the end, you think: why would I do this to myself? But it is an amazing thing to do. I’ve never had any kind of experience like that where you feel you almost lived as someone else for a couple of hours. It’s incredible, a great ballet, it is just amazing.

In addition to Crown Prince Rudolf, Des Grieux and Romeo are all MacMillan classics you have danced a number of times in different places. How have your interpretations of these roles evolved over time?

EW: The biggest change has been with Romeo, because I’ve done it a lot now. Not that I think I wasn’t ready when I first danced it, but Lauren [Cuthbertson] and I weren’t ideally matched and we both knew that, so we relied on our youth to tell the story that way. This is something I have tried to keep. Romeo is a boy and Juliet a girl, they are kids, they are not a prince and a princess. Some people play it like a 20th century classic rather than being clumsy kids which is what they are in a way. The choreography for Romeo is particularly demanding. That I feel I am still trying to get right, to show the youth and abandonment while technically being tight and secure. I’ve now danced Romeo with Lauren, with Mara [Galeazzi] and with Leanne [Benjamin] so you find so many different things with whomever you are responding to or whoever is in front of you.

MacMillan’s characters are typically complex and they demand strong dramatic skills. How important is it to have a like-minded partner? Do you discuss a mutual approach beforehand or is it mainly an act and react dynamic?

EW: Both of those things. Some moments you find something has developed without talking. You are playing something in a certain way, your partner too and it works. When it doesn’t work we tend to discuss. You say, I don’t know what you are doing, what you are thinking or what are you trying to say through the way that you do that step, or is there anything I can help you with, for instance, in the way I lift you. The way into MacMillan is definitely through the steps. It’s not through putting on a face and acting. All is there to be discovered in the choreography. There is so much to be brought out that I don’t think you’ll ever stop finding things in movement. The amazing thing about being a dancer in those ballets is that you will always find something that you haven’t found before. You can connect those steps somehow to your character, to your situation with another character, tiny things like the way you phrase, the way you might stretch something, a look. It is all very physical and thought makes the physical thing happen or sometimes the other way around. It’s a total symbiosis. That was the genius of MacMillan and of the people he worked with when he made these ballets into huge successes: all those elements were exactly right.

So every time one approaches the choreography, there must be new things to be discovered?

EW: Physically everybody is different. I look very different to, say, David Wall [who created the role of Crown Prince Rudolf] or Irek Mukhamedov. So just as they approach steps musically different or physically different, so will I. In classical ballets like Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty, there are set rules, very obvious rules of what looks right and what doesn’t, but when the choreography really describes character and character situation, there is so much an individual can find to say with a character. It is a dancer’s dream. Of course there are rules, there is set choreography to set music but you can find your way of saying certain things within those rules.

Are there any experiences or specific preparations that have enriched your interpretation of a particular role?

EW: I do a lot of reading. With Romeo I went straight back to the play. Kenneth worked really close to Shakespeare’s play and I know Lynn Seymour [who created the role of Juliet] did. There were a few masterclasses that Tamara [Rojo] and I did with Lynn where she read the text to us and described what he was trying to say at that point. I also read Manon, but it was a ballet I grew up with, watching it as a kid and dancing various parts always.

The most research I did was with Mayerling because Crown Prince Rudolf was a real person and so you have a responsibility to be very honest. I read a lot of books on the subject. Deborah [MacMillan] lent me a book which Kenneth gave her for her birthday which he based the ballet on. She lent me her copy so I could find things that he had underlined in there, things that were really important to him. I also had a weekend in Vienna, I went to visit Mayerling and saw the grave. It fascinated me, this ballet has always fascinated me since I was a kid, from having seen the South Bank documentary originally with Lynn Seymour and David Wall. It is one of those ballets that grow on you. The more you see it, the more you want to see it again. Being in Mayerling had an impact on me because it doesn’t come around that often. It wasn’t in the company for about 8 years while I was here.

Edward Watson as Crown Prince Rudolf in MacMillan's Mayerling. ROH/ Photo: Johan Persson ©

Did you do any new readings or research this time?

EW: I re-read The Road to Mayerling and when I visited the Mayerling lodge, which is now a convent, I found these weird photocopies outlining the events with dates and times, so I read through that, but I had already done so much before that I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to change. I wanted the character to build up more this time.

MacMillan revolutionised storytelling in classical ballet, taking it out of its comfort zone, digging deep into human psyche. How relevant are narrative ballets nowadays?

EW: I think people want story-based ballets. It is easier for an audience to want to come to a ballet with a story. Triple bills are harder because of the lack of a linear narrative for a whole evening. Alice in Wonderland is going to be Chris Wheeldon’s next thing [for the Royal Ballet] and I think it is the right time and I hope it is a success.

