bournonville in the twenty-first century
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This article was downloaded by: [University of California Santa Cruz]On: 11 October 2014, At: 13:26Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
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Bournonville in the Twenty-first CenturyMonna Dithmer , Frank Andersen , Anne MiddelboeChristensen , Nikolaj Hübbe , Anna Kisselgoff ,Thomas Lund & Peter SchaufussPublished online: 21 Oct 2011.
To cite this article: Monna Dithmer , Frank Andersen , Anne Middelboe Christensen ,Nikolaj Hübbe , Anna Kisselgoff , Thomas Lund & Peter Schaufuss (2006)Bournonville in the Twenty-first Century, Dance Chronicle, 29:3, 489-512, DOI:10.1080/01472520600966273
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01472520600966273
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Dance Chronicle, 29:489–512, 2006Copyright C© 2006 M. Dithmer et al.ISSN: 0147-2526 print / 1532-4257 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01472520600966273
BOURNONVILLE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
A PANEL WITH MONNA DITHMER, FRANK ANDERSEN,ANNE MIDDELBOE CHRISTENSEN, NIKOLAJ HUBBE,
ANNA KISSELGOFF, THOMAS LUND, AND PETER SCHAUFUSS
George Dorris: As unlikely as it seems, this is our last panel. We’renow approaching the end, and we are very much in the twenty-firstcentury. So Monna Dithmer, who started us off yesterday, alongwith Frank and Michael, is going to talk with these people aboutwhere Bournonville is going and how to keep him alive and notdead.∗
Monna Dithmer: So, this is the end, this is the future, and thisis a crucial moment. It has been a very retrospective time with thisseminar, so we should call upon all these people coming here totry to turn our attention to the future. I just want to introducethe panelists: we have two principal dancers, Nikolaj Hubbe, NewYork City Ballet, and Thomas Lund—you know him; we have AnnaKisselgoff, from the New York Times, a critic; and we have PeterSchaufuss from Peter Schaufuss Ballet, who is also doing his ownversions of Bournonville; and we have Frank Andersen; and AnneMiddelboe Christensen who is a critic and has also worked as adramaturg, among other things on the restaging of Napoli by TimRushton.
So, we have all of these people here to help us try to create apossible path for how to move on from here. But I would also liketo call upon you and your assistance because what has been evidentfrom these two days is that we really have a kind of brain trust sittinghere. There’s an amazing amount of experience and knowledge,and all of us can sit here and regret the ways of this younger gen-eration. Well, they aren’t here, except for a few of them, but youare here. It’s the responsibility of all of us present to see how wecan actually use all of this experience and knowledge that we haveto be able to push Bournonville into the twenty-first century. So,
Editors’ Note: Because of problems with the original tape, this is a shortened tran-script of the panel. Otherwise it has been edited only for style.
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please take an active part in this. Please try to become committedand engaged in this because it’s vital that we give Frank Andersena lot of bright ideas on how to carry on with Bournonville.
For one thing, you said, Frank, that the audience we havehad—the ballet audience—is a kind of audience by habit. Well, Isay now is a time to break habits. Let’s break habits and try to seewhat can we do about finding new ways because what was a veryoptimistic and encouraging thing about the festival is that there isactually a huge amount of interest in Bournonville out there.
A lot of people watched the transmission on television of thegala evening,* and really there is a much bigger potential, a muchbigger interest in Bournonville. Because we have this dilemma: IsBournonville bankable? Will people buy tickets? So, on the onehand,—we don’t want to admit it—but Bournonville doesn’t sell.We have to look at this. Is that a kind of preconceived conception—is that really true? What can we do to make Bournonville sell, be-cause I actually think that there is an interest out there—its a ques-tion of communication. So I think we should touch upon threethings here.
One thing is what is to be done about the ballets that wealready have? How can they survive? And are they able to survive?It was with a kind of regret that I watched the Far from Denmarkbeing presented here in June. And I was thinking, Is this the lasttime I’m ever going to see this vaudeville-ballet? Because really itscrazy—it’s a wild ballet, and I really would like someone to takeup this challenge and turn this wild ballet into a wild thing in itsown right. This is a question—should some of the ballets be givena restaging and in what form? And also questions of the existingother ballets: Are they viable? What can be done to them? How dowe keep them alive?
And in this context we are also going to touch upon the ques-tion of mime, which has been cropping up all the time. We’ve beenso concerned about the steps, but maybe mime could be a new wayto get another perspective on the ballets, to dig deeper into theballets, to find other ways, among other things.
The second thing is about communication. How are we ac-tually going to open up this shrine of Bournonville to a wider
*The closing night of the 2006 Bournonville Festival was televised complete from theRoyal Theatre, with live commentary by Erik Aschengreen.
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audience? Because I really like this phrase of John Neumeier,“fire taking fire,”—and no doubt everybody here are respectedguardians of the Bournonville shrine. But how can we open upthe circle? I really have the feeling that it’s a private club formembers only. Please, the time has come to open up the terri-tory of Bournonville to a much vaster audience. So, the problemof communication—and in that respect, communication is alsoabout what is to be done with Bournonville abroad? He’s our re-sponsibility, but he’s not just ours. Companies abroad are also in-terested in staging him. What are the perspectives there on a moreinternational scale?
Lastly, we have this huge material of Bournonville—it’s notjust the ballets, it’s also all the Bournonville Schools. They had ademonstration, during the festival, presenting the Monday school,the Thursday school. I thought they were amazing small perfor-mances! Maybe somebody could take up this material and dosomething with it. Maybe we could find other ways of presentingBournonville than just whole evening performances. There can bemore informal ways—which Charlotte Christensen talked aboutdoing—Bournonville in a more informal workshop manner. Andalso have new takes on the existing Bournonville ballets. So, forexample, we have Peter Schaufuss, who has done his own versionof Kermesse. Is that also another way to approach the future?
So maybe we should start by talking about the existing balletsand what can be done about them, by making new, very loyal pro-ductions, trying to catch the essence of them. We should start offwith Nikolaj. You did La Sylphide. Why did you find that that couldbe an interesting challenge?
