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HANS VAN MANEN - MASTER OF DANCE |
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Sophisticated simplicity and timeless beauty
adagio hammerklavier
music: Ludwig van Beethoven
solo
music: Johann Sebastian Bach
grosse fuge
music: Ludwig van Beethoven
concertante
music: Frank Martin
accompanied by: Holland Symfonia, conducted by Ermanno Florio / Timothy Henty |
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At the request of many theatres and audience members, the Dutch National Ballet will be touring the Netherlands in spring 2011 with a programme consisting solely of works by Hans van Manen. The most important and productive choreographer of the Netherlands, Van Manen has an impressive oeuvre of over 120 ballets to his name. Everyone agrees that practically every one of these works is a thing of timeless beauty.
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The programme kicks off with Van Manen’s latest creation, to be made for the Dutch National Ballet in October 2010. Van Manen’s inspiration for this ballet for one woman and three men came from a number of piano songs by the Austrian composer Hugo Wolf. The music will be performed live in an instrumental version (without the singing) by pianist/conductor/composer Reinbert de Leeuw.
Alongside this new work, the company will be dancing Adagio Hammerklavier (1973), which is recognised as a classic all over the world. Inspired by the adagio in Beethoven’s music, Van Manen investigates in this ballet just how slow a movement can be. Or, as he once described his ode to the adagio: “it is like a wheel that after one push is still moving, just before it falls”.
Solo, created in 1997 for three junior members of Nederlands Dans Theater, is actually the exact opposite to this. It is a furious dance relay; a ‘solo’ for three – because (as Van Manen explained at the time) it is impossible for one person to dance to the breakneck speed of Bach’s Violin Partita. Immediately after its premiere, the ballet was labelled ‘a masterpiece in six minutes’.
The fourth work on the programme is Concertante, created in 1994 for eight junior members of Nederlands Dans Theater. It is a fascinating ballet, seasoned with humour and aggression, which even in its most dazzling solos and intense pas de deux still demonstrates the sophisticated simplicity, visual logic and musicality so typical of Van Manen.
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‘A big event in Dutch art and the biggest in the Dutch dance world. Those who pass it by or who don’t at least go and see it are depriving their own soul’
- Vrij Nederland about Adagio Hammerklavier
‘Solo sparkles, crackles and swings, and makes you chuckle at the scampering feet, the arms thrown up like exclamation marks and the flashy turns (…) How delightful dance can be’ - NRC Handelsblad
website hans van manen
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PERFORMANCES OUTSIDE HET MUZIEKTHEATER
For tickets and information on performances outside Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, please contact the box office of the relevant theatre.
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