In his own words
I believe in inspiring people and my role as a director is to make sure that other people can shine — choreographers and dancers.
I think that’s important for any ballet company — to maintain a real sense of who you are, and why you are different, and what your contribution is to the world of dance and to the art form.
There’s never enough money and there’s never enough opportunities to accommodate everybody, so you have to make choices and these choices can be difficult and it can be disappointing.
There are a lot of people who have fantastic physical ability, but not necessarily the talent to exploit that and to do something with that, and they don’t always become the most interesting dancers.
I’m interested in interesting dancers who have something to say, who have something to give, those dancers who have to be on stage.
Dancing is a hard job — you better really know if you want to do it.
Ted Brandsen
Born in Denmark. Joined Het Nationale Ballet as a dancer in 1981.His first foray into choreography was as part of Het Nationale Ballet's annual choreographic workshop in 1985, following which he started to create works for various dance companies in Holland.
In 1991 Ted Brandsen retired from dancing to focus on a freelance career in choreography. His first work, in this new phase, was Four Sections, for Het Nationale Ballet and was awarded the 1992 Perspektief Award for Creative Talent in Performing Arts. Since then other works have become part of Het Nationale Ballet's repertoire including Crossing the Border (1993), Blue Field and Bach Moves (1995).
Brandsen's works are widely presented at different festivals in Holland, on television, featured in the repertoires of many dance companies. Internationally Brandsen has worked with companies in Europe and the USA, including the National Ballet of Finland, Ballet West, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, the Istanbul State Ballet, Ballet —Theatre de Bordeaux, Israel Ballet, Donau Ballet, and the National Ballet of Portugal.
In 1998 he choreographed his first full length ballet, a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for The National Ballet of Portugal. Also in 1998, Brandsen was appointed to the position of Artistic Director of West Australian Ballet, in Perth, Australia. Under his directorship, the company had considerable success, and received several awards. Brandsen choreographed numerous ballets for West Australian Ballet, including Chairman Dances (1998), Rose Spirit (his first work for the Festival of Perth, 1999), Bridge Variations (1999, restaged for Ballet West that same year), Short Stories (2000), Romeo + Juliet (2000), Terrain of the Heart, Pulcinella and Driven (2001).
He received The Australian Dance Award for Choreography 2000 for his successful production of Carmen (1999), which was subsequently televised and released on video.
In January 2002 Ted returned to Het Nationale Ballet in the position of Associate Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer. From June 2003 he has succeeded Wayne Eagling as Artistic Director of Het Nationale Ballet.
Read more: Ted Brandsen
Hans van Manen has been called the Mondrian of ballet, the Versace of ballet, the Pinter of ballet and the Antonioni of ballet. (His) distinctive personal style mixes formal austerity and glassy elegance with erotic charge.
Each of his pieces reveals our own passions and delusions, pride and solitude, our loud laughter and bitter tears.
In his own words
As a choreographer, you’re actually always stark naked... I start with nothing. The dancers stand waiting for you. You stand waiting for yourself.
I’m a total Calvinist. Everything I think is superfluous has to be chucked out.
I'm very bad at telling stories, and that's the reason why I never make full-length ballets. I prefer to make it very short and be as precise as possible.
And the deeper ideas? Oh, I just leave them to the audience. They’re intelligent enough to find their own interpretation of what they’re offered visually. I never mean more than what you actually see.
You get those people who think they shouldn’t be influenced, and they should just be themselves. I’d like to know what that is — "being yourself".
Without repertoire, there is no tradition. And without tradition, there is no connection with all that has been done prior to the present. Tradition is not something of the past. Tradition is what we do with the past today. The future is about discovering the good things of the past and building on them.
The thing that’s extremely important — to humanity, I could almost say — is curiosity. But I mean true curiosity. Not the curiosity about what’s happening to the woman next door.
I am absolutely going to go on. I couldn’t do otherwise. I couldn’t imagine any reason not to go on. Yes — count yourself lucky.
I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find music. Many beautiful pieces have been written to which you can make a nice little dance. But what I’m looking for is compositions where the drama is concealed within them already, as it were.
I look at art like I look at someone I’m in love with. I don’t question it... I just believe it. But if I don’t like something, then I think all sorts. The things I see then!
Hans van Manen
Born in Nieuwer Amstel in 1932. He studied under Françoise Adret, Nora Kiss and famous founder of the Netherlands Ballet Academy in Haague and the Netherlands Ballet Sonia Gaskell. Hans van Manen began his career in 1951 as a member of Sonia Gaskell's Ballet Recital. In 1952 he joined the Nederlandse Opera Ballet, where he created his first ballet, Feestgericht (1957). Later he joined Roland Petit's company in Paris. He began to work with the Nederlands Dans Theater in 1960, first as a dancer (until 1963), next as a choreographer, then as Artistic Director (1961–1971). For the following two years he worked as a freelance choreographer before joining Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam in 1973. From 1988–2003 Hans van Manen was a resident choreographer of NDT, in 2003 he joined the Dutch National Ballet as a resident choreographer.
He is one of the few choreographers who has managed to popularize contemporary dance as a mixture of classical ballet and modern dance. Being an author of over 120 ballets performed worldwide, van Manen is deservedly considered one of the most established choreographers of contemporary ballet. His personal style is always recognizable. Typical for his works clarity of lines and simplicity of composition are born from the chosen musical material, but the choice itself is, as a rule, rather eclectic. Despite all the emotional richness, the characters of his ballets are never sentimental. The core thing is that he spellbinds the audience with an exceptional, utterly polished beauty of movement.
Read more: Hans van Manen