Nikolaj Hubbe: Because I find that La Sylphide is probably hisdeepest ballet. It’s the one that raises the biggest questions, and itis the Hamlet of ballet; it is, you know—it’s pure existentialism. Tome it’s the one that means the most. I do not share your view, Ithink, of Far from Denmark; it’s quaint, cute, sweet, and that’s for mehow it ought to stay. But, La Sylphide is to me something that reallyis the one closest and dearest to my heart, and also the one that hasso big a question that you can interpret it in many ways—there’ssuch a spectrum to play with.
MD: But what could you contribute?NH: What I could contribute? I don’t know—that’s for other
people to say. But musically . . . to tune it up? And also story-wise
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just to sort of reassemble it—a lot of balletmasters have been in alittle here, in a little there— you know, sometimes just to make aclean slate. There’s one person in front of the room who’s sayingthis, this, this, this, and so, unified in a way. This is going to soundstrange, but everybody comes out of the same emotional context.Everybody gets the same libretto. In the tradition what happensoften is, “Well, I learned the Sylph from . . . .” I was talking to LisJeppeson. She learned it up in the north, from Margrethe Schanne,on the beach. And somebody learned it from Hans [Brenaa], andsomebody learned it from—you know. That’s part of the tradition.Sometimes it’s good for the tradition that all that knowledge getsput in a pot, assembled, and then, of course, things will be lost, butthere’s unification, which is good for performance.
MD: But there was also a special dramatic quality to the waythat you presented it. I found that one of the things you couldcontribute was a dramatic intensity.
NH: It’s a dramatic ballet, it’s a story ballet. Like you saidbefore, I’m jumping now, about Bournonville in other companies.I don’t understand why a company would want to do a story balletif you don’t want to do a story. Then why do it? It’s just the prestige.Otherwise do Allegro Brillante, do Theme and Variations. That’s whythey’re great. That’s why they’re so fantastic because they expressballet for the sake of ballet.
MD: It was very obvious that you liked to tell stories in a dra-matic way, so that was also why it was very successful. Frank, do youwant to comment?
Frank Andersen: I just want to ask Nikolaj, now you’re goingto do it again in Toronto, are you changing anything, comparedto the version you did in Copenhagen?
NH: No. I know that Peter adds and choreographs. First of allI’m not a choreographer and I don’t have that urge. And, also Idon’t really know why I would. Who am I to add anything to some-thing that’s existed this long? No, I’m not going to add anything.
MD: I’ll just jump to Peter Schaufuss because you also stageLa Sylphide and you added certain things. I remember you addeda monologue, a kind of solo for James, who’s bewildered and won-dering what to do next. Why did you feel the need to add anythingthat was already perfect in a way?
Peter Schaufuss: Well, to start at the beginning, you askedNikolaj why he did La Sylphide. Most of us men, when we’re asked
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to stage a Bournonville ballet—which happens to us when we haveinternational careers, it happened to Erik Bruhn as well—chooseLa Sylphide, because the best role for the man is in La Sylphide. That’snumber one. In all the other Bournonville ballets the role is lessimportant. It’s the easiest one to stage as well. And, it is unique.
When I did my first production, it was 1979, London, and I’vesince staged it twenty-five times, for twenty-five different compa-nies, the last time in February. So it’s a production that has reallybeen going all over the world. I didn’t have an urge to add to it, butat that time I worked very closely with Ole Nørlyng and also withErik. And it was my first staging. I really collaborated with peopleto see if there was anything that had been lost or cut out. It didshow that a lot of things had been cut away, because the things Iadded were actually from the original score that had been cut out.Then I tried to make the ballet with a less fast pace to be able, per-haps, to tell the story in more detail, and also to add more dancingfor James. I was dancing the role myself and so was Bournonville.We also know that when Bournonville was dancing he was actuallydancing more and it was then considerably cut when he stoppeddancing.
So, it was really not to bring the piece back to what it was—because that was absolutely impossible to do, because God knowswhat it looked like in 1836 when it was first performed, a totallydifferent ballet to look at. I was trying to bring it more forward intime, at that time—and the time has gone very quickly since 1979.But I was trying at that time to bring it more forward, more upto date, and put more dancing into it. I wasn’t cutting any of themime out, I was trying to bring more dancing into it, and I waschoreographing in the Bournonville style. And I remember, whenwe were premiering it in London at that time, I had quite a few ofthe British critics asking, because they had to write about it, whichbits were mine and which bits were Bournonville. So, I guess fromthat point of view I succeeded, but, you know, time moves on andalthough I’m staging it everywhere I move myself on to differentthings.
MD: So what would you do today if you got the chance to stageit today?
PS: Well, I am staging the same production because it wasvery successful. It actually won two of the most prestigious Englishtheatre prizes that year. No other production has actually done
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that. Like Nikolaj says he’s not changing anything of what he’s al-ready done, I’m not changing anything. I did that production andI don’t think I could do it much better. I did also stage this forthe Royal Danish Ballet in the brief time I was here. Now at thattime, the critics who had liked it very much at that [earlier] time,did not like it very much when they saw it again. And it was exactlythe same ballet, but the surroundings were different. That’s veryimportant too. I think my productions are very successful produc-tions internationally. It has a much more international flair, it’s amuch larger production, while the Danish version belongs moreto the smaller theatre. The more kind of candlelight theatre, so tospeak.
One has to be careful where one is staging things. I thinkthe frame of a painting—some people will say that the frame is notimportant—but the frame is rather important, because it’s framingthe work. You know, if I staged it again I would—ah, next time I willstage it I will probably not make any changes to it. The importantthing when you do stage these pieces is that you have the rightdancers. I have had the task of putting it on in places where Ididn’t think they had quite the right dancers. And then it’s veryhard work. If I felt they had no dancers to dance it, of course, Iwould say no. But there are places where the production has beenmore successful than others because the dancers were very good.
In regard to the audience, you say there’s no audience—orthe question is there is no audience—there is a vast audience. Iknow because I get the receipts, because I receive royalties for myballets that are performed or the production is performed. So Ican see how many people are in the audience, how many peoplehave actually bought tickets. And very successful—I’m talking toomuch!
