Hans van Manen timeline
Hans van Manen has created over 150 choreographies, including his television ballets. His work is performed by more than 100 dance companies worldwide. This timeline provides an overview of his life and his most significant works. For a complete list of all his choreographies, click here.
1970-1979
1970
Situation
For Van Manen, the seventies start immediately with a hit: Situation – an unusually expressionist ballet for him. For this work, he deliberately opts not for music, but for irritating sounds, like a volley of gunshots, the roar of fighter jets and the whine of mosquitos. “Because”, says Van Manen, “the whole ballet is about aggression and violence.”
'You can't choreograph a penis'
Shortly after Situation, Van Manen collaborates with Glen Tetley (who has now succeeded Benjamin Harkarvy as co-artistic director) on the co-production Mutations, comprising three films (made by Van Manen and Jean Paul Vroom) and a live ballet (choreographed by Tetley). Initially, the production is intended for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands after World War II, and in view of the theme – freedom – Van Manen decides that Gérard Lemaître should also dance in the film in complete freedom; i.e. naked.
Van Manen resigns
In later publications about Van Manen, the theme of Situation (see above) is often linked to the relations within Nederlands Dans Theater at the time, which had worsened in the preceding years. Managing director Carel Birnie – known for his obstinacy and stinginess – goes his own way, often does not involve the artistic director in decisions and provides no insight into what he spends the company’s money on. In February 1970, two months before the premiere of Situation, Van Manen has had enough and decides to resign from Nederlands Dans Theater in September.
Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau
It is undoubtedly coincidence, but shortly after his decision to relinquish the artistic directorship of Nederlands Dans Theater, Van Manen is appointed Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. The following year, the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work awards him a prize for his ballet Snippers, created in 1970 for Scapino Ballet to Terry Riley’s In C, through which Van Manen introduces this iconic composition to the Netherlands (much later, the German choreographer Sasha Waltz will choreograph a work with the same name as the music, which is taken into Dutch National Ballet’s repertoire in June 2025).
1971
Grosse Fuge
Of the works created by Van Manen in the early seventies for Nederlands Dans Theater, Grosse Fuge is the undisputed highlight. The ballet is almost immediately hailed as “the most interesting European ballet of the decade”, and it is still Van Manen’s most often performed creation worldwide today (The Royal Ballet, in England, took the ballet into its repertoire as early as 1972).
First works for Dutch National Ballet: Vijf schetsen and Twilight
In October 1971, Dutch National Ballet presents its first Van Manen: Vijf schetsen, created in 1966 for Nederlands Dans Theater, performed then as now by the dancing married couple Alexandra Radius and Han Ebbelaar. It is followed, eight months later, by Van Manen’s first creation for the company: Twilight, with which Radius and Ebbelaar enjoy overwhelming international success – like many generations of dancers after them.
1973
Resident choreographer with Dutch National Ballet
Following Twilight and his first group work for Dutch National Ballet – Daphnis and Chloé: a remarkably lyrical ballet for him – Van Manen is appointed the company’s second resident choreographer, alongside artistic director Rudi van Dantzig, starting in January 1973. Van Manen himself, incidentally, originally chooses the rather vague title of ‘coach/ballet master’. Another significant detail is that Van Manen dedicates Daphnis and Chloé, with the words ‘dedicated to my love’, to Henk van Dijk, later to become his husband, who he met at a summer course in Cologne in 1972.
Adagio Hammerklavier: an ode to deceleration
The first work created by Van Manen (then aged 41) as resident choreographer, Adagio Hammerklavier, is still regarded today as a marvel of tranquillity and beauty. On a tour to London, too, the Beethoven ballet is a triumph for the six principal dancers – Monique Sand and Henny Jurriëns, Sonja Marchiolli and Francis Sinceretti, and Alexandra Radius and Han Ebbelaar – and is now counted among the ‘classics of 20th-century dance’.
