Programmaboek Hans van Manen gala - Het Nationale Ballet

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hans van manen – master choreographer
Although it is around fifty years since Hans van Manen (11 July 1932, Nieuwer Amstel) exchanged
the profession of dancer for that of choreographer, he has remained a dancer at
heart. In the studio, he still demonstrates all the steps himself, and there is no question of him
choreographing from a chair.
Van Manen always wanted to be a dancer. As
a seven-year-old boy, he danced practically
every Sunday afternoon in his living room to
the radio concerts from the Concertgebouw.
But he hadn’t the slightest idea how you became
a dancer, or where. He thought the circus
was the most likely place for it.
In 1946, the fascinating world of ballet came
one step closer, when the young Van Manen
took up his apprenticeship with the stage hair
and make-up artist Herman Michels. Van
Manen had his first ballet lessons from Sonia
Gaskell, who took him into her company
Ballet Recital. He then went on to dance with
the Ballet van de Nederlandse Opera and
Roland Petit’s Les Ballets de Paris. In 1957,
he made his debut as a choreographer with
the ballet Feestgericht, which received the
State Award for Choreography.
From 1961 onwards, Van Manen worked alternately
with the two main dance companies
in the Netherlands. From 1961 to 1970, he
was co-artistic director of Nederlands Dans
Theater, after which he became resident choreographer
with the Dutch National Ballet
from 1973 to 1987. From 1988 to 2003, he
held the same position with Nederlands Dans
Theater. He returned to the Dutch National
Ballet as resident choreographer in January
2005, where he has remained since.
As one of the first Dutch choreographers,
Van Manen has created a synthesis between
classical ballet technique and modern dance
and movement techniques. And partly because
of the many TV recordings of his ballets
in the sixties, ‘modern ballet’ became
popular with a wide audience. In his work,
Van Manen tries to keep ‘ballast’ to an absolute
minimum. He wants things to be as essential
and manageable as possible, which is
why the structure of his movement compositions
is always so clear. This proverbial clarity
and the refined, apparent simplicity of his
ballets have gained him the nickname ‘the
Mondriaan of dance’.
Van Manen has now created more than 125
ballets, 47 of which are included in the repertoire
of the Dutch National Ballet. His work
is performed by over 50 foreign ballet companies.
The international stars who have performed
his ballets include Anthony Dowell,
Marcia Haydée, Natalia Makarova, Rudolf
Nureyev and Uliana Lopatkina.
Van Manen has received numerous major
awards for his choreography, including the
Sonia Gaskell Prize, the VSCD Choreography
Award, the Deutsche Tanzpreis, the Gino
Tani Award and the City of Duisburg Music
Prize. In 1992, he was made an Officer in the
Order of Oranje Nassau. In 2000, he was
awarded the Erasmus Prize for his special services
to Dutch dance, and in 2005 he was
presented with the Benois de la Danse
Lifetime Achievement Award, in the Bolshoi
Theatre, in Moscow.
In 2007 – the year in which he turned 75 –
the Dutch National Ballet honoured the choreographer
and his work with a comprehensive
Hans van Manen Festival. On the occasion,
in the presence of Her Majesty Queen
Beatrix, Van Manen was promoted to
Commander in the Order of the Netherlands
Lion; a royal honour for ‘services of an exceptional
nature’.
Van Manen’s artistic legacy is preserved in
the Hans van Manen Foundation, which was
established in September 2003. The foundation’s
aim is to preserve Van Manen’s work.
ruben brugman, peter koppers, hans van manen, reinbert martijn, krzysztof pastor en ted brandsen
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