MD: So we have this candlelight chamber kind of ballet hereat the Royal Danish Ballet and when it travels abroad somethingelse happens. Anna Kisselgoff, you have been witnessing a lot ofthese productions abroad, and I’d like you touch upon the ques-tion about what are the possibilities, right now, for the stagings ofBournonville abroad?
Anna Kisselgoff: Since the topic is the twenty-first century I’dlike to say that I really think we’ve all gotten off to a bad start in thetwenty-first century, and very different from what was true in the1970s and 1980s when there was a real Bournonville mania that
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swept companies abroad, particularly in America. When I was ateenager, I saw the Royal Danish Ballet come to the United Statesin 1956. It has not come very often for reasons that are too bor-ing to talk about. It was in the States last year, but not in NewYork, in Washington. It came to the United States in 1960 and1965, and came in 1980, but not to New York. One of the things isthat Frank started touring with his little group, in 1976, and peo-ple here were in that group, although the personnel changed. Ididn’t realize the impact that you had, with all of your perform-ing, that prepared the American audience to come in 1979 to theBournonville Festival, which then created the explosion that Clivewas really talking about. What he was right about was in 1953, thebig discovery then led to a lot of writing in the United States, andthe company came. But the real explosion was in the 1970s and1980s.
I’d like to add parenthetically that one of the things to keep inmind is that in the ballet world not everybody likes Bournonville—and one of the people who did not, certainly, was George Bal-anchine, and even Lincoln Kirstein. And when they staged theBournonville Divertissements, which Nikolaj, I think, has restaged forthe school and for the company—let me tell you something. It’s notthat Stanley Williams staged badly, but he had a group of dancerswho were not familiar with Bournonville in the New York City Bal-let. And the group now dances those divertissements much betterbecause they have it more in their education, and because nowNikolaj knows how to stage those excerpts.
What I’m trying to say is that suddenly there was this explo-sion and you saw Bournonville, particularly La Sylphide, all over theplace. I saw Peter Schaufuss’ Bournonville staging at London Fes-tival Ballet, which came to the United States, and particularly theNational Ballet of Canada—and he remembers, I did give you anexcellent review for Napoli. So, I’ve been seeing my Bournonvillein Canada, in the United States, and in Paris—important stuff, afantastic job staging La Sylphide for the Paris Opera Ballet, in 1989,for children. And I don’t know, is Conservatory there too? Well, theydo that too.
Now, the issue has been muddied when they insisted on doingthe Lacotte version of the Taglioni production in Paris. Let’s not getinto that. But that was a problem, definitely, that raised questionsabout who is Bournonville. I have this correspondence with Lacotte
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because he put the Scottish girls on toe, and I said I thought onlythe supernatural people should be on toe, and he said that youhave to understand that Bournonville had a very weak companyin 1836, and they couldn’t dance on toe the way the Paris OperaBallet could, and so forth. So, there is a feeling within the balletworld that is anti-Bournonville.
I know that Balanchine felt that Bournonville was very limited,he couldn’t expand the modern arts, the vocabulary, the way Petipadid. I agree with Martha Graham and Balanchine that the balletvocabulary expands from choreography, then you take it into theclassroom. While if you just take class your vocabulary will notexpand, and even Svend Kragh-Jacobsen told me that Bournonvillehas favorite steps—only the costumes change. [NH: It’s true!] Sothat you have an internal problem within the ballet world and you’dbetter recognize it. And now if John Neumeier is shocking, I’ll tellyou what Balanchine thought about Vera Volkova. She ruined theDanish ballet, he said. So, strong opinions exist. We don’t have toagree with them all, but when you have an internal problem alreadywithin the ballet world the only way you can convince somebodyof your aesthetic is that you have to keep performing it.
What has happened is that suddenly there are fewerBournonville divertissement programs—City Ballet was given a fewyears ago. The Finnish mafia has come into play. Mikko Nissinen,the head of the Boston Ballet, who used to be in San FranciscoBallet, invited Sorella Englund to do La Sylphide. She did an en-chanting production this spring, and a very good friend of mine,and colleague, panned it completely because he had never seen LaSylphide and he said the first act was very shabby. Well, it had whatit should have in the first act: it had a door, a fireplace, a window,and a staircase—you can’t do the first act without those elements.What has happened is that the public has to be re-educated, andthat can only be done if you do Bournonville over and over again.The only ones, believe it or not, who are now doing a lot of it arethe Russians —all sorts of companies. It has popped up in the ParisOpera ballet school. We have fewer visits from the Royal DanishBallet, and with ABT, in my last review in 2000, I had to explainthe whole thing all over again, basics. And here I want to say, thepeople who have been criticized for departing from tradition arethe people who have grown up in the Royal Danish Ballet and dotheir versions abroad. You can’t have it both ways.
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MD: I want to ask Nikolaj Hubbe, because you’ve been doingthis staging of “The Class” from Konservatoriet, how did you feel?Were people receptive to it—is there an interest for Bournonvilleabroad? What is the way you have experienced it?
NH: Again, I don’t know about audiences, but the dancers,directors, yes. I find that wherever I have gone—to Ballet Arizona,the dancers there; the School of American Ballet, the kids, thestudents there, I think there is an element of understanding. Theeverlasting, archetypal quality of classical ballet is what a real chore-ographer has, a choreographer who’s steeped in a school, a chore-ographer who comes from an academic background. The momentyou present that to dancers they feel it. They know this is craft, andthis makes sense, it makes sense to the body—even if it’s hard to aforeign dancer, to a dancer who has not grown up in it, who’s notused to it. They will still see that musically and choreographicallyit’s the real thing.
MD: Were there other ballets that you could imagine couldwork if the director staged a Bournonville? A challenge. . . ?
NH: Something else? I’d love to give Napoli a try.MD: So, Frank, you have your new choreographer for Napoli
here, if Neumeier doesn’t want to do his own version!FA: What about Far from Denmark? [laughter]MD: I would just like to return to this question about the
interest from abroad. I don’t remember who said it, was it Frankwho said that maybe the interest in Bournonville is bigger in Japanand China than it is in Denmark? Could you elaborate upon thisquestion?
