Edwaard Liang

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Dance Open 2020: «INVOCACIÓN», performed by Ballet Nacional de España

Rubén Olmo

Director of Ballet Nacional de España

Born in Andalusia, nurtured with the sun and the rhythms of flamenco, Rubén Olmo has given his life and soul to dance. He began his professional training at the age of nine, and at 39 took charge of his country’s most prestigious company – Ballet Nacional de España, which represents the national traditions of Spanish dance throughout the world. A graduate of the Spanish and Classical Dance course at Conservatorio de Sevilla, Olmo studied under great dancers including Marisol Delgado, José Manuel Moreno, and Pepa Coral. Spanish dance is a particularly individualist art form, where the character of the dancer has a decisive influence on their artistic style, and where many of the most talented dancers have their own school and their own adherents. Rubén Olmo attended the classes of numerous stars, exploring traditions, immersing himself in different interpretations and treatments, and honing his own personal style. Among his many teachers, he notes in particular Manolo Marín, Carmen Montiel and José Galván, Pedro Azorín, Mario Maya, and Javier Latorre. His talents were discovered remarkably young. At 16, Rubén Olmo was already performing professionally, and at 18 he made his first appearance in the corps de ballet of Ballet Nacional de España under Aída Gómez, becoming a soloist a year later, and then a principal dancer. At the peak of his career in 2002, he decided to quit the company in order to work with other Spanish ensembles as a dancer, director, and choreographer. Olmo then collaborated with some of the leading companies and artists in Spain, including Compañía de Eva Yerbabuena, Ramón Oller’s Metros, and Compañía Rafael Amargo. Olmo also founded his own company, for which he has staged numerous performances, among them Érase una vez que era at Teatro Albéniz in Madrid (2003), Pinnochio at Teatro de la Villa de Madrid (2007), Tranquilo Alboroto (2010) and Las Tentaciones de Poe (2012) for Teatro Central de Sevilla, Horas contigo for Teatro Fernán Gómez (2018), La Muerte de un Minotauro for Festival Internacional de Danza Itálica (2019), Naturalmente Flamenco for Festival de Jerez (2019), and Diálogo de Navegante for Bienal de Arte Flamenco Málaga (2019). An acknowledged master and connoisseur of dance, and an ambassador for his native region, Olmo for many years led Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia and taught at the famous Centro Andaluz de Danza. Among his awards are the Critics’ Prize at Festival de Jerez (2019), the Giraldillo Award from the city of Seville (2016), the Premio Nacional de Danza (2015), the Premio Max (2014), the Zapatilla de Plata de Indanza (2012), the Giraldillo at Bienal de Flamenco in Seville (2010), and the Premio Pilar López (2007). Since September 2019, Rubén Olmo has been director of Ballet Nacional de España, pursuing the company’s mission to preserve, promote and develop the fabulously wealthy heritage of Spanish dance.

