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7 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

I *think* that the guidance document technically only extends closure as far as 3rd May (to be reviewed fortnightly, as Duck says above) ...

That's correct.

 

Any loosening of the current restrictions is done very slowly though so effects can be assessed. E.g., with the exception of book / cycle / car shops that can open again regardless of size, other shops that have been closed since mid March can only open if their retail space is below 800 square meters / 8600 square feet. This is less about safety in shops than about the number of people in the streets going shopping. Equally, schools will start with school-leaving classes only. Etc.

 

I thus think it'll be some time before the opening of cultural venues will be on the agenda, hence my assumption that the season is pretty much done.

 

No doubt the states will put out guidance as to what constitutes "large events" over the coming days.

 

 

Edited by Duck
but / than
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From what I understand, the number of people at "large events" will have to be confirmed by each federal state in the next days, but I too think that the season is over, no theatre will open again before September. All the open-air summer festivals are off, I suppose, and we have a lot of them.

Katherine, the Stuttgart theatre recently sent me my tickets for May and June, lucky me... I guess they still had hope they could re-open. All theatres had waited for the announcement and I guess we will see lots of cancelled seasons in the next days.

As Austria had closed for the rest of the season already a week ago and as France cancelled the big summer festivals, I guess you can expect the same will come for Great Britain. And the US. And Russia. No ballet for a long time.  

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Vienna State Opera posted the the premieres for next season. Martin Schläpfer, the new ballet director, has two world premieres: Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony, together with "Live" by Hans van Manen, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony, together with pieces by Alexei Ratmansky (Pictures at an Exhibition) and Balanchine (Symphony in Three Movements). A further premiere at the Staatsoper is a Robbins/Balanchine evening with Glass Pieces, Duo Concertante, A Suite of Dances and The Concert.

 

For the Volksoper, the smaller Vienna Opera House, the season includes an American evening with Promethean Fire by Paul Taylor, Lontano and Ramifications by Martin Schläpfer and Beaux by Mark Morris, an evening with Dutch ballet, including Skew Whiff by Sol León/Paul Lightfoot, Adagio Hammerklavier by Hans van Manen and Symphony of Psalms by Jiří Kylián, and a restaging of Schläpfer’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with music by Brahms.  

 

Story ballets like Ashton’s Fille, Nureyev’s Swan Lake, Elena Tschernischova’s Giselle and also Balanchine’s Jewels will stay in the repertoire, the Volksoper keeps Pierre Lacotte’s Coppélia and Peter Pan by Vesna Orlić.

 

The Nureyev Gala in June, which this year should have been a big goodbye performance for Manuel Legris and his dancers and was cancelled due to the pandemic, will also take place in the future, but only every two years. A new discussion series named "Tanzpodium" will be established, also a weekly open class for advanced amateurs and interested professionals.

 

Let's hope everything can take place as planned. I could not find news so far about the new ensemble.

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3 hours ago, Naomi M said:

The new ensemble of Vienna State Ballet can be seen in this brochure. Many changes could be seen.

 

https://www2.wiener-staatsoper.at/fileadmin/Presse/Saison_20_21_PK/Textmaterial_Saison_20_21_PK/Saisonbuch202021_Presse.pdf

Some prominent omissions, indeed!  San Francisco Ballet has already announced the addition of Nikisha Fogo (Vienna's loss is definitely SFB's gain!), and I see that James Stephens is going to Royal Danish Ballet.  Any news of what Natascha Mair and Jakob Feyferlik will be doing?  (I could but won't speculate...)

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On 16/04/2020 at 03:44, Angela said:

As Austria had closed for the rest of the season already a week ago and as France cancelled the big summer festivals, I guess you can expect the same will come for Great Britain. And the US. And Russia. No ballet for a long time.  

 

I don't think the U.S. is entirely predictable especially as things may be decided on a state by state basis, but certainly no ballet in most major cities that have ballet and obviously not New York where Lincoln Center has already cancelled all summer events....The Vail Dance Festival in Colorado (which always has a slew of great ballet artists) has posted a letter to audiences on their site saying that they think it is too soon to know whether or not to cancel. It is hard for me to imagine that they won't cancel, but then the past year has been full of events that would have been hard for me to imagine.

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A small sign of hope from Stuttgart Ballet: the dancers who had been for six week under lockdown are now allowed to go back to the studio in small groups of two to four dancers, ballet master and pianist will join by video only. The dressing rooms stay locked, the studios will be disinfected on a regular basis. It's possible because professional dancers are included in a special Corona times law for top-class sport which allows training in small groups. All on a voluntary basis, of course, no dancer is forced to come to the theatre.

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That may have to do with the fact that it's a production for television and that German broadcasters ARD or SWR hold the rights for foreign countries. I thought that is the reason that I cannot see certain streams from France or Italy, but I'm not really sure. The same could happen with Death in Venice, but it's much older, so maybe they concede the rights.

If it helps: The Beethoven ballet is not Neumeier's best work.

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3 hours ago, Angela said:

That may have to do with the fact that it's a production for television and that German broadcasters ARD or SWR hold the rights for foreign countries. I thought that is the reason that I cannot see certain streams from France or Italy, but I'm not really sure. The same could happen with Death in Venice, but it's much older, so maybe they concede the rights.

