Each year, the dancers of NDT 1 and NDT 2 organize a unique programme: Switch. An evening composed entirely by the dancers themselves, of which all proceeds will go to a charity of their choice. The 2025 edition will take place on January 18.
View the NDT 2 programme Lucid Variations as video on demand in Digital Theatre.
Dear friends,
Welcome to Do Not Run Fly by NDT 1, where we invite you into three engaging worlds. We are delighted that part of the programme is accompanied live by the Dutch Ballet Orchestra in The Hague and Amsterdam, conducted by Matthew Rowe.
We are thrilled to present Yoann Bourgeois’ third creation for the company, a work he is co-creating with his partner Marie Bourgeois. Inspired by kinetic arts and optical
illusions, their work weaves together multiple disciplines such as dance, theatre, circus and the visual arts. In their new creation Without walls, they have built a dreamworld
that defies gravity.
Originally created in 2012 for NDT 1, we are excited to bring back Solo Echo by our associate choreographer Crystal Pite. Against a backdrop of steadily whirling snow, one character is seen through the perspective of many. Set to two sonatas for cello and piano by Brahms, Solo Echo describes a life’s journey from the coming of age to the passing of time.
To close the evening, we present the anticipated debut by Marcos Morau for NDT 1. In his captivating new creation Horses, Morau has created an imaginary landscape that
sparks your imagination and encourages the audience to think along with him about the urgent questions of today, in an effort to be witness to a world that exists in continuous
turmoil and change.
I am very grateful to Yoann and Marie, Crystal and Marcos for their inspired works and the generous artistic explorations they offered. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge our
many creative collaborators, the Dutch Ballet Orchestra, Matthew Rowe, Jan Pieter Koch and team at NDT for their incredible care and passionate effort that helped realize
this program. We hope you enjoy!
Emily Molnar
Artistic Director
This programme will be accompanied live by the Dutch Ballet Orchestra during the performances in The Hague and Amsterdam.
CONCEPT & CHOREOGRAPHY
Yoann Bourgeois & Marie Bourgeois
MUSIC
Georgs Pelēcis: Flowering Jasmine, Musica Baltica, Riga/ Albersen Verhuur B.V., ’s-Gravenhage (recorded version: Warner Music group)
Arnold Schönberg, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer: Friede auf Erden, Op.13 (recorded version: Deutsches Symphoni-Orchester Berlin, Kent Nagano), Universal Edition, Wenen/ Albersen Verhuur B.V., ’s-Gravenhage
Philip Glass: Suite from “The Hours”- movement I, G. Schirmer, New York/ Albersen Verhuur B.V., ’s-Gravenhage, (recorded version: Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc, courtesy of Orange Mountain Music)
MUSIC ADVISOR
Jan Pieter Koch
LIGHT
Jérémie Cusenier
DECOR, COSTUMES & TEXT
Yoann Bourgeois
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTORS
Tamako Akiyama, Lucas Crandall
WORLD PREMIERE
May 16, 2024, Amare, The Hague
DURATION
30 minutes
Fay van Baar, Anna Bekirova, Thalia Crymble, Surimu Fukushi, Barry Gans, Nicole Ishimaru, Chuck Jones, Madoka Kariya, Kele Roberson, Charlie Skuy, Yukino Takaura, Luca Tessarini, Nicole Ward, Sophie Whittome
He lived in a bedroom. Every night, this one expanded. After a few years, he could no longer go to sleep for fear of getting lost, and never joining in the morning.
Yoann Bourgeois & Marie Bourgeois
“What I like about spinning is that for a moment, I take on the force of weight in a circle.
For once, I am relieved of that constant gravity (downwards) and become the feeling of a circle, or a spiral, as the pull is now outwards.
There’s this amazing T.S Eliot poem where he talks about how being at a “still point”, perhaps asleep, is to be at the center of “the turning world”. I love this because it proposes that we cannot be un-circular in life even when still; we cannot think, move on, or process things as a line.
What we can try, and so many of us do, is to make it not so, to try to iron out the feelings (circular) into lines we can see (and therefore seize).
When this is sought and done, the child eye closes, and the spinning stops.
As I grow up, I worry losing this circle feeling will be the saddest thing to lose.
For this theater, how nice that Yoann and Marie use sleep as the perfect still point for their turning world.”
