Archives: Archived Performances

Music
Norbert Zacharias
Flat Space Moving

Philipe Deschepper
Graph

Yens & Yens
from I Threw Myself

Ground Zero
Null and Void

Elliot Sharp
No Mix

Music:
Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus
Födelsedagsvals till Mona

Benny Andersson/Orsa Spelmän
Klinga mina klockor
Publisher: Mono Music
MML 001, 1987

Mats Berglund
Årsringar
Jag går i tusen tankar
Mats Berglund, violin

Arr. Pelle Lindström
Barkbrödslåten
Pelle Lindström, harmonica
MWCD 194-195

Duration: 7 minuter
World Premiere with Cullbergbaletten 1990

Johan Inger’s Livnära had its world premiere at the Nederlands Dans Theater 1997 and its Swedish Premiere with The Cullberg Ballet the year after.

Music:
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Passion

Karl Jenkins
Allegretto

Pietro Mascagni
Intermezzo ur L’Amico Fritz

Petéris Vasks
Voices of Silence

Arvo Pärt
Psalom

Music:
Taraf de Haïdouks (musikgrupp)

Rustern
Trambal solo
Dumbala Dumba
CRAW21

Sîrba lui Cacurcia
Sîrba de la Golasei
Cimpoiu
Musique des Tziganes de Roumanie
CRAW2

Hora din caval
Cînd eram la’ 48
Honourable Brigands
Magic Horses
Evil Eye
CRAW13

“Giselle is one of the oldest preserved ballets still being performed today. It premiered in Paris in 1841 and the music, libretto and much of the choreography have remained intact. Giselle is uniquely preserved and assuch has much to tell about the time in which it was created. Well performed, a contemporary audience can still respond to the work, to its content.

What has captivated me from the first time I saw it many years ago are the strong oppositions and contrasts in Giselle. Between the realism of the first act set in a peasant village in the countryside, to the dreamlike romance of the second act set in a nocturnal forest with menacing spirit beings. Then there is the contrast between castle and hut, or the meeting between individual and group. Prince Albrecht mixes with peasants. Giselle is treated differently because she is hyper sensitive. She does not participate in the work of the farming village. In the forest, among the willies, she is the only spirit who, even after death, is tormented by lost love and who rejoices for the man whose betrayal drove her to madness and death.

She embodies a place where high and low, life and death meet in an intersecting union that tears her to pieces, but conversely creates a human being.

All of this said about what attracted me to the original Giselle, my version is an attempt to reshape the saga.”

– Mats Ek before the premiere of Cullberg Ballet’s production of Giselle, 1982.

Giselle spent years in the company’s repertoire and holds the record of having been performed more than any other Cullberg Ballet piece. It is considered by many to be its most iconic work to date.

SVT recorded Giselle in 1986. Producer: Måns Reutersvärd
Costume: Ulla Mamer (based on Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle, née Ekman) Lights: Börje Berglund.

In in the autumn
In the autumn when you say goodbye
In the autumn when all the gates stand open toward
meaningless pastures …

– from Absentia Animi by Gunnar Ekelöf

It is this first stanza of Gunnar Ekelöf’s poem Absentia Animi that inspired Mats Ek to create Meningslösa Hagar (Pointless Pastures). The piece was created in 1992 for John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet and subsequently incorporated into the Cullberg Ballet’s repertoire. Ek’s movement language is, as always, deeply idiosyncratic. His choreography evolved over time from narrative dramatic works to evocative poetic dances.

Meningslösa Hagar depicts a series of meetings between people. The piece unfolds in a dreamlike logic instead of direct narratives from real life.

Containing both humor and tragedy anything can happen (and is happening) in these pastures. As is often the case in Ek’s work, the music acts as an adventure in its own right.

Henryk Górecki’s nordic sounds are mixed with wayward interpretations of Swedish folk songs played on violin and harmonica. The set designer Peder Freiij created a enchanted landscape in the form of a blue shimmering courtyard. The imaginatively conceived costumes in turn gave each dancer a completely different character.Below is an excerpt from an interview with Margareta Sörensen for the Cullberg Ballet’s program in the spring of 1993:

“Meaningless? Doesn’t that sound despondent?” Mats Ek, who has just run his daily training, looks surprised at such question.

– It could also mean without precondition, free from demands. A place where anything can happen. Or nothing. The ballet is not at all about the poem, which takes it much further. It’s just about these two words “meaningless pastures” that were suggestive and gave me an image to work with. When I then heard Henryk Górecki’s music, a fusion or link emerged for me. There appeared a sequence of scenes offering concrete situations. For example, between man and woman, between a man and a man, between different people, or between a man and his given space. Everything takes place in a landscape only hinted at – a cloud, a fence, a long haired carpet signaling a pasture.

A Swedish landscape?

– In any event a Nordic one. The music is surprisingly Nordic to my ears. Górecki is from the same generation as Arvo Pärt, both deeply religious. But where Pärt is more Gregorian, Górecki is more barren. Peder Freiij’s costumes give each dancer their own character – we find some of a dream’s clear figures but at the same time they are elusive.

