It needs to be said

choreography: feestgericht by hans van manen
photo: ed van der elsken
written by: astrid van leeuwen

The first programme of NDT, premiering in 1959 in Ostende, presented two pieces by Hans van Manen: a piece created for Marianne Hilarides and Jaap Flier, Maan in de Trapeze, and Van Manen choreographical debut Feestgericht (photo), created in 1957 for the Ballet of the Dutch Opera. “The whole programme had to be rehearsed in secret, because the Nederlands Ballet was not allowed to know about our coup,” says Van Manen. He misses out on the big success of the first performance, as he already left for Paris. Here he joins Roland Petit’s Les Ballets de Paris and dances with superstars as the flamboyant Zizi Jeanmaire and Hollywood star Cyd Charisse. At Petit he also meets his later muse Gérard Lemaître. Together they leave for the Netherlands a year later – “in Paris there was nothing left to experience in the field of dance” – and join Nederlands Dans Theater. After six months Van Manen is appointed artistic director, next to Benjamin Harkarvy, a position he would hold for over ten years.

One of the more than 25 ballets, created by Van Manen in this first period with Nederlands Dans Theater is Situation (1970). Where the lion share of the choreographers ballets are set to beautiful scores, he decides to use irritating sounds for Situation: gunfire, jet noise, mosquito buzz. “Because the entire ballet revolves around aggression and violence. But also as a statement against the prevailing opinion of that time, that a choreographer should enter into a dialogue with the music. I thought: ‘Well, then I go into dialogue with those sounds.’” Mockingly: “More dialogue is impossible!” Put differently: “I didn’t want to enter into a dialogue with music, I want, when I look at dance, to see the music. Those choreographers who go into a dialogue with the music, create musical wallpaper.”

After having been house choreographer of the Dutch National Ballet for fourteen years (1973-1987), Van Manen returns to Nederlands Dans Theater in 1988, where he makes a little more than thirty ballets for NDT 1, 2 and 3 in the years that follow. Among  others, the biggest international success of NDT 3: The Old Man and Me (1996). “I knew, when I was asked to create a piece for NDT 3, immediately that I wanted to make something for Gérard (Lemaître) and Sabine (Kupferberg), two incredible stage personalities.”

The famed scene in which the two of them blow each other up, as if they were Michelin Man, dates back to the sixties, when Van Manen made many ballets for television and had to wait long hours during the recordings. Laughingly: “Chuck (NDT-dancer Charles Czarny – ed.) and I regularly blew each other up to pass the time.” Regarding the beautiful final part Van Manen says: “I left Sabine and Gérard sitting on a bench, completely turned into themselves, and said: “You can only look up when I say so.” Well, that took a damn long time!… But they immediately understood.”