1974
Dutch Theatre Critics’ Prize
In 1974, Van Manen receives the ‘Prijs van de Kritiek’ from the Dutch Theatre Critics’ Circle. Meanwhile, his work is also presented increasingly often abroad. In January 1974, The New Group of The Royal Ballet dances his Septet Extra, in March, Dutch National Ballet triumphs in London with Van Manen’s Twilight and Adagio Hammerklavier and in April, Nederlands Dans Theater even dances four Van Manen works in Paris: Squares, Septet Extra, Grosse Fuge and Solo for Voice 1.
Le sacre du printemps
Following the scandalous original version by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1913 and Maurice Béjart’s successful version from 1959, Van Manen also takes on Stravinsky’s masterpiece Le sacre du printemps, for the 1974 Holland Festival. The cast of 32 dancers is his largest to date. Rather than basing his ballet on the story of the sacrifice of a young virgin, Van Manen opts for an abstract version inspired purely by the music.
1975
Four Schumann Pieces
Having previously taken some of his ballets into its repertoire, The Royal Ballet asks Van Manen to come and make a new work in London, in 1975. The choreographer knows immediately who he wants for the main role: star dancer Anthony Dowell. “A true classical dancer, with enormous assurance and aplomb, and beautiful lines. A man who could do wonderful turns and big movements, and was a really fine actor. What you could call a cool dancer.” The ballet, which is now one of the best loved Van Manen classics, revolves not around ‘that eternal ballerina’, but around the ‘ballerino’ instead.
Henk van Dijk - videomaster
Through Van Manen’s intercession, Henk van Dijk is appointed video master with Dutch National Ballet, in June 1975. Since around 1967, Van Manen has been recording all his ballets and many rehearsals himself, being one of the first choreographers to do so. Van Dijk’s appointment makes Dutch National Ballet a forerunner in recording ballet repertoire on video; something that is now widely done all over the world.
Collective Symphony
For the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the city of Amsterdam in 1975, on commission from the municipality, Van Manen creates his first – and only – joint ballet with Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk: Collective Symphony, whereby they divide up Stravinsky's Symphony in C into different musical phrases. The ballet is hugely successful, and not only for the challenge it poses to ballet enthusiasts to work out which excerpts are created by which choreographer.
1976
Reinink medal for special merit
In 1976, Van Manen is the first winner of the Mr. Hendrik-Jan Reinink medal for ‘special merit in promoting cultural exchange abroad’, founded by the Holland Festival. Van Manen seizes the opportunity of the prize ceremony at the Stadsschouwburg, in Amsterdam, to emphatically plead for better and bigger accommodation (ten years before the opening of The Music Theatre, now Dutch National Opera & Ballet!). He says, “Tonight, we confirm that our dancing is of an international standard. In contrast to this, the theatre accommodation in Amsterdam cannot even be called provincial.”
1977
Lieder ohne Worte and 5 Tango's
In 1977, Van Manen creates two special works: for Nederlands Dans Theater he makes the subdued piano ballet Lieder ohne Worte, which is impressive for its simplicity, and for Dutch National Ballet he makes the dazzling 5 Tangos. Although both works are afterwards taken into the repertoires of companies abroad, it is 5 Tangos that grows to become an international hit. The ballet, with starring roles for Clint Farha and Sonja Marchiolli at the world premiere, is still danced all over the world today.
1979
Live
A subsequent, although totally different, highlight is Van Manen’s Live: the first – and unsurpassed – video ballet in Dutch history, created in 1979 for the double bill Live/Life and performed at Theater Carré, which is sold out night after night (also for its revival in 1980). Whereas Life, by Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk is a large-scale, politically engaged spectacle (which is never revived after 1980), Van Manen’s Live excels in its intimacy. The audience sees a female dancer (at the world premiere, the sublime Coleen Davis, aged just 18) both live and in close-up images filmed live, in which she reacts to and plays with the cameraman (Henk van Dijk).