Angela

Madoka Sugai, winner of the Prix de Lausanne 2012, will join the Hamburg Bundesjugendballett as a guest for one season. The 18 year old Japanese ballerina comes to John Neumeier’s youth company with a scholarship.

I did not see the performances at Berlin and Vienna, Janet, but from the reviews I understand that the texts remained in English, but with German surtitles. Many people here understand English - at least in the multilingual modern dance scene...

The annual critics survey at German dance magazine "tanz" (former "ballet-tanz"), in which 36 German and international critics had been asked to offer their choice, has prompted the following results:

Best female dancers are Alina Cojocaru for John Neumeier’s "Liliom" and Anne-Teresa de Keersmaeker for different pieces

Best male dancers are Hamburg Ballet’s Carsten Jung, also for "Liliom", and Martin Hansen for "Baader" by German choreographer Christoph Winkler

Choreographer of the year is Boris Charmatz for "enfant"

Best new piece is "Can We Talk About This" by DV8 Physical Theatre

 

www.tanz-zeitschrift.de

www.kultiversum.de

Egon Madsen, a former principal with Stuttgart Ballet, turns 70 today. The Danish dancer was one of John Cranko’s "Initials R.M.B.E", with Marcia Haydée, Birgit Keil and the late Richard Cragun. He was loved for his funny roles, the Joker in "Jeu de cartes", Gremio in "Taming of the Shrew" or Mercutio in Cranko’s "Romeo", dying with a smile on his face. But Madsen also created important roles in ballets of today's world-wide repertory: he was the first Lensky in Cranko’s "Onegin", the first Messenger of Death in MacMillan’s "Song of the Earth", the first Albrecht in Peter Wright's staging of "Giselle" and the first Armand in Neumeier’s "Lady of the Camellias". He also danced the young man next to Margot Fonteyn’s diva in Cranko’s "Poème de l’extase".

 

After he finished his (first) dancing career in 1981, Madsen was ballet director at Frankfurt, Stockholm and Florence, not very successful at all three places. He returned to Stuttgart as ballet master and assistant director to Marcia Haydée. When Jiří Kylián was seeking a new member for his NDT III, Madsen started to dance again after 17 years, now doing dance theatre with Meryl Tankard, Mats Ek or Robert Wilson. He also directed the famous company of senior dancers for seven years, until it was abandoned for financial reasons in 2006. And even that was not the end of his dancing career: the former Stuttgart Ballet soloist Eric Gauthier, who had danced a lot of Madsen’s roles in the repertory, hired him as coach and dancer for his new, small, Stuttgart-based company Gauthier Dance. In 2007, Stuttgart choreographer Christian Spuck created the funny and very touching piece "Don Q." for Madsen and Gauthier, a kind of Cervantes meets "Waiting for Godot", where Madsen is a sad old man opposite to Eric Gauthier, half his age, who tries to consolate him with jokes or by playing his Dulcinea. In 2011, Madsen was awarded the German Dance Prize.

 

With 70 years, he is still dancing; his last appearance was in "Cantata" at Stuttgart Theaterhaus, where Mauro Bigonzetti created a role especially for him. His birthday will be celebrated in a gala on September 28th by all three companies in which he danced: Stuttgart Ballet, NDT III (reunited for one night only) and Gauthier Dance. The first biography about him was published recently, in German language only.

 

Here’s a picture gallery with some photos from his career.

Promotions and new dancers at Berlin State Ballet:

Dinu Tamazlacaru was promoted to Principal and Gevorg Asoyan was promoted to Demi-Soloist.

New to the corps de ballet: Lisa Breuker, Cécile Kaltenbach, Ilenia Montagnoli, Patricia Zhou, Carlo Di Lanno, Maxime Quiroga, Tommaso Renda and Michael Wagley. New apprentices: Jordan Mullin and Alice Williamson.

