Major Dutch dance company to perform in Auckland

Nederlands Dans Theater
The Civic
June 29-July 2

The Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) will be performing in Auckland for the first time this June, a rare opportunity to experience one of the world’s finest contemporary dance companies

NDT’s Auckland programme comprises four works, Safe as Houses and Stop-Motion choreographed by Sol Leon & Paul Lightfoot, Woke up Blind by Marco Goecke and The Statement by Crystal Pit

Woke up Blind and The Statement premiered this month in The Hague and Auckland will be the first city outside The Netherlands where these works will be presented.

Creative partners Leon and Lightfoot’s Safe as Houses is one of the duo’s most ‘spiritual’ works. It stems from the ancient Chinese book of I Ching and is set to a soundtrack of Johann Sebastian Bach. It has been described as "The vanishing ballet” as dancers move around a circular wall.

The songs You and I and The Way Young Lovers Do by Jeff Buckley, who died tragically and young, are the inspiration for Marco Goecke’s new work, Woke up Blind. The songs deal with love in different ways: The first is slow, with very stretched-out vocals; the second has fast, almost hectic guitar accompaniment. Like young lovers, dancers throw themselves into the unknown regardless of the consequences, driven by longing. In this work, Goecke has managed to reach the core of human emotions through pure, highly complex movement.

The Statement, by Crystal Pite, is a work that is very much set in our world and time. Four characters around a boardroom table are tasked by unseen powers to fuel a conflict in another country. In a battle for control, they face off against one another and ultimately must confront the morality of their actions. 

Also on the programme is Stop-Motion, which premiered in 2014 in The Hague. This critically acclaimed piece was created by León and Lightfoot for the NDT 1 repertoire. Set to melancholic music by Max Richter, seven dancers depict a process of farewell and transformation. This is reinforced by large screens that show delayed video projections, which includes Leon and Lightfoot’s daughter Saura. 

Nederlands Dans Theater is recognised as one of the most prolific and creative contemporary dance companies in the world. Under artistic guidance of Paul Lightfoot, the company performs for over 115,000 visitors annually in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia.

Since inception in 1959, the NDT company has consisted of 27 dancers from all over the world, has built a rich repertoire of over 600 works by master choreographers such as Jiří Kylián and Alexander Ekman

The dancers of NDT are renowned for their versatility, astonishing technique and virtuosic expression. The company showcases multiple art forms alongside their stunning choreography, including visual art, music composition and innovative light and set designs, all the while developing new talent.

Lightfoot says, “From the moment I crossed the threshold of the Koningsstraat in The Hague in 1985, I knew this is a place for dance artists to grow. NDT has planted seeds in different gardens, which opened us up to innovative ideas and styles. For this, you need dancers who are hungry and open-minded. Every single NDT dancer possesses a fabulous, classical based technique but, ultimately, it’s about their extraordinary capacity to transform. Every season’s programmes include works of choreographers with a clear message: This is who I am, and this is my aesthetical dance and figurative language. I invite choreographers who can strike a certain atmosphere, emotion and essence the second the curtain opens, BAM, and who are leading in that area internationally.”

Sol León and Paul Lightfoot started creating work as a duo for NDT over 26 years ago. Together they have won many prestigious awards, including the Benois de la Danse and the Herald Archangel. They have been the house choreographers of NDT since 2002 and have created more than 50 ballets together.

Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite has been the associate cChoreographer with NDT since 2008. The ballet Plot Point, which Pite created for NDT 1 in 2010, was nominated for the prestigious dance award Benois de la Danse.

Marco Goecke (Germany) made his first choreographic work in 2000. Since then, he has created more than 40 works for companies including Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Hamburg Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, the Norwegian National Ballet, the Leipzig Ballet and Zurich Ballet.

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