Watch the photos

Second Nature

NDT 1
Crystal Pite Solo Echo
Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal Take Root
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar Bedroom Folk

The performances in this programme have taken place in season 2018-2019.

If anything, NDT is known for shifting the boundaries of contemporary dance by working in a spectrum of creativity. The company’s repertoire is colourful and inexhaustible in both its talent and innovation that is often rooted in the principles of classical ballet. Second Nature combines a series of makers that are not only anchored in the more classical principles, but have also shown a connection to what could be labeled as urban dance, that is seemingly more intuitive in nature to express ideas, emotions and stories. In this programme the both critically acclaimed Bedroom Folk (2015) by Sharon Eyal en Gai Behar, and Solo Echo (2012) by associate choreographer  Crystal Pite will be completed with new work by the young choreographic duo Imre van Opstal en Marne van Opstal that will create their first work for NDT 1.

Watch the photos of Second Nature.

Performance dates

Season 2018-2019 | March 21 until April 16, 2019: The Hague, Utrecht, Groningen, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Heerlen and Rotterdam

Programme order

Solo Echo – Crystal Pite
Take Root – Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal
Bedroom Folk – Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar

Duration: approx. 2 hours 15 minutes, including 2 intermissions

In this programme

Solo Echo – Crystal Pite

Tell yourself, in that final flowing of cold through your limbs, that you love what you are. Solo Echo (2012) by the Canadian Crystal Pite softly lures you into a wintery melancholy, inspired by the poem Lines for Winter by Mark Strand. Against a backdrop of steadily whirling snowflakes and on sober strings of Brahms, a dynamic collective erupts around the focal point of the individual.

Je cookie instellingen blokkeren deze content.
Pas je instellingen aan om de content alsnog in te laden.

“Hibernal, melancholic, pleasant to watch.”

de Telegraaf
on Solo Echo
Take Root – Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal 

Human reason can never fully grasp the nature of things. However, before we know or try to explain we already sense what’s taking root.
Accepting the fact that we don’t understand these intuitive impulses, makes way for new branches of thought and emotion to bloom.

Je cookie instellingen blokkeren deze content.
Pas je instellingen aan om de content alsnog in te laden.
Je cookie instellingen blokkeren deze content.
Pas je instellingen aan om de content alsnog in te laden.

“With Take Root Imre and Marne van Opstal present a piece that should not be seen just once but that you want to see more often in order to discover and fathom it.”

Leidsch Dagblad
On Take Root
Je cookie instellingen blokkeren deze content.
Pas je instellingen aan om de content alsnog in te laden.
Bedroom Folk – Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar

Creators Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar have been, together with musician Ori Lichtik, an innovative trio in the contemporary dance world for years. For their new creation for NDT 1 they’ve engaged in a first time collaboration with set and lighting designer Thierry Dreyfus. In these multi-disciplinary efforts movement, sound and lighting stand side by side, creating pieces that exceed the borders of ‘tradtional’ contemporary dance and turn all the elements into equal protagonists.

“If there is a dance language that locks into the zeitgeist, then it’s the one by Israeli creators Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar.”

Trouw
On Bedroom Folk

The dancers on 'Second Nature'

Photo: Rahi Rezvani. Dancer: Aram Hasler.
Photo: Rahi Rezvani. Dancer: Gregory Lau.
Photo: Rahi Rezvani. Dancer: Meng-ke Wu.
aram hasler on solo echo

“The creation of Solo Echo is one of my fondest memories here at NDT. When we rehearse this ballet we devide it in two parts, the first movement that consists of solos and duets and the second movement where all the personas become one person (as I see it). The latter took the most time and patience to create – and the part in which my original partner César Fernandes (that crazy ass talented son of a bitch!) and I still look back on. Even now we laugh when we reminise on the silliest of details and jokes shared at that time (I believe we called it ‘Snow Pite and the Seven Dwarfs’ at some point). Like cogs in a clock every step is choreographed meticulously and methodically placed while following the music organically. Although you create as a group, you concentrate on your part only, often not knowing what the big picture looks like. It’s like standing closely in front of a Monet or looking at just a small area in a mosaic. But then you get a glimpse of a video and see this beautiful, satisfying, flowy whole that has formed. It helps that you can share that moment with majorly cool colleagues, with whom you connect through a strong sense of team. To this day I still do not understand how just one brain can imagine such things, but there it is and it is always baffling to witness and a privilege to see Crystal’s genius first hand.”

gregory lau on take root

“A day in the process would be like stepping into a playground. A breeze of Palo Santo cleansing the space and picking animal cards that would then inform physical research. This animalistic intention served as a catalyst for behavioral studies that would lead us to create from a state of being. An added layer of physical restrictions would then be guided into extreme states of theatricality evoking emotional release. Play and intuition were foundations without expectation. We were building source energy to be the undercurrent of the physical research while forming the piece. A resulted spectrum of curiosity, stored simmered energy, connection, neglect, release, love and reflection.”

meng-ke wu on bedroom folk

“Working on Bedroom Folk for a second time has been really enjoyable. As a member of the original cast in 2016, we got to rediscover the piece this time through new sensations and with new colleagues. In the past few weeks we have been working a lot with the concepts of hard skin and soft delicious insides, holes in the body and endless receiving of physical information passing through your body. We enjoy finding pleasure in the fatigue, exhaustion and tension while simultaneously focusing the rest of our brain on counting through the beat of the music. This is what makes Bedroom Folk so special to perform as a group: the seemingly impossible combination of absolute surrender and total control.”

Programme booklet

Programme booklet (NDT 1 | Second Nature)

loading…