STAGED BY
Eric Beauchesne
MUZIEK
Johannes Brahms: Allegro Non Troppo from Opus 38 in e- minor, Adagio Affettuoso of Opus 99 in F – major, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, Sony Music Publishing
LIGHT
Tom Visser
DECOR
Jay Gower Taylor
COSTUMES
Crystal Pite, Joke Visser
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Lucas Crandall, Emily Molnar
WORLD PREMIERE
February 9, 2012, Lucent Danstheater, The Hague
DURATION
20 minutes
Cast A: Jon Bond, Scott Fowler, Aram Hasler, Paxton Rickets, Nicole Ward, Yukino Takaura, Luca Tessarini
Cast B: Alexander Andison, Anna Bekirova, Matthew Foley, Nicole Ishimaru, Genevieve O’Keeffe, Theophilus Veselý, Zenon Zubyk
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.
ASSISTANT TO THE CHOREOGRAPHER
Shay Partush, Lorena Navarro
MUSIC
Andrzej Panufnik: Arbor Cosmica: IV. Prestissimo possible, XII. Presto, Tagoc Overture, Tagoc Overture, Nocturne, Boosey & Hawkes, Londen/ Albersen Verhuur B.V., ’s-Gravenhage.
Caroline Shaw, arranged by Julian Azkoul: and the swallow, recorded version: United Strings of Europe, directed by Julian Azkoul, BIS Records
Niels Mudde: Basis For Marcos. Including fragments by Niels Duursma. Sound Design by Niels Mudde & Thijs Scheele
Pauline Oliveros: Sound Patterns, Sony Music publishing
MUSIC ADVISOR
Jan Pieter Koch
LIGHT
Tom Visser
DECOR
Max Glaenzel
COSTUMES
Silvia Delagneau
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Francesca Caroti
WORLD PREMIERE
May 16, 2024, Amare, The Hague
DURATION
30 minutes
Marcos Morau’s new production is co-sponsored by Ammodo.
Alexander Andison, Conner Bormann, Pamela Campos, Emmitt Cawley, Matthew Foley, Scott Fowler, Genevieve O’Keeffe, Paxton Ricketts, Theophilus Veselý, Rui-Ting Yu, Zenon Zubyk
It seems that we live halfway between the animal and the human being, between freedom and control, between intuition and the rational, between what we have learned to show and what we really believe we are. And in the midst of this mourning we look for references, we seek to be unique in the midst of the multitude that crosses the world, we look for a focus that illuminates us, but this light not only tells us that there are many paths, it also shows us the fragility of how we are today: Lost.
And clumsy, lost and trained to survive in an increasingly complex world, our steps mark the path of others, our feet take us from here to there, alone, in packs, at a gallop or at a brisk pace.
Because being lost is also a direction.
Among many things we have something in common with horses: A tough skin that needs strong caresses. Maybe it’s just that.
Marcos Morau
“The creation process with Marcos has been one of endless potential. Within his specificity, he leaves room for each of us to challenge ourselves and find something different. Then he twists it and turns it on its head. What seems simple has many layers in his mind, and it has been incredibly inspiring to see his mind come to life on stage.
That openness has translated to a work that will let the audience infer their own experiences into the work, and highlights that under all the definitions we have built for ourselves, we are all strong and vulnerable. We all have so much more in common than we let ourselves believe.”
“A perfect blend of order and chaos. Of knowing and unknowing. It’s a flow state that you travel through and travels through you. A state in which you understand the rules. There is a plan. The way a starling knows where to migrate, a river knows where it meets the sea, a sun knows noon. Meticulous and understood in so many ways. Yet there is infinite space between each rule. So many diversions along the path. Rules bend, and rivers flood. Starlings murmur, and chaos takes roost. Anomalies are welcomed. They are set, structured, and once again shattered into new variations. The game is meant to be played. To be kept in uncertainty is what drives the narrative, and frames the disposition.”
“Then suddenly descended upon me the obscure, the mystic sense of adoration, of completeness that triumphed over chaos.”
-Virginia Woolf
“In Horses, we play the line between restriction and unmeasured freedom in the body. A delicate balance of responses through reactionary instinct and deliberate decision-making. The spaces between become the essence of the work, influencing both the phrasing of the movement and the creation of distinct, individualized worlds on the stage.
We communicate through subtle queues—the right hand pointing to the light, the left foot tracing an upwards arc, a click of the tongue. Each action motivated by an endless search, unified by the pursuit, though unsure of the desired destination.”
View more photos in the gallery
Mrs Ettjen Modderman most enjoyed dance performances accompanied by live classical music. In accordance with her wishes, part of her legacy will be spent on preparing and performing the musical accompaniment for this production Do Not Run Fly.
