Forever Young - Biographies
Forever Young
José Limón /
Léonide Massine /
Russell Maliphant
Broken Fall / The Moor's Pavane / Choreartium
Choreographies by Russell Maliphant / José Limón / Léonide Massine
Music by Henry Purcell, arranged by Simon Sadoff / Johannes Brahms, Symphony Nr. 4 e Moll op. 98 / Barry Adamson
New Production
Nationaltheater
Munich Opera Festival 2013
Tuesday, 02. July 2013
Léonide Massine /
Russell Maliphant
Broken Fall / The Moor's Pavane / Choreartium
Choreographies by Russell Maliphant / José Limón / Léonide Massine
Music by Henry Purcell, arranged by Simon Sadoff / Johannes Brahms, Symphony Nr. 4 e Moll op. 98 / Barry Adamson
New Production
Nationaltheater
Munich Opera Festival 2013
Tuesday, 02. July 2013
Broken Fall
Russell Maliphant
Choreography
Russell Maliphant
Russel Maliphant, choreographerRussell Maliphant trained at the Royal Ballet School and graduated into Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet Company before leaving to pursue a career in independent dance. As a dancer he worked with companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark & Company, Laurie Booth and Rosemary Butcher and also studied anatomy, physiology, bio-mechanics. He became certified as a practitioner of the Rolfing Method of Structural Integration in 1994 and this has subsequently informed both his teaching and choreographic work.
He created his first solo in 1992 and formed the Russell Maliphant Company in 1996 which has sought to integrate and explore elements from a diverse range of body practices and techniques, including classical ballet, contact improvisation, yoga, capoeira, tai chi & chi gung. He has collaborated closely with the lighting designer Michael Hulls, and in addition to working with his own company of dancers, has set works on renowned companies and artists including: Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, The Ballet Boyz, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ricochet Dance Company, CobosMika, The Batsheva Ensemble, and Ballet de Lorraine.
In 2003, Russell created Broken Fall with Sylvie Guillem and George Piper Dances, commissioned by George Piper Dances and The Royal Ballet and was awarded an Olivier Award the same year. Broken Fall was restaged at Sadler’s Wells in Autumn 2004 as part of a three ballet evening of Russell's work re-titled Rise and Fall, and was awarded a Critic’s Circle National Dance Award for Best Choreography (Modern) in 2006. In Autumn 2005, Russell and Guillem were reunited in a new programme entitled PUSH, produced in collaboration with Sadler’s Wells and which, like Rise and Fall has subsequently toured to sell-out audiences across the globe. Russell received a South Bank Show Award and an Oliver Award (2006) for the work.
He’s recently worked on the collaboration titled Eonnagata, a new production created and performed with Sylvie Guillem and Robert Lepage which was produced by and premiered at Sadler’s Wells in March 2009. This piece is continuing to tour internationally during 2010 and 2011.
Throughout these projects, Russell continues to work with his own company, the Russell Maliphant Company, which acts as his creative lab for the development and presentation of new work in its own right with a national and international touring programme. The Company has recently been touring Push, reworked for and presented by two of the company dancers, and a new male solo, Flux for which Alexander Varona received the Critic’s Circle National Dance Award for Best Emerging Dancer (Modern) for his performances. In 2007, the Company featured in Cast No Shadow, a new work exploring the ideas of identity and migration created in collaboration with the visual artists Isaac Julien which was presented at Sadler’s Wells and BAM in New York, amongst other places.
In Aril 2009, Two:Four:Ten, a retrospective of works created with Michael Hulls was produced by the Russell Maliphant Company and Sadler’s Wells and presented at the London Coliseum, featuring Russell, Dana Fouras and Daniel Proietto from the Russell Maliphant Company, Adam Cooper, Ivan Putrov from The Royal Ballet and Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur from English National Ballet.
Russel Maliphant, choreographerRussell Maliphant trained at the Royal Ballet School and graduated into Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet Company before leaving to pursue a career in independent dance. As a dancer he worked with companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark & Company, Laurie Booth and Rosemary Butcher and also studied anatomy, physiology, bio-mechanics. He became certified as a practitioner of the Rolfing Method of Structural Integration in 1994 and this has subsequently informed both his teaching and choreographic work.
