Striking Sylphs & Posing Trolls

 - a photographic journey through Bournonville's ballets

Arranged by the Royal Theatre on the occasion of the third Bournonville Festival in Copenhagen , 2005.

 THE ROUND TOWER  

MAY 13 – JUNE 12, 2005

He was hot back then during the Romantic Movement when the artists practiced the longing after everything they could not have in real life. In his ballets, the sylphs, naiads, nymphs, sea gods, trolls, glamour boys, Spanish girls with swaying hips, and Scottish boys in chequered kilts skimmed across the stage in fabulous and exotic worlds with fairy steam and the southern sun on the whitewashed walls. It was mostly about the human spleen between the real world and the imaginary world – about the aspiration for the unattainable – which was usually the great love.

 The dancer, choreographer, and producer, August Bournonville, created ballets, which bewitched his audience to such a degree that the proper Danish bourgeoisie shouted with joy and applauded during the shows. He had a unique ability to do magic on stage and make his contemporaries feel that they were actually present in the Italian village or out in the woods with trolls and fairies. Not only did the ballets reflect a revolutionary new thinking in every way; they also managed to survive and built the foundation of the profile and repertoire of the Royal Ballet.

 In 2005, the Royal Theatre will celebrate Bournonville’s 200th year’s birthday. His ballets are classics and one cannot imagine the Royal Ballet without Bournonville. The company even has an obligation to dance his works and maintain the entire tradition, which follows in his wake.

 But how does one keep those ballets alive, which are more than 150 years old? In which manner does one dance or produce Bournonville so it is still relevant to a modern audience?

 With rare, old photographs and film recordings and with music and a brand-new pictorial interpretation, the exhibition shows through “Sylphs, trolls, and attention seekers” how the Royal Ballet has chosen to interpret and display Bournonville all the way back from the 1920s and up until today.

 The exhibition is “staged” by art historian, author and graphic artist, Mia Okkels, and is a part of the third Bournonville Festival in Copenhagen during which the Royal Theatre will celebrate the 200^th year’s birthday of the ballet master.