Holland Festival 1997: Netherlands Dance Theater, Dutch National Ballet, Cullberg Ballet - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, Oct, 1997 by Helma Klooss

LUCENT DANSTHEATER, THE HAGUE, AND MUZIEKTHEATER, AMSTERDAM MAY 31-JUNE 30, 1997

REVIEWED BY HELMA KLOOSS

This year's Holland Festival presented a portrait of Swedish choreographer Mats Ek. Asked to program an evening for Netherlands Dance Theater, he premiered a splendid new ballet for sixteen dancers, A Sort of, on opening night in The Hague. To share the program, Ek invited the young choreographer Jens Ostberg, also Swedish, who created Shadowed, and the Belgian choreographer Stijn Celis, who made Ubilaz Vanilla for guest dancers from Cullberg Ballet. Cullberg Ballet also danced Ek's Carmen, She Was Black, and The Sleeping Beauty at the Muziektheater in Amsterdam to much acclaim.

Once a dancer with NDT, later the director of Cullberg Ballet (founded by his mother, Birgit Cullberg) and since 1993 a freelance choreographer, Ek has recently returned to an earlier love, theater. His latest work for the stage, On Malta, was also presented in the Holland Festival. It included some moments of great dancing by his brother, Niklas Ek, and his wife and muse, Ana Laguna.

Although close friends, Mats Ek and Jiri Kylian, NDT's director, produce works which have little in common. Ek creates a mysterious, mythical world, broadly comical, especially in A Sort of, created to music of Gorecki. Paul Lightfoot and Elke Schepers's long duet is like a Magritte painting come to life. Later, a duet for Nancy Euverink and Jorma Elo is more infantile in character. And when all the women appear pregnant, and then their "balloons" are pricked and deflated, it is as if none of their dreams will come true.

Ubiloz Vanilla, by Stijn Celis, is a succession of beautiful beginnings, but none of them are worked out yet. Jens Ostberg's choreography for Shadowed, set to music by Bach and Arvo Part, is about erotic power games between men and women. Fiona Lummis, as a vampire, lies Johan Inger easily, then drops him carelessly after he tenderly tries to kiss her feet. The movements are sometimes overly acrobatic: they express the theme in the right way, but don't fit with the music.

After a long absence, Dutch National Ballet reappeared at the Holland Festival with the premiere of Hans van Manen's Three Pieces for Het on a triple bill that also included less interesting works by Harald Lander and Toer van Schayk. To celebrate van Manen's sixty-fifth birthday, a gala performance and party in the presence of Queen Beatrix was organized by NDT. This miniretrospective of old and new works proved that van Manen's creative ability has remained constant.

Three Pieces for Het, set to music of Ferruccio Busoni, Erkki-Sven Tuur, and Part, is a clear, abstract piece consistent with the body of his work. Like most of his dances, it concerns human relationships, with the occasional nod toward eroticism. In Three Pieces there is, however, much more poetry and generosity, which is built up over the course of the three sections.

The first is danced by Sjef Annink and Roger Jansen with a close group of six female dancers whose aloofness is gradually breached. The second part is a power struggle between Sofiane Sylve and Gael Lambiotte, leading from dynamic turns to an exuberant dance. They also dance the last duet, which is the most powerful. The two embrace; he rocks her, and she waits during the stillness of the music. She expects something from him, and he dances around and around her. Then he cradles her head alongside his own--the commitment she was waiting for.

In a separate program, the National Ballet lent ten of its best dancers, among them Jane Lord and Coleen Davis, to tango dancer Wouter Brave for his evening-length The Art of Tango. Unfortunately, his choreography showed none of the sensuality of the tango. Even his own performance with partner Babette Anhalt remained cold.

Presenting a portrait of a single choreographer such as Mats Ek gives the audience the chance to deepen its understanding of his work and offers the festival a focus. The Holland Festival has been programmed this way for several years (in 1996, William Forsythe was profiled) [see Reviews/International, October 1996, page 99], to fine effect.