FA: We heard from Peter and we heard from Nikolaj thatthe interest, definitely from the dancers, is huge—it is also thesame in Copenhagen. But the audiences abroad, I still would say,are more interested in Bournonville than they are in Denmark.And the places I have staged him we have had tremendous audi-ences, full houses—and I’m sure that Peter is experiencing thesame. It is a little bit more difficult in Denmark, as I said, be-cause people say, “Oh, let’s go in and see Napoli tonight.” “No, Ihave seen it too many times.” Or “We see on television, when theQueen is having another royal couple or other guest visit, thenit’s always Napoli, so no, I don’t want to see that anymore.” So, inDenmark they’re striving for new productions—not particularly inBournonville, but just new productions of other ballets, like John
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Neumeier’s pieces. In that sense, that is what I would like to standfor.
MD: Anne, you wanted to comment upon this?Anne Middelboe Christensen: No, it was because the Royal
Danish Ballet has gone through many changes, and the last, sinceyou took over, it’s all been about Bournonville, it’s been aboutthe festival, and bringing the heritages together, and people havereally got the point. I meet people who’ve never watched balletand say, “Oh, yes, I did hear about Bournonville.” I see it as partof their new checklist. So that’s what is out there—everywherein the country. But in some ways we underestimate the audiencehere in Copenhagen, because what the audience would also liketo have is more knowledge about the dancers and have a chanceof know, “Aha—tonight is Thomas,” or “Tonight is not Thomas,it’s the other one.” The company uses so much energy in profilingitself as “the Bournonville company,” “the team.” It has workednow, but for the future we will have to promote the dancers—the specific artists—the super mime person, the super jumper, thesuper . . . different people, so it becomes much clearer that theseartists are actually developing the tradition and working on specialnuances, details. That is a big challenge for the company and thepress department, everybody, how to solve this thing. Right nowyou can look everything up on the Web site—well, if you choose tobuy tickets according to the names on the Web site, you’ll go and itwill be different people probably. How much are you actually goingfor the individual artist that you have in the company? I think thatcould be one of the challenges.
MD: So, now we’re talking about the question of communica-tion. I mean, we’re jumping here a little, please forgive us. Frank,around to the challenges?
FA: What I’m saying to you about Bournonville is, let’s be hon-est, because if I would play Folk Tale we would have sold-out houses.That’s actually the ballet that sells best these days. If I do a perfor-mance of Folk Tale it’s sold out if I do at 2 o’clock or 8 o’clock—thesame with Napoli. Those are the two that are selling the best. Butthe interesting thing is we actually are starting a branding cam-paign on the Royal Danish Ballet, a serious branding campaignwith the individual dancers. That is very important to follow upon the success we had in Denmark—being on television, which isquite rare in Denmark, that we have a full Saturday evening, prime
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time, for dance and ballet. I don’t think it had ever happened [be-fore] actually. But, it happened, at least, in June, and I think westarted something, so we have to build on that. We are starting avery, very strong marketing department to back us up here—andwe’ll start a huge branding campaign, running this autumn, on thebuses, and radio, and television, and everything will be launchedthis autumn.
MD: There’s really a big need for it I can tell you. We reallyneed a more active kind of marketing. Thomas, are you feelingunderexposed as a dancer? Did you want to be presented more asa star-quality dancer?
Thomas Lund: During the festival, I probably couldn’t ask forany more exposure! And I’m even on the stamp.The last one to goon the stamp. . . *
NH: You and [Queen] Margrethe.TL: Yes, exactly—but not together! So that’s not a goal for me
at all. But probably a goal for me would be to ask the question ofanybody, How are we going to increase the interest in Bournonvillewithin the next ten years? That’s a very interesting question. And, asCharlotte also spoke a little bit about, maybe we want to do work-shops here, at Takkelloftet, a Bournonville workshop. We spokeabout music by Hartmann, that wasn’t released from the old ballets,could we get something out of that? Could we ask, reasonably, fora new Danish choreographer to do something with the story fromValkyrie to Hartmann’s music—played by Julien Thurber. Could wehave the miming, that we also have been talking a lot about—that’syour idea—a little bit of working with Katrine Wiedemann, an in-teresting Danish director? Could she do an excerpt on the mimeand see what could come out of that? And as John said, let’s havea little rest, which I think is important. We know how to do Napolithird act on TV, and I don’t think it’s going to go out of the repwithin the next ten years. I’m not saying we that we shouldn’t doit the right way, but, it’s maybe important to create a new spacefor what else to do with Bournonville and see. We had the festivalsin 1979, 1992, 2005, and what about 2018? What is that going tobe like? If we don’t ask these questions now, what are we goingto do about increasing the interest on stage, the performers, the
*The reference is to a set of Danish postage stamps honoring Bournonville, issuedin 2005.
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instructors, the teachers, but also the audience? We might not havea festival.
MD: It’s very important to keep the kettle boiling at the mo-ment. Maybe now we should open up this list of ideas.
TL: If I can just say one more thing? If we still keep ed-ucating, in the ballet school, with the traditional way of teach-ing Bournonville—as actually Frank had put into order since Istarted, in 1986. I went through all the classes and I think up un-til an apprentice, you should have it the “dry way,” “straight-upBournonville.” So you know where it comes from and how to doit. But we’ve also been talking about the past and the present, andthe more you know about that, the more you know in general.As I said yesterday, the bigger freedom you have also to try otherthings. And I don’t want to throw anything away, that’s not whatI’m saying. I just want to make space for the future.
MD: But you also demonstrated that with your take on Napoli,second act. . .
TL: That was just another way of trying to say is it possible todo what I’ve now just said something about Takkelloftet to othermusic, to whatever—Hartmann music. Just to try and experimentand see—is it possible? I did work with my good old friend fromschool, Johan Holten, who used to be a dancer here until he wasan apprentice, and then he worked with John Neumeier for a fewyears. We tried to do a new version of the second act of Napoli, totry and tell it in a new way, it was a summer ballet, out on BelleVue. So the whole story would take place on the beach of this BelleVue and you saw the couple, that were in love, meeting, going ona daily sailing trip. And how she fell into the water, and we tried tocapture the story in the moment of life and death. So, the wholeother world was actually not so much a question of silver bootsand, you know, big wig and stuff like that [the original character ofGolfo], it was in her mind, what was happening. Is she choosing tocome back to real life or is she going to become a part of the otherworld? This was another way of trying to work with the tradition. Ihave been discussing with Frank also to have maybe a whole newNapoli that could then be set against the traditional. So you couldfind some qualities that are there and they could bounce up againsteach other.
