Bournonville in Beijing

BEIJING: August Bournonville was a well-travelled man and now, with help from Frank Andersen, he has made it all the way to Beijing where his ballets are performed by the National Ballet of China and his technique is taught at the Beijing Dance Academy (BDA).

The prestigious Academy founded in 1954, is celebrating its 60th anniversary and Chairman, WANG Chuanliang, the Dean, GUO Lei, and Director of the Academy ZOU Zhirui (Regina) were on hand to welcome international guests which included a number of eminent Scandinavians.

Frank Andersen, former director of both The Royal Danish and The Royal Swedish Ballet Companies and now a professor was joined by Court Dancer, Madeleine Onne, artistic director of the Hong Kong Ballet, Kenneth Greve, director of the Finnish National Ballet and Thomas Lund, one of Denmark’s finest dancers and currently director of the Royal Danish Ballet School.

In the 1950s, ballet was introduced to the BDA by Soviet instructors. In 1978 it became an institute of Higher Education and today nearly 2,000 students are educated in the 7 dance departments. There is a strong sense of continuing tradition in that all staff ballet teachers are Chinese and all are graduates of the BDA. However dance is experiencing a period of intense and far reaching change.

Andersen credits ZHAO Ruheng (Sonia), director of the National Ballet of China from 1994 to 2009, with setting the change in motion, ‘Sonia really opened the door and brought new life into the ballet’. The two met in Korea in 1995 where, despite speaking through an interpreter and guarding their words, the link was forged. After several periods as a guest teacher, Sonia suggested Andersen mount a ballet and in the autumn of 1999 the company staged La Sylphide.

Andersen has one particularly poignant story. When rehearsing Act 1, he felt the moment when Effie greets her mother looked too artificial. He suggested, “It’s like you hug your mother”, and very polite and sweet she said, “I have never hugged my mother”. He could not forget her words. ‘Those kind of things go straight into your heart’.

So what value can Bournonville bring to these Chinese dancers who already possess exceptional technical standards? Frank described it this way. ‘Mastering Bournonville is very personalised: you can’t dance it like a machine. It is not just the steps, you have to act and dance at the same time. Here we are working to help the dancers find their individual identity’.

‘Bournonville’s exercises are quite simple but they are at the same time difficult. There is the pause; the most difficult thing is to stand on stage and do nothing. And musicality! The musicality has an extraordinary impact and comes free of charge with the style. Eva (Eva Klobborg, his wife) and I work with the ballets to encourage them and help them find their heart.  We love to do this and they are so very, very hungry’.

Watching the students in their regular Vaganova classes, the passion and commitment to perfecting their art is tangible. In this very competitive atmosphere the young dancers seem to need to show the effort that they are putting in. I asked Andersen if this conflicted with the ease and grace of the Danish style. He felt this was a factor but that, ‘the problem has many faces. The girls are always disciplined and do what you say, so they find more easily the quality we are aiming for. It is more difficult for the boys, they have less expression because they only think about one thing. For them technique is jumping and turning, for me it is small batterie, delicacy and épaulement’.

Sonia introduced Andersen to Academy director, Regina, and since 2004 he has taught at BDA at regular intervals. ‘I think there has been a big change since we started teaching’. As well as a professorship, Andersen is now the proud author, in collaboration with Ole Nørlyng, of a book, in Chinese, on Bournonville. It is written for students and is to be found in university libraries throughout China.

Lack of language skills is also a concern. ‘When I first arrived nobody spoke a word of English! Now, this morning in class one girl asked a question … and in English! That was a surprise. I think internet has done a lot. Language is important because if they can’t communicate they can’t travel and they need to travel. There are not enough jobs. Many will go abroad and they need language skills’.

Andersen remembered his first visit in 1975 with the Royal Danish Ballet, ‘there were only bicycles and everyone was in Mao clothes’. As recently as January 1998 taking the night train to Shanghai he described the scene at the station like something out of The Last Emperor. In the gloom of a single light, soldiers were sitting on the floor in heavy coats, playing cards and the fruit seller had just one orange and one apple on her stall. 2014 is so different. China has opened up and embraced innovation with eye-watering speed and thankfully dance is keeping pace.

Maggie Foyer
December 30, 2014