Having said that, MacMillan’s one-act ballets are what made me, what I grew up in. My first principal role was in My Brother, My Sisters. Those ballets say much about people, feelings and situations, and even Gloria, and Triad, ballets I did when I was younger, there’s so much in them that is not about set characters like Des Grieux, Rudolf and Romeo, but they are still such an amazing experience.

In the past you mentioned that your role in Gloria – one of MacMillan’s most personal ballets – was your favourite…

EW: Did I? I love that ballet, I really love it.

Which is your favorite one-act MacMillan now?

EW: It changes all the time, I have nice memories of all sorts of things but Different Drummer really changed a lot for me. Physically, it really felt like it fitted. I had to work very hard but I understood its physicality, I understood where he was going with it, and in a funny way, it’s the same kind of intense experience as Mayerling, only shorter, but also totally exhausting. It was a wonderful working time for me, Leanne and I were working together a lot and she had worked with Kenneth on the ballet, so she could help me a lot. And Monica Parker who coached us was really enthusiastic as it hadn’t been done for a long time, for about 15 years. It was a ballet people hadn’t seen, that a whole company hadn’t been involved with, so it was really exciting to have the responsibility of bringing it back and making people want to see it. That whole experience probably makes it my favorite one-act.

And your favorite full-length?

EW: Manon and Mayerling are both wonderful. Manon is a ballet that I had always wanted to do since I was a kid, since I was at White Lodge and it ended up being the last big MacMillan role that I debuted in. I love it and Mara is fantastic and I wouldn’t be anything in that ballet without her, it’s really about what she gives me. But more recently, and for the same reasons as above, I should say Mayerling, it is still kind of…it is still lingering on my back!

About the upcoming MacMillan symposium this November, can you give us any insights into what participants may expect?

EW: There will be discussions from psychologists and also from dancers and collaborators who were involved with Kenneth on creating those ballets and, demonstrations from people like me, doing bits of Mayerling. There’s also going to be archive footage, so people can see and discuss the ballets. It will be very interactive, people will be able to ask questions rather than just being presented to. I have a feeling it’s going to be a very interesting day, a real eye opener into what MacMillan is all about.

In your opinion, what is MacMillan’s greatest legacy to ballet?

EW: In my opinion, all of that work. Even those works that are considered failures or that aren’t danced so much these days. It’s so important that someone was constantly pushing classical ballet. It’s classical ballet pushed beyond what you would expect it to, either to tell a story or, like Song of the Earth, telling you everything about life, death and everything in between. No costumes, amazing music, choreography that moves you and you understand somehow through those amazing poems and Mahler’s music that someone can express those feelings to an audience. And that the very same person can tell the most complicated story, like Mayerling, through dance. I find it total genius that someone can do that. No stop and mime, all of those feelings are expressed through choreography.

Song of the Earth is my favourite ballet of all time to watch and the last few times I did it, I loved it. It’s so strange because you are very removed from everyone else. There’s more impact to be made [as the Messenger of Death] by being subtle and just gently there. The poems that inspired Mahler’s songs say “death is like a whisper” and that changed the way I did the role, it’s like a little whisper that’s always there or a feeling, slightly dimmer and you wonder why. It’s little things like that, that you can read and find out. When he was making the ballets MacMillan didn’t always tell people exactly what he wanted them to feel, but it was obviously in his mind, his influences from what he read, from what he heard, all this concerned him.

How transparent then, that even when he did not say it, he could actually find a way to.

EW: Well, that’s the kind of genius he was.

Kenneth MacMillan’s Choreographic Imagination and Psychological Insight Symposium takes place on Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 10am to 8pm at Imperial College London.

This all day event will include a series of set pieces – videos, masterclasses, presentations – interspersed with opportunities for interactive discussion among the participants on stage and members of the audience.

The day will be divided into four separate sections:

MacMillan’s Language – Gesture & Emotion Observed and Expressed

• Includes videos, presentation and discussion with National Theatre AD Nicholas Hytner and actress/writer Nichola McAuliffe

MacMillan’s Creative Methods – Working with Dancer’s Bodies

• Includes videos and Mayerling masterclass (Monica Mason with Royal Ballet’s Edward Watson, Iohna Loots and Cindy Jourdain on Mayerling Act 1 Pas de Deux)

MacMillan’s Subject Matter – Breaking the Rules

• Includes videos, presentations and discussion with FT dance critic Clement Crisp and Manon masterclass (Wayne Eagling with dancers from ENB on Manon Act 1 Pas de Trois)

MacMillan and the Institutions – Creativity in spite of Adversity

• Film of MacMillan speaking, with comments from Peter Wright, Deborah MacMillan, Clement Crisp. Discussion on the creation of ‘The Judas Tree’ -  with dancers from its original production (Viviana Durante, Michael Nunn and Stephen Wicks)

The event will close with a screening of the complete ballet “The Judas Tree” followed by a social gathering where the audience will have the opportunity to meet and talk with the participants.