Actually, I’ve been discussing a little bit with Nikolaj about thistoo, I remember, once, in South Africa, until 5:30 in the morning,
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and maybe we didn’t agree totally that day, but we did have break-fast together the next morning. I’ve been thinking a lot about thisbecause it’s interesting that we had that conversation. Nikolaj leftin 1992, when the festival was over, and he then was in New Yorkand he got a little bit away from the tradition, which I think isvery good because you look at it, sometimes, in a more clear way.But also you become a little nostalgic about it. So, where I havebeen working with it every day and we can only sell tickets for sixperformances of La Sylphide, I understand why Nikolaj wants tocome back and have this nostalgic feeling about the Royal DanishBallet and putting on a classical Sylphide, which we need to do—but there is also some kind of daily life with Bournonville here inCopenhagen. We disagree and we don’t disagree, in a funny way.So maybe we can be in the same pillowcase.
NH: I gotta jump into bed with you? You know, when I see the“Jockey Dance” I don’t want a step changed at all—I don’t wantanything changed at all. It’s just the way I want it.
MD: But you want everything changed in Far from Denmark?NH: No, I wouldn’t touch it!TL: I think it’s okay to have a point of view saying I don’t
believe in anything new, I just believe in preserving it. And let’sjust keep trying to do it the way we’ve always done, and try to do itthe best way.
NH: You see, I disagree there; I don’t think you do it the wayyou’ve always done. I think the moment you stand in front of adancer, and you have to teach it to that person, you teach thesteps, but that person, that dancer, that dancer’s phrase . . . . Whatis the phrasing that you grew up with—well now, that dancer doesthis and this and this—I actually like her phrasing right over here,so now—that gives a little spark, a little salt and pepper to it. Thatparticular dancer’s musicality—you try to put it into the frameworkthat you’re used to. But should something else occur, I’m not deadset against that. My God, no.
AK: Can I support him on just one thing? Indeed, I went backinto my old articles and I found a folder on Erik Bruhn—I knowyou don’t always agree about him here—but what he said, whenI asked him about La Sylphide, he said for him the ideal Sylphidewas Ulla Poulsen, but that when he staged it for ABT what he saidabout Carla Fracci, with whom he danced, Carla was not a normalsylph but she was really the one who set a standard. And I have to
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say that they popularized La Sylphide in America although she wasnot a normal sylph. And that talks to what you’re saying about thedancer in front of you.
MD: I just wanted to pass on the question to Frank Andersen,because what Thomas Lund says about new stagings. I mean, whatabout setting Bournonville free and let other, new choreographershave a take on him. I mean, the initiatives, here in Denmark, havenot come from the outside, they come from Alexander Kølpin,and Peter Schaufuss, and Thomas Lund. As director of the RoyalDanish Ballet, why do you not take the occasion to challenge youngchoreographers with Bournonville?
FA: I have a lot of answers to that. First of all, who says I don’t?MD: It hasn’t been done so far.FA: It hasn’t been done! I mean, if you knew anything about
planning in the house of the Royal Theatre, and apparently youdon’t, then you would know that it takes a long time to plan andassure that things can work. And one of my first original tasks wasto get Bournonville back as it was supposed to be. That’s been myprimary task. The direction of the ballet and the theatre will, inthe coming year or two, however long it takes, consider how we’regoing to step forward. But we have to do it in a very delicate way, asI was stating in my opening remarks, yesterday. As John Neumeiersaid it very beautifully—I tell you one thing about John Neumeier’sballet, and I’m sorry that John is not here. If anyone would changeone step he would be out of his f-word mind. I promise you that!I think he was being very gentle when he said, “I would smile.” Ipromise you he would not.
So, in the sense of just having somebody going in and throwingit all into a hat and rolling it out again, I don’t think that’s for me asdirector. One has to consider how to do it, and that’s the reason Iinvited Nikolaj and Lloyd, because I knew they would come up witha staging that would be very, very true and honest to Bournonvillein their approach, and, it would not be something hanky-panky.That is what we all want—somehow. We like it to be shaken up, butwe don’t want to lose it. So, I would say it would depend on theperson and the time if we should go really far into that. But I’mmore listening today than I’m saying what I’m going to do.
MD: I know. I’m also aware of the fact that I’m a kind of doublerole, as a moderator here and also a critic. But I just try to be alittle provocative to kind of engage the discussion.
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Jack Anderson: I think I am hearing some confusions here.Not dumb confusions, but confusions—or blurrings of distinctionsbetween the original ballet itself—or the original dramatic work—or the original kind of work itself and works by other people in-spired by that work, or telling the same story, or on that sametheme. And I think that when we stage a work we should be verycareful what we are doing. Take for example, Romeo and Juliet. Weknow it primarily as a play by Shakespeare. Now, Shakespeare wasnot the first person to tell that story and many people on thispanel have staged versions of it—nor was he the last person to tellthat story. To say nothing about all the ballets based on the storyof Romeo and Juliet, there have been other dramatic works rang-ing from a nineteenth-century opera, by Gounod, to a twentieth-century musical, by Leonard Bernstein, about New York City streetgangs. They’re all based upon Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, butyou cannot call, nor should anyone try to call, any one of thoseworks Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.
There can be, ought to be, works that try to preserve as vividlyas possible exactly what has come down to us by Bournonville andwe can say, That’s Bournonville. And other choreographers cantake the same story and do their own versions of that story, evenquoting a few steps if they want. But you can say that’s Mr. Y’s versionor Ms. Z’s version, that’s their production based upon La Sylphideor Napoli. It’s not really Bournonville’s Napoli or La Sylphide—it’sa completely new take on it. We should definitely not lose thedistinctions here as to what we are doing.
MD: Yes, you’re quite right. Peter Schaufuss—you’ve actuallytried both things. I mean, to be very loyal to Bournonville and alsostage a Kermesse that was really different.
