Young dance talent in the picture
Hans van Manen's In the Future, which was created for the young Scapino Ballet Rotterdam back in 1986, is perfect for the Junior Company. To the pulsating, jazzy music from the album Music for “The Knee Plays” by David Byrne, these young dance talents, in the two-coloured costumes designed by Keso Dekkers, display a sublime play of colours and bodies.
Groundbreaking
In addition, Shooting Stars presents no less than four world premieres by promising choreographers.
Milena Sidorova
In her latest work Bloom, Young Creative Associate Milena Sidorova focuses on the transition that many consider to be the most important development a person can go through in life: forming your identity as a young adult. This is a period in which everything that was predefined comes to an end and independent life starts, shaping you as the person you will eventually become. Each decision made during this period, contributes to this identity, and many of the peers with whom you shared a close relationship for years, have suddenly headed in a different direction. What’s more, this is a phase of personal development that many of the dancers of the Junior Company are going through right now. With these young artists in mind, Sidorova created a choreographic work that is set to an exciting and playful composition by Bobby McFerrin and Caroline Shaw. The result is a work that portrays this particular phase in life, but also contains a certain nostalgia for this time, echoing the dancers' and the audience's own experiences.
Marta Reig Torres
This season sees Spanish choreographer Marta Reig Torres return to the company where she made her debut as a dancer in 1988: Dutch National Ballet. Torres has had a rewarding career, as both a classical ballet and contemporary dancer, and now has several successful choreographies under her belt as well. She brings a wealth of experience and different styles with her, but focuses in particular on the body, which takes centre stage in all of her work. This ideology is visible in her most recent piece, The Sublimeness of NoBody, in which Torres and the Junior Company explore the essence of what it is to be human and how that connects us as people. Set to compositions by Max Richter and Mika Vainio, Torres challenges both the dancers and the audience to be fully present in the moment and rediscover their connection with their inner selves, in order to transcend the unpredictability of this constantly changing world.
Zoë Greten
The 19-year-old Zoë Greten started dancing when she was only 2 years old. Now, 17 years later, she is studying at the National Ballet Academy, where she is also discovering her choreographic talent. When she was given the opportunity to apply for the Choreographic Academy of Dutch National Ballet, she faced a difficult choice: how would this affect her future career in the world of dance? It is hard to give a definitive answer to this question as of now, but choreographing a piece for the Junior Company is certainly a great first step.
Set to compositions by Jóhann Jóhannsson and David Buckley, Zoë examines the difficulty of choice. How can others influence you when making decisions? How can a lack of self-confidence affect your decisions? And how can one decision determine the rest of your life? Zoë explores these questions with a creative piece of choreography, performed by five dancers of the Junior Company, who illustrate how central the role of choice is in their daily lives.
Peter Leung
Peter Leung likes to blur boundaries. His work as a choreographer and stage director, integrates many artistic disciplines, ensuring these boundaries barely perceptible. However, as a trained classical dancer, he has repeatedly come up against one boundary that appears to be very firmly entrenched: the strict gender roles upheld in the classical ballet scene. Leung feels the time has come to play with these roles. And who is more suited to bringing about this change than the talented young dancers of the Junior Company?
In Leung’s choreography for Shooting Stars, two dancers perform a duet that transcends gender-specific movements and dance steps. It does not incorporate lifts that can only be performed by men, nor does it contain any elegant pirouettes geared towards women. Leung’s duet is interchangeable and the steps are adaptable: it is performed by dancer A and dancer B, who can be substituted endlessly. To music by Woodkid, the Junior Company illustrates dancers and dance movements are not defined by gender, but by a person. The open-mindedness of these young dancers will pave the way in pushing the boundaries of gender in classical ballet.