If it helps: The Beethoven ballet is not Neumeier's best work.

Thanks for this -it seems a very likely explanation. Death in Venice was streamed with no problems. I wonder what will happen with Illusions? 

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Same thing happening in Japan, Beethoven Project was available last time, but not this time. And it was broadcasted on television here (NHK)  last week, so I guess it seems to be because of rights issue here. 

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52 minutes ago, toursenlair said:

 

that's a very tactful way of putting it. 😉

 

I am happy to have survived to it (live in Hamburg), somehow. 🙂 I am sorry for Aleix Martinez, a great Artist, IMO, but NEVER again thanks .

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The season at Stuttgart State Theatre is now officially cancelled. The mayor says that at the moment nothing can be said how and when the next season will start.

😢

 

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from a recent interview in the Berliner Zeitung with the director of the Komische Oper Berlin

 

We have plan A and hopefully we will soon know if it works. Plan A is business as usual, i.e. we're opening in September.

This option still exists?

Probably not, but we remain hopeful. We need a little miracle for that, someone who says next week: We have a vaccine or a drug. We are also developing Plan B for a season starting in early November. This means that productions have to be exchanged, canceled, repertoire has to be rebuilt. Then we have plan C: early January 2021. Then plan D: March 2021.

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Hamburg Ballet will go back to the studio with six dancers in one studio at a time. Respecting all rules of social distancing, John Neumeier will work on a new ballet that reflects the current situation, to music by Franz Schubert and for all of the dancers of Hamburg Ballet. He will work with small groups and combine them later to a whole piece, whenever the rules may allow it.  

 

 

New streams by Hamburg Ballet:

 

May 14 and 23

"Nijinsky & Neumeier. Eine Seelenverwandtschaft im Tanz" (Soulmates in Dance)

Documentation by Annette von Wangenheim, made for German television  in 2010

 

May 21 and 30

"John Neumeier at Work"

Documentation by André S. Labarthe from 1987, with rehearsals for Artus Tale, St. Matthews Passion and Magnificat

 

May 28 and June 6

"John Neumeier – Unterwegs"

Documentation by Jan Peter Gehrckens, made for German television in 2019

 

the videos will be online for 48 hours

www.hamburgballett.de

 

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Sasha Waltz recently said in an interview with BZ , that SBB expects to work again at the end of August but has 3 different scenarios, depending on a beginning in September, October or November. 😨 They are determined to save at least 2 premieres, Marcia Haydee's "Sleeping Beauty" and S. Waltz' "Sym-Phonie 2020". Let's hope the Sleeping Beauty gets a chance... 

She also mentioned that Alan Lucien Øyen's World Premiere for SBB and the premieres with pieces by David Dawson, Wayne McGregor and Mats Ek are cancelled for the upcoming season. 

I was looking forward to Ek and McGregor and I hope it will happen soon after next season.

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We have so much information on this thread now that I've filtered off the discussion of Neumeier works into its own thread here:

 

 

Let me know if there are any other candidates for moving, please.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The winners of the German Dance Award 2020 were announced yesterday.

 

The German Dance Award 2020 goes to contemporary dancer and choreographer Raimund Hoghe, working on inclusion and diversity since the 1990s.

 

The Award for Outstanding Performer 2020 goes to Friedemann Vogel, Principal Dancer with Stuttgart Ballett.

 

Awards for Outstanding Artistic Developments in Dance 2020 go to:

Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft, a contemporary choreographer from Hamburg and her company,

and to Raphael Hillebrand, a HipHop/Urban Dance/Contemporary artist and choreographer from Berlin

 

The gala for the Award ceremony will take place on Saturday, 17. October 2020 in the Aalto-Theater Essen.

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The first signs of a new life on stage from the ballet companies at Stuttgart and Munich:

 

Bavarian State Ballet offers a new creation during the new chamber music series "Streifzüge am Mittwoch" ("Wednesday Strolls"), where 20 visitors can see a concert or perfomance at various places at the Nationaltheater. On 3. June, they can watch "Tango Between Us" in the ballet studio, choreographed by Maged Mohamed to music by Astor Piazzola. The dancers are Carollina Bastos and Ariel Merkuri, a couple also in life.

 

Together with singers and actors of the Stuttgart State Theatre, Stuttgart Ballet takes part in "We are such stuff as dreams are made on", a "Theatre Parcours" in the buildings of Opera, Playhouse and between. The ballet company will show excerpts from pieces by Edward Clug, John Cranko, Roman Novitzky, The Dying Swan by Fokine and "Metrof", a creation by Shaked Heller, dancer of the company. Up to four people will walk a parcours through the whole theatre, with stations with music, acting and dancing. People get time slots during a period of four hours and will move from station to station. Premiere on 5. June.

https://www.stuttgart-ballet.de/schedule/a-z/walkabout/

 

 

Most ballet companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have returned to their studios now, strictly keeping distance during class. They work in small groups between four to ten dancers, studios and dressing rooms are cleaned and disinfected regularly.

 

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