PS: That’s correct. I staged La Sylphide, Folk Tale, and Napoli, ofcourse. So I felt I needed to do Kermesse in Bruges as well. So in 2000I tried to do a new version of it, but I kept in all the Bournonvillechoreography, but in a different concept. And I found that veryinteresting, but you couldn’t compare that to my version of LaSylphide because I tried to be very true and honest when I did LaSylphide. This was a new way of doing it. What I’m doing now, Ihave to attract new audiences—some of you don’t know, but I’min the darkest place in Denmark where nobody has ever seen anydance and I’ve developed my company there and I have to makesure that we have a full house when we do performances.
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If I was to stage a straightforward Kermesse in Bruges, I think itwould be much more right if the Royal Danish Ballet would havedanced it. So I had to present something different and somethingnew—so that’s what I did. I was very conscious of what I was doing—I wasn’t doing a “new” Bournonville Kermesse in Bruges, no. I wasdoing a new version of Kermesse in Bruges with Bournonville’s chore-ography and stayed true to the story but in a completely differentway. It was very satisfying to do it, and the audience enjoyed it, andwe had a full house, and I was very, very pleased with that. I’m sure,now, having seen the Bournonville Festival on the television, in thearea where I am, they would love to see the Royal Danish Balletcoming and dancing their version, the real version of Kermesse inBruges. And this is really what my work is—to develop audiencesand develop new pieces, new ballets.
MD: I also think that’s a very interesting challenge for a com-pany. We all have this notion of La Sylphide and if we could just havea young choreographer or a young dramatist or somebody com-ing to give—what is my Sylphide, for example. You could work withthis idea and pass on the challenge to different people. We havemany younger directors, especially in Denmark, who are workingwith a physical theatre and working with artists from the circusand from the dance world also. So we had an opening—there’sa kind of encounter between dance and theatre at the moment.It could be the right moment to try to actually invite people—tosuggest a kind of collaboration between the dramatic departmentof the Royal Theatre and your department. Have you been fol-lowing any of these ideas so far? I mean a lot of this planninghas gone on in secret, I know, but just any of these ideas foryou?
FA: I’m thinking about it. I have a lot of thoughts and ideas,and I’m sure that some of them will materialize in the future. I’malso sure that if Bournonville had lived today, he would think thesame thoughts that I am, involving other art forms, which he alsodid already in that time. Long before Balanchine and Stravinsky,he worked with his own house composers, so he was very muchahead of his time and I believe we’re going to be that too.
MD: I was also thinking about the question of maybe makingdouble bills that could be a way to save the Bournonville balletsbecause you could present The King’s Volunteers on Amager in theold version and then, maybe, invite somebody from the outside to
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do a completely different version. Even from an audience that isnot all that familiar with the story they can have the possibility tocompare and there’s also this, kind of, you know, star quality if youinvite somebody from the outside with a much bigger audienceappeal, then you can renew the interest.
AMC: Could I answer that too? It’s just that—to Jack Ander-son about having a kind of official Bournonville version—the realBournonville thing. I think, right now, after the festival a lot of ushave the feeling that the way the productions are done now theyare taped. Unfortunately they’re not taped so that we can buy it,so it goes to the house. But if they were, so that we could buy it, itwould be a little bit like putting Shakespeare onto the shelf becausethat is the point now and then we could add on the other versions,2006, 2007, and so on. I think that’s how people consider tradition.Concerning this official hope that you would like to have, it’s alsoa task for the Royal Danish Ballet to find out how we’re going totreat history because now we’re all here, and you’re all experts andinto historical things, but in the daily life it is you, and Mie, andDinna who know all these things. And in a way we go and look it up.So maybe it’s time to have an official historian: somebody savingthe stuff of Bournonville and writing down these things for inter-nal or external use. So that we have the different versions writtendown—because now you’ve done that masterpiece with the DVDand the schools and that’s very, very heavy, but maybe it could belighter to start out with the ballets. We need that.
MD: So we just created a new job for somebody.Colin Roth: Can I follow Jack and say that I think there’s
been another confusion. It’s one thing for Monna to talk, quitelegitimately, about new things you can do with the Bournonvilleheritage—that’s absolutely fine—I don’t want to stop anybody say-ing “This is the Danish Ballet heritage.” But I do want to emphasizethat from the point of view of the outside world you are holdingBournonville in trust for the world. And, it’s very important that,somehow, you find a way to keep it in the condition that we saw itin June. Because whatever the reservations different people mighthave about particular details, the sheer quality of what we saw inJune was extraordinary, absolutely wonderful. And it’s all a creditto you, and to Mie, and the rest of the team that it was so good,so exciting. But you have to keep that—real Bournonville must goon.
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And there are two different arguments getting muddled uphere. Maintaining Bournonville for the future—is it not keepingreal Bournonville exactly as we’ve seen it as a living performingtradition? As well as having DVDs, on record, and we must havethem on public sale. People must be able to come to Bournonvilleand have it when they want to see it. All of those little kids who goto dancing classes around the world must be able to have access tothis wonderful stuff.
NH: Can I just say something from a director’s point of view?If you release all your ballets on DVD and VHS, and whatever youhave, the audience is not going to come. Maybe it’s good for kids,and this and that, but from a salesperson’s point of view whenyou release it . . . I know when New York City Ballet released theirvery, very beloved Nutcracker, that year our sales fell. And that’s ourbread and butter. So, you know, it’s a dual-edged sword. You putit out, which means that they can sit at home and see it, and theydon’t go to the theatre, and the theatre doesn’t fill up.
CR: I’m saying market it really carefully, and do something—so make it one come out in a year when it’s not in the repertoire.
Tobi Tobias: I would agree with the conservative opinionsthat I’ve been hearing. For some strange reason God has not pro-vided us with many choreographers of genius over the years—and the Danish Ballet owns, so to speak, Bournonville. No matterwhat fascinating things may be done using Bournonville’s libret-tos or the music Bournonville used, that’s not Bournonville. Thecentral part of a ballet is, of course, the steps—that’s the text.Now, of course, in its best productions—any, let’s say, I’ve seenin the last God knows how many years—this is not what was onBournonville’s stage during his lifetime, but it has been devel-oped very slowly, so it has changed very slowly in a very closedatmosphere, so that the tradition of Bournonville was kept verywell. Now it’s harder because there are, at least, thousands of out-side influences putting pressure, and the economic pressure. ButI agree with my friends and colleagues who think this is the housewhere Bournonville as he has come down and the Bournonvilletradition should be happening, primarily. This is not to excludeeverything else. But, I haven’t yet seen a choreographer of ge-nius do something after Bournonville—that rated with me at anyrate. I had always wished that Frederick Ashton would tackle thesecond act of Napoli, which is a problem, but choreographers
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of genius usually don’t want to work on other people’sprojects.