 

Press release in German and pictures here

A short tribute by Reid Anderson and Stuttgart Ballet, where everybody is gone for the holidays:

http://www.stuttgart-ballet.de/home/

Richard Cragun was born in 1942 in Sacramento, California. He started with tap dancing before learning ballet and joined Stuttgart Ballet in 1962. There he was very soon promoted to principal and danced with Marcia Haydée for more than thirty years in one of the legendary partnerships in ballet history. Ricky, as he was called by his fans, had a brillant technique, fast turns, high and easy jumps, he was famous for his triple tours en l’air in "Taming of the Shrew". And he was a perfect partner.

 

John Cranko created the role of Petrucchio in "Taming" for him, Cragun also danced Cranko’s Romeo and was the best Onegin I can think of until today. Many other roles were created for him: one of the "shadows" to Margot Fonteyn in Cranko’s "Poème de l’extase", the first movement in Cranko’s "Initials R.B.M.E.", roles in MacMillan’s "Requiem" (he also danced The Man in "Song of the Earth" so many times), in Tetley’s "Voluntaries", the title role in William Forsythe’s only story ballet "Orpheus", Des Grieux in Neumeier’s "Lady of the Camellias" (he also was a wonderful Armand) and Stanley Kowalski in Neumeier’s "A Streetcar Named Desire". One of his greatest roles came along when he was already 43 years old (and he still had a brillant technique with 50 years): Carabosse in Haydée’s version of "Sleeping Beauty", where he stole the show with his fast turns and jumps, making every single Prince Desiré look pale. In 1990, Stuttgart Ballet staged the musical "On Your Toes", Ricky played the tap dancing and singing music professor Phil Dolan, making his childhood dream come true.

 

In 1996 he finished his dancing career to become director of the Ballet of Deutsche Oper Berlin, one of the companies that later were merged into Berlin State Ballet. He was not very successful and left Germany in 1999, moving to Brazil, where he founded a contemporary ballet company in Rio de Janeiro with his partner Roberto de Oliveira. He also directed the ballet company of the Teatro Municipal for some years. He suffered from a severe burn-out and a stroke in 2005 and was in a induced coma for several weeks, afterwards he never got well again. He came to Stuttgart once more for the 50 year jubilee of his former company in February 2011 and everybody was glad to see him, he looked fine at that time and spoke about Cranko’s times with so much love and passion. Cragun died on August 6th in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Marcia Haydée was with him.

American dancer Richard Cragun, famous partner of Marcia Haydée, who created roles for John Cranko, Kenneth MacMillan, Glen Tetley and John Neumeier, died in a hospital at Rio de Janeiro today. More to follow later.

Hi J_New, I think it was a brillant debut in the most difficult role of the Cranko repertory – I admired how calm he was, never over the top, never too evil, rather distant than haughty. Fine partnering, great turns, intelligent and believable acting. And he looks good in black

 

Stuttgart Ballet has a pic of the location in the park on their Facebook page (13. Juli)

http://www.facebook.com/stuttgartballet?v=wall

Financial/political difficulties for William Forsythe’s company: some members of the city council of Dresden want to cancel the payments of the town to the Forsythe Company, which at the moment is subsidized by several different partners (the towns of Frankfurt and Dresden, the Länder of Hesse and Saxony). Their point is that the performances at the Festspielhaus Dresden-Hellerau, a theatre some 30 km out of Dresden, don’t reach the audience at Dresden - only 3000 people saw the 25 performances of the company last season.

 

The Forsythe Company was founded in 2003, when the town of Frankfurt decided to cut the budget for the Frankfurt Ballet, since then the company appears at Frankfurt and at Dresden. Forsythe’s style of choreography has changed since the 80s, his famous ballets of that era like „Artifact“ or „Impressing the Czar“ are now danced by companies like the Royal Ballet of Flanders, Zurich Ballet, Dresden Ballet or Bavarian State Ballet, not by his own, smaller company which works in a different, much more contemporary style.

Alexander Jones, British principal dancer with Stuttgart Ballet, will dance his first Onegin on July 14th, stepping in for injured Filip Barankiewicz.

Austrian ballerina Margot Werner died on Sunday July 1st, she was 74 years old. She was a principal dancer with Munich Ballet from 1955 to 1975, regular partner of Heinz Bosl. After her dancing career she was a chanson singer and actress.