He created his first solo in 1992 and formed the Russell Maliphant Company in 1996 which has sought to integrate and explore elements from a diverse range of body practices and techniques, including classical ballet, contact improvisation, yoga, capoeira, tai chi & chi gung. He has collaborated closely with the lighting designer Michael Hulls, and in addition to working with his own company of dancers, has set works on renowned companies and artists including: Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, The Ballet Boyz, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ricochet Dance Company, CobosMika, The Batsheva Ensemble, and Ballet de Lorraine.
In 2003, Russell created Broken Fall with Sylvie Guillem and George Piper Dances, commissioned by George Piper Dances and The Royal Ballet and was awarded an Olivier Award the same year. Broken Fall was restaged at Sadler’s Wells in Autumn 2004 as part of a three ballet evening of Russell's work re-titled Rise and Fall, and was awarded a Critic’s Circle National Dance Award for Best Choreography (Modern) in 2006. In Autumn 2005, Russell and Guillem were reunited in a new programme entitled PUSH, produced in collaboration with Sadler’s Wells and which, like Rise and Fall has subsequently toured to sell-out audiences across the globe. Russell received a South Bank Show Award and an Oliver Award (2006) for the work.
He’s recently worked on the collaboration titled Eonnagata, a new production created and performed with Sylvie Guillem and Robert Lepage which was produced by and premiered at Sadler’s Wells in March 2009. This piece is continuing to tour internationally during 2010 and 2011.
Throughout these projects, Russell continues to work with his own company, the Russell Maliphant Company, which acts as his creative lab for the development and presentation of new work in its own right with a national and international touring programme. The Company has recently been touring Push, reworked for and presented by two of the company dancers, and a new male solo, Flux for which Alexander Varona received the Critic’s Circle National Dance Award for Best Emerging Dancer (Modern) for his performances. In 2007, the Company featured in Cast No Shadow, a new work exploring the ideas of identity and migration created in collaboration with the visual artists Isaac Julien which was presented at Sadler’s Wells and BAM in New York, amongst other places.
In Aril 2009, Two:Four:Ten, a retrospective of works created with Michael Hulls was produced by the Russell Maliphant Company and Sadler’s Wells and presented at the London Coliseum, featuring Russell, Dana Fouras and Daniel Proietto from the Russell Maliphant Company, Adam Cooper, Ivan Putrov from The Royal Ballet and Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur from English National Ballet.
Music
Lighting
Michael Hulls
Choreartium
Léonide Massine
Choreography
Léonide Massine
Born in Moscow in 1895, Leonide Massine received his ballet training at the renowned Imperial Theatre School. While he performed in character roles in ballets at the Bolshoi Theatre, he simultaneously was developing a passion for acting and appeared in plays at the Maly Theatre. He considered a career as an actor but in 1913 Serge Diaghilev saw him dance. As Diaghilev was seeking to replace Nijinsky, he invited Massine to join the Ballets Russes. After performing the role of Joseph in Fokine’s Legend of Joseph in Paris in 1914 and choreographing his first work (Soleil de Nuit) a year later, he became principal dancer and choreographer of the Ballets Russes.
Massine embraced Diaghilev’s pioneering vision of a synthesis in the arts, choreographing numerous works with major artists and composers of the time, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Andre Derain, Leon Bakst, Natalia Gontcharova, Michail Larionov, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Manuel de Falla, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev, to name but a few. Between 1917 and 1920, during the chaos and aftermath of World War I, these extraordinary collaborations produced a series of groundbreaking works that propelled dance into the realm of modernity: Parade (Satie/Picasso/Cocteau,1917), The Good Humoured Ladies (Scarlatti-Tommasini /Bakst, 1917), La Boutique Fantasque (Rossini-Respighi/Derain, 1919), Le Tricorne (De Falla/Picasso, 1919), Pulcinella (Stravinsky/Roerich, 1920). In many of these works, Massine was the electrifying lead dancer.
In 1920, following the urge to develop creatively on his own, he started a small company in London, touring Britain and South America where both new works and revivals were a tremendous success. In 1924, he joined Etienne de Beaumont’s "Soirees de Paris" for which he created Salade (Milhaud/Braque1924), Mercure (Satie/Picasso,1924) and the immensely popular Le Beau Danube (Strauss, the Younger/de Beaumont/Guys, 1924). He returned to the Ballets Russes to stage several new works - Zephyre et Flore (Dukelsky/Braque, 1925), Les Matelots (Auric/Pruna,1925), Ode (Nabokov/Tchelitchev-Charbonnier, 1928.)