I’d like lastly to point out a very practical aspect to this. Theysay that there are how many great, great, “world class” is the word,companies? New York City Ballet, ABT—I start at home—Paris, theRoyal Ballet in England, two Russian companies, and the RoyalDanish Ballet. And the Royal Danish Ballet is what it is because ofthe Bournonville repertoire and the way it’s been guarded and theway it’s been danced. Without that I don’t think that this company,at this point, has any chance of holding on to that rank. And Frank,as the current leader, is really paying attention to this. And that’sgood. I’m very grateful for everything that’s been done along thoselines.
FA: Tobi was saying—I’m sure it’s not meant in the wrongway—that the conservative people, because I am, of course, con-servative in the sense that I’m the guardian of the Royal DanishBallet tradition and the company of Bournonville. . . . But, I’m alsothinking how we can go on and that’s, of course, the reason stillwhy we’re here, and I’ve had a lot of things come up and keep com-ing, keep going. But you heard John Neumeier say that he beenthinking about Napoli for a whole year, and he did that from thesummer of 1988 until of November 13, 1989. Because that’s whenhe sent me a mail of the facts, which I received in Hong Kong wherethe company was opening the new house, saying, “Sorry, cannotdo Napoli.” Because I wanted John to look into Napoli, maybe withsome of our guys, with Dinna or me, but look into it to see howwe could we approach it in a different way and I wanted that tobe for the festival in 1992. So, we are thinking ahead, but we arealso being the guardian. I said it before: there will always be oneplace where you will always be able to see the real stuff, and thatwill be in Copenhagen, with the Royal Danish Ballet. It’s not thefinal remark, but I just want to make that point.
Besides that, it’s wonderful to hear that Thomas has ideas—something we’ve discussed. I want to do, very much, and that isalso a little answer to Monna, because you ask, “Why haven’t youdone it?” And Thomas and his friend Johann and I have been deepdown in discussions about doing this project about another Napoli,which I actually would have liked to have played back-to-back withNapoli in the festival. But I simply couldn’t fit it in. Same thingwith Tim Rushton, whom we haven’t talked about, who had done
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a new version of Napoli. I asked him, “Why don’t you go on theNew Stage and do Napoli on the New Stage at the same time aswe have the festival?” If you have very old programs, some of you,ideas from the festival—the first one we sent out—it says on theNew Stage, simultaneous with us dancing on the Old Stage, TimRushton would be with Napoli. But he said, “I can’t do it.” So, it’s amatter of ping-pong, who’s afraid of whom.
MD: Yes, but I also want to stress that I’m very conservative onthe point that I am almost fundamentalist. I really want people tosee the ballets, and to see them as close as we can get to tradition—I really feel that. And it is out of this desperate need to open upthese wonderful works to a broader audience that I think of otherways of luring them, enticing them into the theatre. Maybe to donew, bolder versions—to make them, in the end, come to the realstuff. So, just to make the hierarchy and the priorities right.
Flemming Ryberg: And he’s free to do Bournonville. He isquite free to do it. Just don’t call it Bournonville!
Richard Merz: I’m from Zurich. It’s one thing, which bothersme since I am dealing with dance tradition, dance history. Danceis the art that constantly loses its works, its choreographies, andthat means its tradition. Throughout history we have no idea whatwe’ve lost. We have no idea what Vigano did, we lose everything. So,when I was young I thought if there is some way a tradition can bekept, dance will be so happy about it. And what I feel is that danceis so afraid of tradition. And this thing for going for new things,dance did go for new things for centuries and with that we’ve lostall its tradition. And when you spoke about breaking habits, maybedance should think about breaking the habit of making everythingnew and losing the old things.
Whitney Byrn: I sit in a kind of strange position because I’mfrom the outside—the U.S.—but I’ve lived here eleven years. Ithink, the fundamental problem is the Danes. . . . [laughter] No,I’ve been working on a project about the Royal Theatre for six yearsand when I talk to people about it, my son’s teacher, the people inthe kindergarten, the parents, I’m lucky if one in five have heardof Bournonville. And if the Danes are not coming into the theatrethen you’re not going to do the ballets. So one of my questionsis do you have some sort of outreach program for children? Notthe ballet children but normal school children to get them in?Because if you hook them when they’re young you’ll have them
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for the rest of their lives, which I’ve seen when I worked at theFolger Shakespeare Theater, in Washington, D.C. They always doone or two matinees of every performance, every production, forchildren to get them in. Is that’s something that’s done?
FA: Well, of course it’s done. We have a big outreach programat the Royal Theatre. We have something called “Ballet Bus” thatis going out as many times as we can, but we can never meet thedemand because the demand is enormous. I think we’re out fifty,sixty times a year and that’s kind of the first thing we do. Afterthat we try to invite the children into the theatre so that they cancome for reduced prices and things like that. Then we also havethe children’s ballets where we get the children into the RoyalTheatre—to see the old stage, to feel the environment, feel theatmosphere, the dust and the spirit, and so I think we have someprograms going. We are constantly enlarging them naturally, butwe started out pretty well.
MD: We also have buses for the grownups!FA: We actually do! Actually we are having buses from
Jylland—busing people to Copenhagen. We pay the bus, you paythe ticket.
MD: And it works?FA: Of course it works!Francis Cunningham: New York. Yesterday I brought up the
point of keeping a tradition alive from the point of view of a painter,working from the inside out, and I’m completely convinced of thisbecause I’ve lived it. I think it is very apropos to Bournonville andI just want to illustrate what I mean, a little bit. What happenedto me, in the festival, the biggest shock of surprise, was not on thestage but it was opening the book that Knud Arne [Jurgensen] didon Bournonville’s letters. And the God, the God sitting up there[gesturing at the bust of Bournonville] is so much a man, and soalive, within the first three pages of that book—where you havethe letters, beautifully annotated, everything is in the first threepages, the first letter to his wife from him, the man is there. Heis a human being who has a sharpest set of eyes, who looks at thedetails of everything, he examines people, he examines places, heis completely articulate and ordered. He is a Christian, but he’s notthe kind of Christian that we’re used to in America today—thereis no judgment in Bournonville. There’s good and bad, and theplay of good and bad.
