Dutch National Ballet

Spring special

Soloists choose their favorite choreographies

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Dates

5 and 10 April 2021

Location

Dutch National Opera & Ballet, livestream, online

Running time

Tickets

Celebrate spring!

To celebrate spring, the National Ballet presents a cheerful and festive "Spring Special" on Easter Monday. An intimate and exceptionally versatile duet program in which the emphasis is on both the virtuosity and the own personality of the principals and soloists of the company.

Vier het voorjaar!

To celebrate spring, the National Ballet presents a cheerful and festive "Spring Special" on Easter Monday. An intimate and exceptionally versatile duet program in which the emphasis is on both the virtuosity and the own personality of the principals and soloists of the company.

After having to train at home for months, followed by a period in which they could only dance a limited number of performances, they will have the opportunity to shine in (parts of) their favorite choreographies during this new livestream from Dutch National Ballet.

In consultation with artistic director Ted Brandsen, all principal soloists for this Spring Special have made a choice from the extensive ballet repertoire. The result is an enormous variety of choreographies: from parts of famous nineteenth-century classics to an exciting world premiere by the Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes, with whom principal Anna Ol had started rehearsing just before the outbreak of the corona pandemic.

The programme

The Spring Special opens with the lively Pas de quatre from the utterly romantic nineteenth-century Giselle. From the same ballet you can see the moving pas de deux from the second act. Also on the program is the wedding duet of Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund, from the third act of The Sleeping Beauty, to the enchanting music of Tchaikovsky.

Het programma

Touch of irony

From former artistic director Wayne Eagling, we present the romantic and technically challenging, neoclassical Duet, on Isoldes Leibestod by Richard Wagner. You will also see Delibes Suite by the former "étoile" of the Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris José Carlos Martínez. In this duet - which won first soloist Anna Tsygankova the Grand Prix of the Russian Dance Open Festival in 2014 - Martínez follows the set-up of the traditional ballet pas de deux, but with a touch of irony.

"Oscar of Dance"

The Spring Special program also includes two choreographies by artistic director Ted Brandsen: Replay, which he created in 2014 for Igone de Jongh and Vito Mazzeo to music by Philip Glass, and the 'gavotte', an exuberant solo from his recent press and publicly acclaimed Classical Symphony. A recent addition is Two and Only by the internationally successful Dutch choreographer Wubkje Kuindersma. She created this gem in 2017 for Marijn Rademaker and Timothy van Poucke on a number of sensitive songs by Michael Benjamin, and Rademaker was awarded the prestigious Benois de la Danse prize for his role in the duet, also known as the 'Oscar of the dance'.

World premiere via Zoom

The world premiere in this Spring Special comes from the talented young Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes, renowned for his inventive and playful style. Nunes, who previously made a creation for NDT2, was already working with Anna Ol on this new duet just before the corona pandemic broke out, which he is now further developing via Zoom with her and first soloist James Stout.