In 1928 he traveled to the United States to explore creative opportunities. Over two years, he created one ballet each week at the Roxy Theatre in New York City. He staged an acclaimed revival of his Sacre du Printemps in Philadelphia and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1930 with Martha Graham dancing the role of the Chosen Maiden. He returned to Europe in 1932 to join the newly founded Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo as ballet master and choreographer and then as artistic director.
The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, through the vitality and variety of its repertoire and the appeal of its brilliant young dancers, engendered a new Ballets Russes era, fostering an enthusiastic appreciation of ballet (until then the privilege of an elite) amongst a vast international audience.
At the creative helm of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, in 1933, Massine realized his aspiration to use a well-known symphony as a choreographic score. This was the first time in the West that a symphony was used for a ballet. Amidst much controversy around this use of music, he created Les Presages to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, and later that year, Choreartium, to Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. While in Les Presages Massine followed the symbolic theme of man’s struggle with destiny, he designed Choreartium as a completely abstract work that was essentially a visualization of the music. Both ballets became landmarks in the history of dance. He continued to elaborate his interpretations of musical structure with a succession of symphonic ballets: Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz/Berard-Lourie,1933), Seventh Symphony (Beethoven/Berard,1938), Nobilissima Visione (Hindemith/Tchelitchev, 1938), and finally, Le Rouge et le Noir (Shostakovitch/Matisse,1939). His many other creations for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo include Jeux d’Enfants (Bizet/Miro, 1932), Gaiete Parisienne (Offenbach-Rosenthal/de Beaumont, 1938), Capriccio Espanol (Rimsky Korsakov/Andreau, 1939), Bacchanale (Wagner/Dali, 1939) and Labyrinth (Schubert/Dali, 1941). From 1933 to 1939, whether touring the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe or performing at their home, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo gained tremendous international fame and Massine’s career as a dancer and choreographer was at its pinnacle. Following the outbreak of World War II, the company left for the United States where for three years they toured the country in grueling one-night stands, performing Massine repertory favorites that then had become a rage with audiences, along with several of his new works. In 1942, Massine and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo ended their association and Massine began an extensive international career as choreographer, staging works for major ballet companies around the world.
In 1952, he realized a long-standing dream, choreographing Christ’s passion as a narration in stylized movement, in the spirit of Byzantine mosaics and Italian primitive painting. It was a work that he had originally choreographed in 1916 (Liturgie) for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, but which was never performed. Set to thirteenth century Gregorian chants orchestrated by Valentino Bucchi, Laudes Evangelii was performed in European cathedrals (Nantes, 1951; Perugia, 1952) and at La Scala in Milan (1959) and hailed as a monumental artistic achievement. The work was also produced for television and aired in Europe and the United States (April, 1962). In the last part of his life Massine was active in staging revivals, while devoting much of his time to developing and teaching a theory of choreography.
Born in Moscow in 1895, Leonide Massine received his ballet training at the renowned Imperial Theatre School. While he performed in character roles in ballets at the Bolshoi Theatre, he simultaneously was developing a passion for acting and appeared in plays at the Maly Theatre. He considered a career as an actor but in 1913 Serge Diaghilev saw him dance. As Diaghilev was seeking to replace Nijinsky, he invited Massine to join the Ballets Russes. After performing the role of Joseph in Fokine’s Legend of Joseph in Paris in 1914 and choreographing his first work (Soleil de Nuit) a year later, he became principal dancer and choreographer of the Ballets Russes.
Massine embraced Diaghilev’s pioneering vision of a synthesis in the arts, choreographing numerous works with major artists and composers of the time, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Andre Derain, Leon Bakst, Natalia Gontcharova, Michail Larionov, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Manuel de Falla, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev, to name but a few. Between 1917 and 1920, during the chaos and aftermath of World War I, these extraordinary collaborations produced a series of groundbreaking works that propelled dance into the realm of modernity: Parade (Satie/Picasso/Cocteau,1917), The Good Humoured Ladies (Scarlatti-Tommasini /Bakst, 1917), La Boutique Fantasque (Rossini-Respighi/Derain, 1919), Le Tricorne (De Falla/Picasso, 1919), Pulcinella (Stravinsky/Roerich, 1920). In many of these works, Massine was the electrifying lead dancer.
