Ode to Hans van Manen

This collection offers a rare glimpse into part of the oeuvre of Hans van Manen. Over the course of two days, seven works are available to watch online in a form that is seldom shared with the general public. These are not recordings made specifically for NDT Online, but archival registrations originally intended for internal use only.
Such recordings are normally used as reference material for dancers, répétiteurs and crew when a work is revived. They capture the choreography as it was performed at the time, without theatrical camerawork or audience-oriented editing. Precisely for this reason, they offer a direct and unfiltered view of Van Manen’s work.
For the first time, audiences outside the company are given access to this material — a unique opportunity to see these works as they are preserved and passed on within NDT. This is an ode we bring together, with as many people as possible.

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De maan in de trapeze (1959)

Human beings can never fully realise their highest ambitions or their most tender desires. Even when fate places every opportunity within reach, they fail to grasp it. Confronted with happiness, they feel powerless and inadequate. Drawing on Benjamin Britten’s Diversions for Left Hand, Hans van Manen translated this theme into a theatrical context, shaping it as a pas de deux.
De maan in de trapeze is a poetic circus fantasy. A man, known as “the Clown”, dreams of achieving the unattainable.
Together with Giovinezza (Rudi van Dantzig), Feestgericht (Hans van Manen) and Four Times Six (Benjamin Harkarvy), this ballet was performed during NDT’s very first programme in 1959, presented in Ostend.

Performers NDT Marianne Hilarides, Jaap Flier / 1959
Length 11.34 minuten
Premiere date 5 September 1959, Het Kurhaus, Oostende, Belgium

Situation (1970)
For Gérard Lemaître

“The ballet is performed in a room 8 meters wide, 6 meters deep and 4 meters high with a door on the right and a digital clock up on the back wall that indicates the actual time. Situation is about aggression and violence.” – Hans van Manen

Performers NDT 1 Lydia Bustinduy, Prince Credell, César Faria Fernandes, Jorge Nozal, Jianhui Wang, Fay van Baar, Amanda Mortimore, Rinako Iida, Aram Hasler, Chuck Jones
Recording location Zuiderstrandtheater, Den Haag / 29-11-2019
Length 33 minutes
Premiere date 20 April 1970, Circustheater Scheveningen, The Hague

Grosse Fuge (1971)

Grosse Fuge premièred at Nederlands Dans Theater in 1971. It was immediately considered a masterpiece and since it has been performed all over the world, both by NDT 1 and NDT 2 and by other companies.

The set design with its slowly rising line of light was created by Jean-Paul Vroom. Grosse Fuge is the only choreography for which Hans van Manen himself designed the costumes. Characteristic are the long ‘Grahamskirts’ of the men, brought into whirling movement by their invisible legs and the reiterated upward stretching arms, first with hands clenched, then again with fingers spread apart.

The music by Beethoven is unquestionably romantic, but also with a strong tension, sometimes agression in it. Both elements return in the choreography. Men and women dance in turn and together in unison quartets and ensemble, but also in solos, duets and pas de deux. The costumes and choreography of the women at one hand and the men on the other hand form a duet in itself, a contrast that nevertheless is being bridged in certain details.

Performers NDT Arlette van Boven, Yteke Waterbolk, Lenny Westerdijk, Mea Venema, Jon Benoit, Nils Christe, Leon Koning, Frans Vervenne
Recording location Circustheater, Scheveningen / 1973
Length 24 minutes
Premiere date 8 April 1971, Circustheater, Scheveningen (NDT 1) and 5 November 1987, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 2)

Fantasía (1993)

In reviews Fantasía (1993) has been described, among other things, as ‘one of the best pieces made for the company’. It is a typical Van Manen ballet: optimal expressiveness coupled with structural precision, simplicity and purity. It is a game of seduction between three women and three men. Van Manen set Fantasía to a choral prelude and a choral transcription of Busoni’s Bach piano adaption.

Performers NDT 1 Fiona Lummis, Sol León, Cora Kroese, Jean Emile, Paul Lightfoot, Jorma Elo
Recording location AT&T Danstheater, The Hague / 15-4-1993
Length 19 minuten
Premiere date 15 April 1993, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 1)

Polish Pieces (1995)

Polish Pieces by Hans van Manen explores the tension between the sexes. A group of six female dancers and a group of six male dancers are set in direct opposition to one another. When they come into contact, a series of duets emerges.