Shortly after the annual Ballett-Tage at Hamburg, highly successful with an audience attendance of 98 per cent, John Neumeier announced in a press release that this may have been the last Ballet Days at Hamburg, due to financial reasons. There will be no cuts in the budget of Hamburg State Opera, but an increase in pay rates for the civil service, which applies for most people working behind the scenes in German theatres, will cause huge financial problems for the Hamburg Opera House and consequently for Neumeier’s company. It will cause a deficit of 2.5 million Euro for his company or 50 jobs in the whole Opera House which he fears will also affect the number of dancers in his company.

 

Financial problems also for Martin Schläpfer’s Ballet on the Rhine which until now was playing in two opera houses at Düsseldorf and Duisburg. Due to huge financial problems, the city council of Duisburg has cut its budget for the theater cooperation by one million Euro, saying the will continue to have opera performances at their theatre, but no more ballet. A possible solution might be to work together with the town of Cologne, which has no ballet company of its own.

tim b, I have not seen the gala, but this was the programme:

 

NUREJEW GALA 2012

Künstlerische Leitung: Manuel Legris

Dirigent: Ermanno Florio

Es spielt das Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper

 

Teil I

 

SCHWANENSEE (Ausschnitt aus dem 2. Akt) (Rudolf Nurejew nach Lew Iwanow – Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowski)

 

Odette: Maria Yakovleva

Prinz Siegfried: Roman Lazik

Die großen Schwäne: Oxana Kiyanenko, Alena Klochkova, Yuki Sento, Prisca Zeisel

Die kleinen Schwäne: Maria Alati, Ioanna Avraam, Kiyoka Hashimoto, Rui Tamai

Die anderen Schwäne: Corps de ballet

 

Duo aus BLACK CAKE (Hans van Manen – Igor Strawinski)

 

Dagmar Kronberger

Eno Peci

 

GRAND PAS CLASSIQUE (Victor Gsovsky – Daniel François Esprit Auber)

 

Liudmila Konovalova

Vladimir Shklyarov

 

LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT (Roland Petit – Johann Sebastian Bach)

 

Kirill Kourlaev

Olga Esina

 

Teil II

 

Adagio aus RAYMONDA (1. Akt) (Rudolf Nurejew – Alexander Glasunow)

 

Raymonda: Nina Poláková

Jean de Brienne: Robert Gabdullin

 

Pas de six aus LAURENCIA (Wachtang Tschabukiani – Alexander Krein)

 

Ioanna Avraam – Denys Cherevychko

Natalie Kusch – Davide Dato

Kiyoka Hashimoto – Richard Szabó

 

Pas de deux aus ONEGIN (3. Akt) (John Cranko – Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowski, Kurt-Heinz Stolze)

 

Tatjana: Maria Eichwald

Onegin: Manuel Legris

 

VIER LETZTE LIEDER (Rudi van Dantzig – Richard Strauss)

 

Maria Yakovleva – Alexandru Tcacenco

Irina Tsymbal – Greig Matthews

Nina Poláková – Roman Lazik

Ketevan Papava – Alexis Forabosco

Shane A. Wuerthner

 

Es singt Olga Bezsmertna (Sopran)

 

Teil III

 

Pas de deux aus ROMEO UND JULIA (1. Akt) (Rudolf Nurejew – Sergej Prokofjew)

 

Julia: Natalie Kusch

Romeo: Denys Cherevychko

 

Walzer und Pas de deux aus DER NUSSKNACKER (Rudolf Nurejew – Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowski)

 

Walzer: Corps de ballet

Clara: Liudmila Konovalova

Prinz Nussknacker: Vladimir Shishov

 

THE CONCERT (Jerome Robbins – Frédéric Chopin, Clare Grundman)

 

Die Ballerina: Irina Tsymbal

Der Ehemann: Eno Peci

Die Ehefrau: Franziska Wallner-Hollinek

Ein schüchterner Jüngling: Davide Dato

Eine energische Frau: Liudmila Trayan

Ein Mann: Gabor Oberegger

Ein zweiter Mann: Igor Milos

Zwei junge Damen: Maria Alati, Marta Drastíková

Der Platzanweiser: Ashley Taylor

Klavier: Igor Zapravdin

 

pictures from the website of Vienna State Opera, or go here and press "Bildergalerie", those are bigger