In 1920, following the urge to develop creatively on his own, he started a small company in London, touring Britain and South America where both new works and revivals were a tremendous success. In 1924, he joined Etienne de Beaumont’s "Soirees de Paris" for which he created Salade (Milhaud/Braque1924), Mercure (Satie/Picasso,1924) and the immensely popular Le Beau Danube (Strauss, the Younger/de Beaumont/Guys, 1924). He returned to the Ballets Russes to stage several new works - Zephyre et Flore (Dukelsky/Braque, 1925), Les Matelots (Auric/Pruna,1925), Ode (Nabokov/Tchelitchev-Charbonnier, 1928.)
In 1928 he traveled to the United States to explore creative opportunities. Over two years, he created one ballet each week at the Roxy Theatre in New York City. He staged an acclaimed revival of his Sacre du Printemps in Philadelphia and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1930 with Martha Graham dancing the role of the Chosen Maiden. He returned to Europe in 1932 to join the newly founded Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo as ballet master and choreographer and then as artistic director.
The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, through the vitality and variety of its repertoire and the appeal of its brilliant young dancers, engendered a new Ballets Russes era, fostering an enthusiastic appreciation of ballet (until then the privilege of an elite) amongst a vast international audience.
At the creative helm of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, in 1933, Massine realized his aspiration to use a well-known symphony as a choreographic score. This was the first time in the West that a symphony was used for a ballet. Amidst much controversy around this use of music, he created Les Presages to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, and later that year, Choreartium, to Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. While in Les Presages Massine followed the symbolic theme of man’s struggle with destiny, he designed Choreartium as a completely abstract work that was essentially a visualization of the music. Both ballets became landmarks in the history of dance. He continued to elaborate his interpretations of musical structure with a succession of symphonic ballets: Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz/Berard-Lourie,1933), Seventh Symphony (Beethoven/Berard,1938), Nobilissima Visione (Hindemith/Tchelitchev, 1938), and finally, Le Rouge et le Noir (Shostakovitch/Matisse,1939). His many other creations for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo include Jeux d’Enfants (Bizet/Miro, 1932), Gaiete Parisienne (Offenbach-Rosenthal/de Beaumont, 1938), Capriccio Espanol (Rimsky Korsakov/Andreau, 1939), Bacchanale (Wagner/Dali, 1939) and Labyrinth (Schubert/Dali, 1941). From 1933 to 1939, whether touring the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe or performing at their home, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo gained tremendous international fame and Massine’s career as a dancer and choreographer was at its pinnacle. Following the outbreak of World War II, the company left for the United States where for three years they toured the country in grueling one-night stands, performing Massine repertory favorites that then had become a rage with audiences, along with several of his new works. In 1942, Massine and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo ended their association and Massine began an extensive international career as choreographer, staging works for major ballet companies around the world.
In 1952, he realized a long-standing dream, choreographing Christ’s passion as a narration in stylized movement, in the spirit of Byzantine mosaics and Italian primitive painting. It was a work that he had originally choreographed in 1916 (Liturgie) for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, but which was never performed. Set to thirteenth century Gregorian chants orchestrated by Valentino Bucchi, Laudes Evangelii was performed in European cathedrals (Nantes, 1951; Perugia, 1952) and at La Scala in Milan (1959) and hailed as a monumental artistic achievement. The work was also produced for television and aired in Europe and the United States (April, 1962). In the last part of his life Massine was active in staging revivals, while devoting much of his time to developing and teaching a theory of choreography.
Music
Johannes Brahms
Set
Keso Dekker
Conductor
Robertas Šervenikas
Choreography Staff
Lorca Massine
Choreography Staff
Anna Krzyskow
The Moor's Pavane
José Limón
Conductor
Robertas Šervenikas
Choreography
José Limón
José Limón (1908-1972) was a crucial figure in the development of modern dance: his powerful dancing shifted perceptions of the male dancer, while his choreography continues to bring a dramatic vision of dance to audiences around the world.Born in Mexico, Limón moved to New York City in 1928 after a year at UCLA as an art major. In 1946, after studying and performing for 10 years with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, he established his own company with Humphrey as Artistic Director.
