Nederlands Dans
Theater
was established in 1959 - a group of 18 members of former Het Nederlands
Ballet (Ballet of the Netherlands) broke away from the traditionally
orientated company. Around Benjamin Harkarvy (ballet master and
artistic director) and Carel Birnie (managing director) the new
group was dedicated to the exploration of new forms of dance, using
new techniques and open to new ideas and experimentation.
The first few years
were hard, without any official financial support, without studios and,
initially, without a regular audience. Even so, the company's persistence
with programmes of artistic exploration soon won admiration for, and
recognition of, its achievements.
With Harkarvy and
Hans van Manen as resident choreographers
other distinguished choreographers - including Americans Anna Sokolow
and Glen Tetley - created a challenging repertory for the company
which, during the sixties, was accepted as the most innovative and exciting
dance group in Europe.
When Harkarvy and
van Manen had left the company at the beginning of the seventies NDT
entered into a period of uncertainty and transition culminating, in
1975, with the appointment of JirÃ
Kylián - initially in co-direction with Hans Knill as artistic director, an appointment that has proved, over nearly
twenty years, one of exceptional prescience and progressive success.
Kylián
was born in Prague in 1947 and his training included classical ballet,
folk-dance and the modern technique of Martha Graham. In 1967
he won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London and
a year later was invited by John Cranko to join his company in
Stuttgart where, while performing as a dancer, he began to develop
his talent as a choreographer. When appointed artistic director of NDT
he was only 28, an extraordinarily young age at which to shoulder such
responsibilities. But his great abilities, not only as a choreographer
but also as an artist able to engender enthusiasm and loyalty from everyone
associated with the organisation, resulted in a company unique in its
formation and accomplishments.
Nederlands Dans
Theater is, now, unique in being three companies in one: NDT 1,
the main company of 32 dancers; NDT 2, a group of 12 young dancers
up to the age of 21 and with its own repertory, and NDT 3, a
small group of dancers of 40 plus years who are able to bring all their
accumulated experience and expertise to a repertory devised to exploit
their theatrical presence. Thus NDT, as a three in one entity, is able
to present to its audiences the whole working life-span of its artists.
This year 1995, in celebration of Kylian's twentieth anniversary as
director of the company, he has created 'Arcimboldo', a work that combines
the multiplicity of talents that make up all three groups.
The three companies
are also unique in not being based on a hierarchy: there are no echelons
such as corps de ballet, coryphies, soloists and principals; all the
dancers are of equal status. Finally, NDT is unique in having its own
state-of-the-art theater in The Hague, with a magnificent stage,
five studios and every necessary facility, perhaps the only theatre
in the world specifically created for dance.
Although Kylián
has created almost fifty works for the company he has wisely extended
the repertory with works by several of the world's most renowned choreographers
and in 1988 Hans van Manen returned to the company as resident
choreographer. All the dancers in the company are classically trained
as only with the daily practise of this most elaborate and precise discipline
can they maintain the flexibility and stamina demanded of them.
Under JirÃ
Kilián's visionary direction, NDT has
seen a continuous progression to a point of international pre-eminence,
true to the original precepts propounded by Harkarvy, Birnie and their
group in 1959 and, with its director still a relatively young man, there
is every reason to believe that NDT will advance into the twenty-first
century with the same questing exploration of the art which sustains
it.
Last Updated-2011
Accessed-Wednesday 8th February 2012
Accessed-Wednesday 8th February 2012
Mats Ek became a member of the Nederlands Dans Theater from 1980 to 1981.
ReplyDelete