Full programme & booking details available from the official website: www.kennethmacmillan80thanniversary.com

Kim Brandstrup. Source: GBCM

While at the main stage the Royal Ballet season kicks off in October with Mayerling, downstairs at the Linbury Studio the ROH2, Royal Opera House’s contemporary arm, makes a headstart next week with an exciting new collaboration between dancers Tamara Rojo, Thomas Whitehead, Steven McRae and choreographer Kim Brandstrup. Then, later in the season, Brandstrup goes back to the main stage for a repeat of his acclaimed one act ballet, Rushes – Fragments of a Lost Story. Based on  one of the preliminary outlines for Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot and influenced by socialist realist movie aesthetic, the ballet furthered his range as a leading narrative choreographer.

With Brandstrup’s film school background it was natural that a ballet called Rushes (the name refers to raw, unedited film scenes) should contain all forms of reference and reverence to cinema, with its non linear narrative and action that takes place behind beaded curtains, just like a grainy movie from the 30′s. Movie-like structures are something of a leitmotif in his works, and in the past he has spoken of his rejection of classical ballet’s literal or linear plot development as compared to “film cuts” (see “in his own words” below). However, Brandstrup’s forthcoming Goldberg project with Tamara Rojo seems an altogether different proposition, an experiment with  “other ways of moving”, using Bach’s Goldberg Variations and drawing subtleties and “things  that go unnoticed in big stages” to the intimacy of the Linbury Studio. More information on this project can be found in a recent interview Brandstrup gave to dance writer Jane Simpson now posted to Ballet.co.uk.

Kim Brandstrup in a Nutshell

Born in Arhus, Denmark in 1956, the son of a contemporary artist, Kim attended a progressive school which encouraged creativity. He initially studied film at the University of Copenhagen, but switched to modern dance studies at age 19.

He moved to London in 1980 to study at the London School of Contemporary Dance where Nina Fonaroff was his teacher.

Kim founded his own company, Arc, in 1985 (Arc is currently in the backburner but he plans to bring it back, not as a full time company but on a project by project basis).

In 1989 he won the Olivier award for “Outstanding Achievement in Dance” with Orfeo, a piece he choreographed for the now extinct London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

The cinema never ceased to be an influence in his work, along with literature. Kim worked with Irek Mukhamedov on a commission of Othello (winner of the London Evening Standard Award for Most Outstanding Production) and created for his own company pieces such as Elegy which drew on characters from The Idiot and later Elegy’s enlarged version (Brothers) inspired by two other Dostoevskian tales.

He has choreographed for the Royal Danish Ballet, the Rambert Dance Company, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and other companies in the UK and abroad.  He has been working with the Royal Ballet since 2003, having created dances for principals such as Carlos Acosta, Tamara Rojo, Zenaida Yanowsky, Leanne Benjamin, Steven McRae, Laura Morera, Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg.

Kim also works regularly with opera directors. One of his best known collaborations in this field was with director Phyllida Lloyd for Debussy’s one act opera “The Fall of the House of Usher”, where he choreographed the opening sequence featuring four dancing doubles of the opera characters, as performed by Steven McRae, Gary Avis, Leanne Benjamin and Johannes Stepanek. (This 2006 production is available on DVD).

He says his creations are triggered by the dancers he works with even if the music, theme or narrative have been chosen well in advance. For him, being in the studio with a particular dancer transforms a piece from concept to reality, tailoring the movement to their particular strengths and characteristics.

For Rushes he chose a rare, unpublished Prokofiev movie score (composed for a shelved film adaptation of The Queen of Spades) which he tracked from a tiny footnote in an article mentioning the score’s existence, liasing with a Princeton scholar and finally finding a copy in the Prokofiev archives at Goldsmiths College. What attracted Brandstrup was the structural freedom it gave him, the music was meant to be played underneath a dialogue so it was done in short, concise numbers.

In his own words:

Everyone says I have done narrative ballets but I have never tried to use narrative in a traditional way

My preparation is not steps, not even a story. I listen and listen until the music has become second nature, it has to be in the bloodstream.

The dancers are the second ‘given’ when you work with an established, full-time company. First there is the music, the theme, the place in the programme, which is stipulated when you are first asked, then comes – and this is the most important – the dancers. If they don’t inspire you, then you can’t do it, no matter how prestigious or exciting the project might be.

In a ballet you have a location and people acting in it in real time – 45 minutes in a castle, 45 minutes in a forest, 45 minutes at a wedding.” Whereas in film one event cuts to another and time is not literal.

When I studied film, everything that I loved about it was not verbal, it was the silent films. And when you look at a director like Hitchcock you’ll find that 60 or 70 per cent is purely visual and it’s through the images that the story is told.