Limón’s choreographic works were quickly recognized as masterpieces and the Company itself became a landmark of American dance. Many of his dances — There is a Time, Missa Brevis, Psalm, The Winged — are considered classics of modern dance. Limón was a consistently productive choreographer until his death in 1972 — he choreographed at least one new piece each year — and he was also an influential teacher and advocate for modern dance. He was in residence each summer at the American Dance Festival, a key faculty member in The Juilliard School’s Dance Division beginning in 1953, and the director of Lincoln Center’s American Dance Theatre from 1964-65.
Limón received two Dance Magazine Awards, the Capezio Award and honorary doctorates from four universities in recognition of his achievements. He was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Dance Heroes of José Limón (Fall 1996), and in 1997 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, NY. His autobiographical writings, An Unfinished Memoir, were edited by Lynn Garafola and published in 1999 by Wesleyan University Press.
José Limón (1908-1972) was a crucial figure in the development of modern dance: his powerful dancing shifted perceptions of the male dancer, while his choreography continues to bring a dramatic vision of dance to audiences around the world.Born in Mexico, Limón moved to New York City in 1928 after a year at UCLA as an art major. In 1946, after studying and performing for 10 years with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, he established his own company with Humphrey as Artistic Director.
Limón’s choreographic works were quickly recognized as masterpieces and the Company itself became a landmark of American dance. Many of his dances — There is a Time, Missa Brevis, Psalm, The Winged — are considered classics of modern dance. Limón was a consistently productive choreographer until his death in 1972 — he choreographed at least one new piece each year — and he was also an influential teacher and advocate for modern dance. He was in residence each summer at the American Dance Festival, a key faculty member in The Juilliard School’s Dance Division beginning in 1953, and the director of Lincoln Center’s American Dance Theatre from 1964-65.
Limón received two Dance Magazine Awards, the Capezio Award and honorary doctorates from four universities in recognition of his achievements. He was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Dance Heroes of José Limón (Fall 1996), and in 1997 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, NY. His autobiographical writings, An Unfinished Memoir, were edited by Lynn Garafola and published in 1999 by Wesleyan University Press.
Choreography Staff
Sarah Stackhouse
Sarah Stackhouse was born in the Midwest of the United States and lived her early years in Michigan until her family moved to a suburb of New York City.
She began her study of modern dance in a small dance school, which in retrospect, seems now to her like a cross between the aesthetics of Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman. Having won a scholarship Sarah Stackhouse was fortunate to be able to attend the American Dance Festival (ADF) at Connecticut College, the six week summer teaching residence of Martha Graham and José Limón.
She continued her education at the University of Wisconsin and studied in the first dance major in an American University. The teachers and artists that influenced her the most are José Limón, Merce Cunningham and Antony Tudor.
In 1959 she joined the José Limón Company, working also as José Limón’s assistant at the Julliard School. 10 years later she left America and moved to Italy. In 1972 she returned to the United States to teach at the State University of New York and dance as free-lance since then.
Today Sarah Stackhouse is one of the important ballet mistresses who rehearse the Limón ballets in companies around the world.
Sarah Stackhouse was born in the Midwest of the United States and lived her early years in Michigan until her family moved to a suburb of New York City.
She began her study of modern dance in a small dance school, which in retrospect, seems now to her like a cross between the aesthetics of Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman. Having won a scholarship Sarah Stackhouse was fortunate to be able to attend the American Dance Festival (ADF) at Connecticut College, the six week summer teaching residence of Martha Graham and José Limón.
She continued her education at the University of Wisconsin and studied in the first dance major in an American University. The teachers and artists that influenced her the most are José Limón, Merce Cunningham and Antony Tudor.
In 1959 she joined the José Limón Company, working also as José Limón’s assistant at the Julliard School. 10 years later she left America and moved to Italy. In 1972 she returned to the United States to teach at the State University of New York and dance as free-lance since then.
Today Sarah Stackhouse is one of the important ballet mistresses who rehearse the Limón ballets in companies around the world.
Costumes
Pauline Lawrence
Music
Henry Purcell
arrangiert von
Simon Saddoff