 

reviews in Vienna newspapers, maybe you can read them by Google Translator:

http://www.wienerzeitung.at/themen_channel/wzkunstgriff/buehne/467830_Nurejews-Erben.html

http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/news/1259477/NurejewAbend_Fulminante-Ballettgala-an-der-Oper?_vl_backlink=/home/kultur/index.do

http://derstandard.at/1339638807811/Staatsoper-Wien-Nurejew-Gala-Schwaene-und-Schmetterlinge

http://www.tanz.at/kritiken/aktuelle-kritiken/562-ein-fest-fuer-rudolf-nurejew.html

That's a new award at the Hannover competition, offered by the new Federal Youth Ballet (Bundesjugendballett), a youth company associated to John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet in the style of NDT 2. The winner will be invited to Hamburg to create a new ballet for that small company of eight young dancers.

A new principal dancer for Vienna State Ballet: after the Nureyev Gala on Saturday, Manuel Legris promoted Ukrainian dancer Denys Cherevychko. He trained at Donezk and at the Heinz Bosl Stiftung at Munich, he dances with Vienna State Ballet since 2006.

Also promoted: Reina Sawai and Prisca Zeisel, Marcin Dempc, Greig Matthews and Dumitru Taran, all are now demi-soloists.

Principal dancer Shane Wuerthner is leaving the company after this season.

John Percival, Clive Barnes and Horst Koegler were all born in 1927 - this feels a bit like the end of an era. Imagine all the dancers and performances they have seen, all the beginnings and bloomings of careers we only know from old videos nowadays...

John Percival wrote the only biography about John Cranko, so he will be fondly remembered at Stuttgart.

The programme for the Nijinsky Gala No. XXXVIII at Hamburg Ballet has been published yesterday. Guests include Ulyana Lopatkina, Diana Vishneva and dancers from San Francisco Ballet. Alina Cojocaru will dance in excerpts from Neumeier’s „Midsummer Night’s Dream“ and „Liliom“.

Complete programme here

Stuttgart Ballet is on a tour to Japan and Korea, they keep posting pictures in a tour diary on their website

News from Stuttgart Ballet: principal dancer Friedemann Vogel and (still-) house choreographer Christian Spuck have been awarded prizes for best dancer and best choreographer by the Italian dance magazine Danza & Danza, the first presumably for his performance in "Raymonda" at La Scala, Spuck for his production of "Poppea//Poppea" for Gauthier Dance which was guesting at the Festival Bolzana Danza.

All awards here

Here's a fine definition (or better some of them) of the word, which was used for people in the beginning (like "White Trash" in America), but in ballet/opera/musical theatre it's only used for productions, not for people.

 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eurotrash

Former Berlin Ballet principal Polina Semionova finally found a new home:

 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/russian-dancer-signs-with-american-ballet-theater/

Oh, she's GREAT, a wonderful dancer in everything she does, if classical or modern.

 

Forgot something important for Stuttgart Ballet: they were invited to the Bolshoi in May 2013, they will show two performances of Cranko's "Romeo" and a modern evening.

@ taxi4ballet:

American dance critic Jack Anderson wrote: "In retaliation, I wish European audiences unhappy with American dances would pronounce them"Yankeejunk.""

The next season at Ballett am Rhein at Düsseldorf/Duisburg:

- „Concerto Barocco“ by Balanchine, „Kleines Requiem“ by Hans van Manen and a creation by Marco Goecke

- „The Leaves are fading Pas de deux“ and „Jardin aux Lilas“ by Tudor, „Five Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan“ by Ashton and „Johannes Brahms – Symphonie No. 2“, new creation by Martin Schläpfer

- an evening with new creations by Martin Chaix, Antoine Jully, Amanda Miller, Regina van Berkel and „Pond Way“ by Merce Cunningham

- „Afternoon of a Faun“ by Robbins, „Without words“ by Hans van Manen and „Nacht umstellt“, creation by Martin Schläpfer

- „A German Requiem“ by Martin Schläpfer