She’s a remarkable artist she has such focus and power on stage which gives her a real dramatic hold over an audience. (on Tamara Rojo)

Extract of Reviews and Selected Praise:

Of his Two Footnotes to Ashton, Linbury Studio

Brandstrup’s bucolic Two Footnotes to Ashton is particularly captivating, a frolicsome and erotic footnote to La Fille mal gardée, with Johan Kobborg as a bare-chested, very surprised yokel on whom Alina Cojocaru insistently pounces like a tiny little cat on heat. Everything about this duet is seductive – the recording of Cecilia Bartoli at her most irresistibly honeyed in Gluck’s “Di questa centra in seno”; the way Cojocaru sexily nudges dopey Kobborg with her head and then unleashes lethal vertical arabesques; and the final sweetness of his succumbing, holding her hovering body over his in a delicious anticipation. A total charmer, truly Ashtonian, and surely likely to reappear for the pair on gala occasions. Ismene Brown at the Telegraph [link]

It was Kim Brandstrup who lived up to the evening’s title. His Footnotes was set to ravishing arias (Gluck, Handel), ravishingly sung by Bartoli and Kozena, ravishingly realised (Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg pouring out feeling as a whirlwind of turns and poses; Zenaida Yanowsky grieving wonderfully), and ravishingly made. Clement Crisp at the Financial Times [link]

Of Pulcinella, Birmingham Royal Ballet

Cleverly, Brandstrup depicts Pulcinella as a puppet who has somehow slipped his strings, a giddy, quivering creature who alternates between blithe enthusiasm and doleful despair, and who can only just hold on to his spiky, streetwise girlfriend Pimpinella (Ambra Vallo). Some of his best writing is for these comically ill-assorted lovers, especially their wrangling duets in which tiny Vallo seems to batten on to [Robert] Parker’s body, her railing fists and flick-knifing limbs wheeling vociferously around him. Judith Mackrell at The Guardian [link]

Of Rushes

Acosta is caught in furious, impassioned dialogue with Morera (both artists grandly expressive) while there are appearances by Cojocaru as a compassionate “other” woman. Brandstrup’s writing is fluent, dark in tone for the Acosta/Morera partnership, the couple repeating with each new “rush” aspects of emotional turmoil that we have seen before. Cojocaru seems at first an observer (like the corps de ballet who inhabit the penumbra at the back of the stage). But Brandstrup has shown himself in past works to be an emotional optimist, and the final “rush” is an ecstatic duet for Cojocaru and Acosta which suggests an assertion of possible happiness. Here is a fascinating (and visually very stylish) ballet that will repay further viewings. I hope to return to it, and the rest of this triple bill, after a later performance. Clement Crisp at The Financial Times [link]

In keeping with the theme of Brandstrup’s ballet, all that existed of the music was a couple of dozen fragments, which Michael Berkeley has worked up into an immediately appealing and very danceable whole. Brandstrup picks his collaborators with an unerring eye and ear, and his ballets have a sense of completeness which is quite rare. Jane Simpson review for Dance Now (Vol. 17 No. 2 Summer 2008)

Where to see Kim Brandstrup’s Work:

• Goldberg – The Brandstrup-Rojo Project – 21 to 26 September at the Linbury Studio
• New Watkins/Rushes – Fragments of a Lost Story/Infra – 19/26 Feb 1/2/4 March 2010 – ROH main stage
• MK Ballerina – 20 May to 5 June – The Royal Danish Theatre
• MK Danseur Noble – 21 May to 5 June – The Royal Danish Theatre

Videos

• Goldberg rehearsal video featuring Kim Brandstrup & Tamara Rojo [link]
• Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg dance “Two Footnotes to Ashton” in a gala performance [link]

Sources and Further Information:

1. Brandstrup’s Official Website [link]
2. Biography from Birmingham Royal Ballet website [link]
3. Biography from GBCM website [link]
4. New Rojo/Brandstrup work feature by Amanda Holloway. ROH About the House magazine – April 2009
5. Kim Brandstrup feature by Allen Robertson. ROH About the House magazine – Sept 2007
6. Performance Notes and Programme for Rushes (2008) including article “Kim Brandstrup” by Judith Mackrell
7. Kim Brandstrup: Arcing back from the abyss by Nadine Meisner for The Independent [link]
8. Kim Brandstrup’s Brothers reviewed by Ismene Brown for The Telegraph [link]
9. Kim Brandstrup’s work listings at Loesje Sanders’ Website [link]
10. Theorising Brandstrup at Work, a conversation with Susan Melrose and Steffi Sachsenmaier [link]
11. Claude Debussy – The Fall of the House of Usher · Prélude à la l’après-midi d’un Faune · Jeux (Bregenzer Festspiele 2006) DVD [link]

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