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Monna, it’s what you said at the very beginning that I think isso important. It’s why I disagree with Nikolaj on the subject of Farfrom Denmark and Lifeguards—what is Louisa thinking? We’ve hadin the twentieth century Freud and Jung. We are completely newand alive, and I for one have one hundred percent total belief inthe human body. When you get out there on stage you’re nakedas a baby. Who are you? What are you thinking? What are youcommunicating? That’s the big thing. And if you want to knowwhere to go with Bournonville that’s where you go. If you can’t getdown under the skin of it, if you’re sitting in the back seat, going tosleep. I don’t care whether you’re in the first cast or the fourth cast,it’s going to come across to the audience. So, if you want to keep italive it is not—yes, the medium of the steps. It’s like drawing—youhave to know how to break the forms. That doesn’t make it artbecause I know perspective doesn’t give me space. If you don’t feelin your gut you can’t get it across. That’s what I mean by the insideout.
AK: It’s always the same old thing—the Americans are alwaysberating the Danes. Every time I come to Denmark the same oldthing happens with the Danes, some of them highly placed. I grewup in New York before there was a New York City Ballet. Peopleforget that in the early days City Ballet was poor, that they had noaudience, and that the reason you could keep going—Balanchinewas the cause—was that it was the people’s theatre and it was adollar a ticket, so that you didn’t have people sitting at $105 aseat saying, “Show me!” And you could experiment. I really thinkthey’re always talking about money here and that there shouldn’tbe any argument about Bournonville: you do it and you have tokeep it alive by performing him.
MD: So, Frank Andersen, I just wanted to ask you about thefuture of the Bournonvile ballets? Because there’s so much possi-bility and potential in Far from Denmark, for example, and it’s notreally selling tickets. How do you solve this problem?
FA: Well, I’d like to take a little time to see how we will solveit. But on the other hand, I don’t see it as a problem—I’ve statedthat many times. I don’t see Bournonville as a burden for me. Idon’t see Bournonville as a burden for the company because theyhave deep respect for him, and know also that he is our father,and I want to treat him as such. So, I’m going to keep on doingit—of course I am. But I also have to decide how we’re going to go
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ahead. Bournonville will always be here, and I’ve told that manytimes, and I’m not going to say it anymore.
MD: One of the things we really haven’t discussed is the prob-lem of directors. And I think it was a great initiative, and it hasproven very successful, inviting new people to come and do thestagings and I really feel that this is pointing forward, and ThomasLund, also, with all his commitment. But why aren’t these peoplehere—I mean the rest of them [the dancers]—in order to be ableto really nourish, and make them carry on, and give them newopportunities? Because this must also be opened up in the sensethat there’s not just the same closed circle of three people—if oneof you gets run over by a bus then we have nobody! So, how areyou going to tackle this question?
FA: It’s almost like being on the stand. Well, it’s alright, we’repaying Monna to do that. You don’t just pick directors directingballets off the ground. I think it’s something that you have to helpand to nurse forward. And, in Denmark, we heard a couple ofhours ago, there’s big problem with choreographers—yes. And,it’s not so easy either to direct a ballet. We heard Nikolaj say, “I’mnot going to touch Far from Denmark.” It’s interesting because theseballets are appealing to certain people to go and touch them. Likewith Peter, and the other people who are sitting at this table, butother people, maybe, don’t have that skill and you can’t force that.So I think it has to come naturally, that we will develop these peoplethat have these skills and give them chances. Thomas has provedthat he has skills and talent, and he’s a great lover of Bournonville,so definitely we have something to go for there. And I like to keepsearching for more people in the company—and maybe outsidethe company —who have a deep interest and can develop the skill.Everything will have to take time. Nothing was built in one day, andI intend to take the time and while we are developing, while we’rebuilding, we’re not ruining anything.
Eva Kistrop: I don’t think that the question is so much to donew things with Bournonville, I mean, Peter has done a version,Tim Rushton has done a version—I haven’t seen either of them,but from the reviews I have read I don’t think we will sit here in fiftyyears discussing those two because it is very difficult. I think youhave a very, very good vision for the company, being the best story-telling ballet company in the world, but it also is a very challengingvision because where shall the new storytellers come from? So, what
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I would very much like to see, and which I hope that the companycan find resources to develop, is to develop choreographers whoare not having to go in and make a new version of Napoli but cando, for our time and our company, what Bournonville could dofor his—interpreting our world, our values in a form that wouldbe very interesting now, and hopefully later.
And on the question of new directors. I don’t think the ques-tions of new directors is a question of right directors. It is also veryimportant to get right two things: one is casting, and the other oneis coaching. So if we can get these elements right—and I could alsosay a few things about scenography, but I won’t at this time becauseit’s not what we’re really discussing—but these are the elementsthat will make a ballet good. And if a ballet is good and as was said,if it comes from the inside out, it will communicate.
You can do quite a lot with marketing. But if you want to,you can do it two ways. You can either go through television—and I think what we are paying for now is the fact that for ten ortwelve years there have been very, very few programs about theRoyal Danish Ballet on television. It is changing now, but theseare the mediums to watch. All you can do, if you look at someonewho is almost contemporary with Bournonville, a little older—Jane Austen—there is a growing interest and a steady interest inher work—it is followed very closely on several Internet sites andmore books have been written, and people are even making fanfiction based on her work. There’s no commercial interest in thatfield, people do it because of love. I can’t really see myself doinga fan fiction on Napoli but maybe someone can. So you can eitherdo it in a sort of person to person way or you can go to mass media.
MD: I’m getting orders to say thank you to the panel. We willhave to close. And this was just the final suggestion and I reallyhope that, maybe, some things will prove productive and we’llsee. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us here—andBournonville forever!D
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