Performers NDT 1 Fiona Lummis, Sol León, Jean Emile, Paul Lightfoot, Carolina Armenta, Bregje van Balen, Tessa Cooke, Paula Sanchez, Sébastien Mari, Dylan Newcomb, Mario Radacovsky, Urtzi Aranburu
Recording location  AT&T Danstheater, The Hague / 23-2-1995
Length 20 minutes
Premiere date 18 October 1990, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 1) and 11 November 1994, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 2)

Déjà Vu (1995)

A surprising pas de deux by grand master Hans van Manen. For Van Manen, the meaning of the duet in dance is crystal clear: “a ballet for one dancer is a solo, a ballet for two dancers a story” [Balanchine]. Déjà Vu premiered during the Holland Festival in 1995. Set to music by Arvo Pärt, two black-clad dancers make a striking entrance from the wings. The tension between the two sexes is palpable, yet their sense of connection repeatedly comes to the fore.

Performers NDT 2 Jin Young Won, Roger van der Poel
Recording location Lucent Danstheater, The Hague / 25-2-2009
Length 12 minutes
Premiere date 1 Juni 1995, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 2)

The Old Man and Me (1996)

The Old Man and Me is Hans van Manen’s third duet for NDT III. Earlier he created Evergreens (1991) and Different Partners (1993). This newest creation, named after a song by bluesrock singer J.J. Cale, is danced by Sabine Kupferberg and Gérard Lemaitre.

Van Manen choreographed this duet specifically for these two dancers, placing the clownesque and the dramatic in direct opposition. The starting point was a simple form: a bench. With it, he explores how a story can be told using minimal means, carried by musicality and craftsmanship.

The choreography unfolds to three contrasting musical pieces: The Old Man and Me by J.J. Cale, Circus Polka by Igor Stravinsky, and the Andante from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. In a sixteen-minute duet, humour, memory and resignation are interwoven. Rather than relying on virtuosic technique, the work demands great physical and theatrical control — a challenge Kupferberg and Lemaitre fully embrace.

Performers NDT 3 Sabine Kupferberg, Gérard Lemaître
Recording location AT&T Danstheater, The Hague / 29-02-1996
Length 14 minutes
Premiere date 29 Februari 1996, AT&T Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 3)

Kleines Requiem (1996)
For Willem Melchior

Kleines Requiem is a work for seven dancers by NDT 1. For this piece, Hans van Manen chose music by the Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (Kleines Requiem für eine Polka), which was composed on commission for the Holland Festival and premiered there in 1993 by the Schönberg Ensemble under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw. Three couples dance their sensual and melancholic duets in constantly shifting combinations. When a furious polka suddenly erupts, all six merge into a single, swirling movement. At its premiere in 1996, the piece was hailed as one of the highlights of Van Manen’s already highly impressive oeuvre.

Performers NDT 1 Mario Radacovsky, Elke Schepers, Paul Lightfoot, Fiona Lummis, Jean Emile, Sol León, Jorma Elo
Recording location Lucent Danstheater, The Hague / 14-11-1996
Length 20 minutes
Premiere date 14 November 1996, Lucent Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 1)

Solo (1997)

Hans van Manen created Solo for three NDT 2 dancers who portray a single man reexamining his place in the world. The high pace movements on Bach’s violin partita require an extraordinary timing, and can therefore only be performed by the dancers interchanging one another.

Performers NDT 2 Jianhui Wang, Fernando Troya, Quentin Roger
Recording location Lucent Danstheater, Den Haag / 15-09-2012
Length 7 minutes
Premiere date 16 Januari 1997, Lucent Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 2)

Simple Things (2001)

Hans van Manen created this dynamic quartet in 2001 for the young dancers of NDT 2. It is a remarkably natural-seeming creation for two couples. The ballet opens and closes with an overwhelming duet for two men, in which one watches while the other dances. In between, they perform various pas de deux with two women, expressing the relationships between two people through movement. With this work, Van Manen proves himself a master of simplicity.

Performers NDT 2 Cristina Gallofré Vargas, Parvaneh Scharafali , Lukas Timulak, Pierre Pontvianne
Recording location Lucent Danstheater, The Hague / 14-11-2001
Length 17 minutes
Premiere date 14 November 2001, Lucent Danstheater, The Hague (NDT 2)

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