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The Dutch National Ballet: Preacher of the Dance
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12447 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
2,086 Words |
| Author
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Christopher V. Davies
Christopher V. Davies, a British writer currently living in
the Netherlands, is also a singer and songwriter. |
"One of the major dance companies of the world." So wrote Clive Barnes, then dance critic of the New York Times, about the Dutch National Ballet. The Dutch tend to be rather modest about their achievements, but Barnes had no such reservations when he first saw them over ten years ago.
Het Nationale ballet, or HNB, as the company is popularly known, was founded in 1961, merging the Amsterdam Ballet and the Netherlands Ballet. This happened through the efforts of Sonia Gaskell, who was to become the new company's first artistic director. Gaskell, who was born in Russia of Jewish parents and worked in the United States before settling in the Netherlands, had a vision of creating a dance museum that would present as many facets of the dance as possible. She was the first in Europe to champion the choreography of George Balanchine. Today the company boasts twenty-one Balanchine works in its repertoire, second only to the New York City Ballet.
Conversely, HNB seeks to present classics as faithful as possible to the original. Rudi Van Dantzig, who succeeded Gaskell as artistic director in 1968, will be staging Sleeping Beauty next year. While he has some new ideas for the first and second acts, he claims he would not dream of any radical alterations. He says if he wants to put dancers in blue jeans, he will create a new ballet himself or suggest it to one of his colleagues.
Calvinist Background
The Dutch, because of their Calvinist background, historically have regarded dance as a frivolous activity. There is nothing frivolous, however, about modern works created and presented by HNB, although this does not make them ipso facto acceptable to a traditional Calvinist. Van Dantzig explains that "our strange tastes and views are very different from what people think ballet is. We don't give a very rosy picture of dance. In Holland we view it as rather stark, strong, different." He contrasts audiences in Holland with those he has encountered abroad. "We can go to the provinces and present Offenbach, Stockhausen, and Stravinsky in one evening and people will stay. They may not like it all, but they take it in. In London, Paris, New York, people say it's too much, too difficult, too intellectual, too highbrow.
"Balanchine understood this. To capture audiences in the United States, he would throw in an eye-catcher from time to time, easy music, nice costumes. In Holland, we are very orthodox, so we have chosen all the difficult
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