NDT 1 opens the season with a triple bill bringing together three decades of contemporary dance. To be seen from 26 September to 17 December.
Celebrate the start of the 2024-2025 season with us and check out NDT Online! Watch the first programmes of the season in Digital Theatre.
Dear viewers,
We are thrilled you are able to join us at home, welcome!
Welcome to this triple bill from NDT 2. This programme features NDT 2 in an exhilarating evening of works by acclaimed choreographers Crystal Pite, Johan Inger and Noé Soulier.
Originally created for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in 2008, Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue marks NDT associate choreographer Crystal Pite’s debut collaboration with NDT 2. In this moving and intimate score for ten duets, Pite portrays fragments of an untold narrative about human relationships and their often complex connections.
Since 2020, Noé Soulier has been the director of the Centre national de danse contemporaine in Anger. Soulier’s work explores how we see, interpret, and incorporate gestures in dance. With his new work About Now, he analyzes and describes different ways to conceive movements that offer multiple approaches to experience the body. This work was created in collaboration with fashion designer Nix Lecourt-Mansion.
To close the evening, the NDT 2 dancers will also perform IMPASSE, a ballet from the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger that premiered in March 2020 – right before all theaters had to close their doors, causing many to miss the piece.
Thank you for joining us. We hope to see you again at our (online) performances this coming year!
Emily Molnar
Artistic Director
STAGED BY
Cindy Salgado
MUSIC
Cliff Martinez: High Energy Proton Accelerator, Maybe you’re my puppet, Don’t Blow It, Will She Come Back? Version Titles From “Solaris”/ Score (Twentieth Century Fox Film Music Corporation)
LIGHT
Jim French
COSTUMES
Linda Chow
REHEARSAL DIRECTORS
Lydia Bustinduy, Ander Zabala
WORLD PREMIERE
June 30, 2008, Ceder Lake Contemporary Ballet
NDT PREMIERE
March 16, 2023, Amare The Hague
DURATION
14 minutes
CAST A
Conner Chew
Ricardo Hartley III
Samuel van der Veer
Sophie Whittome
Viola Busi
CAST B
Barry Gans
Rebecca Speroni
Casper Mott
Demi Bawon
Nova Valkenhoff
“I love the word “rescue”. It captures a whole story in a single word. Similarly, the body can convey narrative through the simplest of actions. For me, this work for Cedar Lake was an act of excavation. After creating the choreography, I searched within it for images that specifically evoked rescue. There are many of them. They exist inside the dancing like fragments of an untold narrative. I suppose the presence of rescue in this work is twofold, as I tried to liberate and expose these images for brief contemplation before releasing them back into the dance: saving and holding one picture of rescue in each of the ten duets.”
– Crystal Pite
Conner Chew about Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue:
“Out reached arms
Softening palms
Her weight falls back into the safety of my hands
A cry for help, only to send it elsewhere
She slips from my hand
to ignite the charge
We cannot touch but let us run together
Three steps, a chase, resilient pressure
Although we never touch, I feel your warmth
Drag me, save me
I am blind yet we still fly
I let you soar to come down
Let me be your pillow
Another release to save
Let us push and pull
Out reached arms
Softening palms”
Sophie Whittome about Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue:
“Something I’ve found interesting:
Within this piece, the range of rescue has been stretched out and tried on in different sizes… Heroism in miniature, the size of lint removed from a shirt, or at its hugest, enough that a slipped grip sends a person into free-fall.
Equally as compelling has been watching as the stakes gets scrambled (which they’re bound to do). The lint is suddenly heavier than the free fall. As viewers, our minced stakes are uniquely our own, and we make of each rescue what we will.”
MUSIC
Johan Sebastian Bach by Pierre-Laurent Aimard: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I, II, III, IV, Contrapunctus No. 9 alla Duodecima, No. 20 Fuga a 3 Soggetti (Contrapunctus No. 14) (Deutsche Grammophon/ Universal, Albersen Verhuur B.V. Den Haag, namens © Peters Edition, Leipzig.)
LIGHT
Victor Burel
COSTUMES
Nix Lecourt Mansion
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Ander Zabala
WORLD PREMIERE
March 16, 2023, Amare The Hague
DURATION
22 minutes
Demi Bawon
Barry Gans
Nick Daniels
Casper Mott
Omani Ormskirk
Gabriele Rolle
Rui-Ting Yu
“My approach to movement is rooted in practical actions that most of us are familiar with, such as hitting, avoiding or throwing. I insert many distortions that motivate the dancers’ movements without being identifiable by the spectators. These diverted actions capture a poetic dimension of movement that lies beneath discourse and narration. Far from being purely formal, they aim to trigger affects and emotions in both the performers and the audience without having to be part of a narrative structure.
In About Now, I confront this vocabulary of diverted actions with the steps of classical dance, that can be seen as stylized action verbs: “frappé, fouetté, assemblé… ”. With the dancers of NDT 2, we explored actions present in this classical vocabulary, and thereby delved into the sensual, experiential and affective dimension of this movement language, rather than into its formal geometric structure.
Ballet is disciplinary, and imposes a formal framework on the body that disregards its natural tendencies and conveys stereotyped gendered norms. The problematic nature of this heritage appears more and more clearly. It is, however, illusory to think that we could completely separate ourselves from this legacy. Instead of denying it, About Now aims to rework its principle guidelines to create a new classic movement language that draws on the richness of this tradition. This way, About Now generates a different relationship to the body, one that is affective and sensual, and that reconfigures the dynamics of power embedded in classical dance.”
– Noé Soulier
Rui-Ting Yu about About Now:
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Noé.
We started with improvisation, in which we used a few ballet languages to develop the ideas. To experience it through the body, and to understand what it means for each individual. A task could bring up many possibilities to receive and respond in conversation.
We play with our senses in relationship between people, space, and everything. In the present moment it requires a high awareness. The joy of unknowing and challenge opens our sensitivity. Each choice creates other paths, we’re already in the dialogue by existing.”
With About Now, choreographer Noé Soulier presents his debut creation with the company. What was his creation process like? In this interview, you learn all about it, as well as his approach to the piece.
STAGED BY: Fernando Hernando Magadan, Hedda Twiehaus
MUSIC: Compositions by Ibrahim Maalouf: Lily, Will Soon Be a Woman, Maeva in the Wonderland, Your Soul, Never Serious.
New composition by Amos Ben-Tal.
LIGHT: Tom Visser
TECHNICAL REALISATION LIGHT: Lisette van der Linden
DECOR: Johan Inger
COSTUMES: Bregje van Balen
VIDEO: Annie Tådne
WORLD PREMIERE: February 28, 2020, Zuiderstrandtheater The Hague
DURATION: 25 minutes
“How do we bridge the gap that grows as we stagnate? Our world today feels defined by a situation in which no progress seems possible. IMPASSE by Johan Inger illuminates that the baseline of human behavior is rooted in peer pressure and a loss of self, determined by a seduction of unending streams of “newness”. The piece problematizes the ease with which we seem to fall into what others say or do and how we lose the opportunity for fruitful growth in the process. Can we nurture the ability to seriously interrogate the world together, and find the capacity to reimagine it? Through a steady increase in the number of dancers on stage and a simultaneous decrease in the size of the performance space, IMPASSE demands a sense of urgency. Fluid movements and strong rhythms are translated by the young dancers of NDT 2 through moments of hysterical comic relief and manic isolation, indicating that together we should be stronger, alone we are less.”
– Johan Inger
Leidsch Dagblad about IMPASSE.