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William Forsythe

The American dancer and choreographer William Forsythe (New York, 1949) is regarded as one of the most radical and influential living innovators in contemporary choreography and dance. For over 40 years, he has redefined the syntax and praxis of his field, exerting unparalleled influence on subsequent generations of artists. Over the course of his career, he has developed an extensive repertoire of ground-breaking ballet choreographies and experimental, non-proscenium-based dance-theatre works, as well as an open-access digital platform for dance analysis, notation, and improvisation. His works are featured in the repertoire of many of the world’s major ballet companies, including Mariinsky Ballet, Saint Petersburg; Paris Opera Ballet; Royal Ballet, London; Dutch National Ballet; Semperoper Ballet, Dresden, Germany; New York City Ballet; San Francisco Ballet; Boston Ballet; and the National Ballet of Canada. Forsythe trained at Jacksonville University in Florida and the School of American Ballet in New York and danced with Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. In 1976 he moved to Stuttgart and became a resident choreographer with the Stuttgart Ballet. In 1984 he became director and started a 20-year service with Ballett Frankfurt. His works for the company included Artifact, Impressing the Czar, Limb’s Theorem, The Loss of Small Detail, Eidos:Telos, Kammer/Kammer and Decreation. After the closure of Ballett Frankfurt in 2004, he established a new, more independent company, The Forsythe Company, which he directed from 2005 to 2015. Since then, he has created three pieces for ballet companies (Blake Works 1, Playlist [Track 1, 2]) and one for a small group of his own long-time dancers (A Quiet Evening of Dance). Forsythe’s work has been acclaimed with four New York Dance ‘Bessie’ Awards, three Olivier Awards and the Nijinsky Award. In 1999 he was appointed Commandeur des Arts et Lettres. In 2010 he was awarded a Golden Lion at the prestigious Venice Biennale, as a crowning for his oeuvre and contribution to the development of the art form of dance. In 2012 he received the Samuel H Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 2016 the Grand Prix de la SACD. He is currently Professor of Dance and artistic advisor for the Choreographic Institute at the University of Southern California, Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Forsythe’s work is regularly performed at the Holland Festival, both by Ballett Frankfurt and Dutch National Ballet. Dutch National Ballet was also the first company, other than Ballett Frankfurt, to perform his masterpiece Artifact. Later on, the company added other Forsythe choreographies to its repertoire, like Steptext, The Second Detail and In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. In the Holland Festival of 2019, Dutch National Ballet premièred with great success Pas/Parts 2018, a revised version of the ballet that Forsythe created for Paris Opera Ballet in 1999.

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At the start of any creation, Soto has many parts of the piece already mapped out in his mind, including the structure, specific moments and images, costumes and lighting design, all with the music in place. He works very photographically in this way. But once he’s inside the studio, Soto choreographs from a place of “raw instinct".

Dance Open 2019: CONRAZONCORAZON performed by Introdans

Cayetano Soto

Soto (1975) began his formal dance education at the Institut del Teatre in his hometown of Barcelona, and went on to study at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands. He danced for one season at IT Dansa in Barcelona and then joined Bavarian State Ballet. It was here that Soto created his first ballet, Plenilunio, as a part of a workshop performance that showcased pieces created by company dancers. Philip Taylor, who was the artistic director at the time, added Plenilunio to the company’s repertoire, and each year until Soto left, he commissioned a new ballet from him. In 2005 Soto ended his dance career and became a freelance choreographer, and since then he has had no shortage of work. Soto has created pieces for many companies in Europe and North and South America, including Stuttgart Ballet, Ballett Dortmund (Germany), Gauthier Dance Company (Germany), Royal Ballet Flanders (Belgium), Perm Theatre (Russia), Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (USA), Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Canada), Balé da Cidade (São Paulo), Nederlands Dans Theater (the Netherlands). Since 2009 Soto has been a guest choreographer for Introdans. When sourcing inspiration for a new work, Soto doesn’t have to look far. “I don’t get inspired anymore by a painting or a piece of music,” he asserts. “It comes from some internal point of doubt. Some people go to the psychologist. I go to the studio. It’s where I psychoanalyze myself.” While his work draws from his private thoughts and “internal life”, he believes they address universal issues that are relatable to everyone on one level or another. Always existing in some creative environment, sort of choreographic continuum, Soto uses a lot of lexical, physical and conceptual elements that make his works particularly relevant. Only when artists start to absorb choreographic material, liberate themselves and dive into creative process, Soto begins to trust the Company, experiment and set new objectives. At night he reflects on the day’s work with a critical lens, trying to uncover the hidden moments or missing pieces within the ballet. Undoubtedly, through his future projects, we will continue to see Soto’s inner dialogue transform onstage in artistic extremes. To the same degree, Soto hopes his works will elicit extreme emotional responses from his audiences. “I want people to love it or hate it — to have a reaction. I want them to feel moved.”