–

Press clippings:

“Ek is a master of original dramatic images, and in Meningslösa Hagar, they are among the most beautiful and spectacular he has ever succeeded with.”

– Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“… the piece is filled with small glittering scenes. The end result is surprising and overwhelming. “

– Dagens Nyheter

“When have you ever seen the full richness of life expressed in dance like it is in Mats Ek’s Meningslösa Hagar?

– Die Zeit

Music:
Henryk M Górecki: Already it is dusk

Three pieces in Olden style

Traditional Swedish folk music: Barkbrödslåten, Jag går i tusan tankarHon Var Svart / She Was Black (1995) was created as a counterpart to Meningslösa Hagar. While Meningslösa Hagar had a idyllic mood Hon Var Svart / She Was Black was instead an expression the agitation of urban society and its focus on competition.

Falling Angels, Jiří Kylián’s choreography for an all female cast, was presented alongside Kenneth Kvarnström’s NACLH2O and Johan Inger’s Hurry Slowly in the program O-LIKA.

Music:
Steve Reich: Drumming part 1

The duet Hurry Slowly, choreographed by Johan Inger, was created for the Nederlands Danstheater and had its premiere on the 15th of April, 1999. In the autumn of 2000, the work had its premiere with the Cullberg Ballet as part of the program O-LIKA, a shared evening presenting works by Kenneth Kvarström, Jiří Kylián, and Inger.

Music
Arvo Pärt: Summa, Festina Lente
Teleman: Largo e staccato

Kenneth Kvarnström’s work NACLH2O shared a program with Jiří Kylián’s Falling Angels and Johan Inger’s Hurry Slowly. The title of the work is the chemical formula for sweat. It was danced by five men.

VARA, a full length performance specially composed for Cullberg Ballet by choreographer by Ohad Naharin, was constituted by excerpts from the worksZachacha, Anaphase, Black Milk, Queens of Golub, Mabul and Sabotage Baby.

Ohad Narahin, a choreographer and, at the time, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, is known to only rarely choreograph completely new works for companies other than Batsheva. Nevertheless, these tailored collage works comprised of parts of other whole works coupled with the meeting with new dancers, creates something unique.

“There are performances that make you happy, in the sense that you leave the theater with with a lightness to your step and restored faith in both art and life. The Cullberg Ballet’s Vara is one such performance. Lucky are those who get to experience it.”

– Göteborgs-Posten

Music:
Anton Webern: Five pieces for string quartet

“I Remember Red is a work based on the structure of how we organize and store our memories, and the puzzling way in which these memories appear and disappear. With this work, I have tried to create a ecology of memory, aroom where memory is frozen – a landscape of recollection. In this environment we play with our collective memories such as love, pain, our first impressions, our strongest remembrances and fragments of recurring memories.”

– Didy Veldman, Choreographer

A young prince is celebrates his coming of age and, on his auspicious day, breaks free from his dominant mother to travel the world. He carries with him a love for a mystical white swan he encountered one night at a lake – Swan Lake.

During his travels he meets a black swan, seemingly identical to the white one, yet somehow different. In fact she is the result of a spell cast by the evil sorcerer Rothbart. The prince falls Rothbart’s trap, professing his lover for the black swan. He is enchanted, then horror stricken upon realizing that she is not who he thinks she is. But perhaps they are two sides of the same being? Perhaps the fable revolves around ideals contra reality.

The prince flees back to his lake and there, among the creatures by the water, searches longingly for his white swan, now lost to him. Realizing she is gone, he is faced with a new beginning, a choice to live or to die.

When Mats Ek talks about Swan Lake – he firstly speaks of Tchaikovsky’s music, which he considers to be the most important reason why the work survived.

“It has been said that Tchaikovsky’s music is like flowers, but unlike their seeds,” Ek says. “Those flowers are rooted in great sorrow, a longing, and conversely in a wild and almost desperate glee. This combines to make the flowers seductive and dangerous.”

A perennial outsider, Tchaikovsky suffered a great deal of internal turmoil. Gay in a society where being so risked a death sentence, he lived unhappily for a time in a marriage of convenience with one of his students. Then a relationship was constructed with an elderly woman who lived in another country. They never met.

In creating Swan Lake, Mats Ek returned once again to the reconception of a classical ballet. As with his previous interpretations of classics he did so with deft craftsmanship, great rigor, and a touch of obstinance. That final quality is something he insists is not intended as a polemic against or negation of the original ballets. Instead, he wishes to explore the emotional complexity and dramatic potentials that can be found in the original stories or expressions particular to a given era.

In Giselle, the almost diametrical contrasts between the two acts gave rise to a depiction of social difference as well as the many faces of love. In Swan Lake it is, above all, the music that inspires an expression to unfold inside the given framework of the existing narrative:

“The story with the prince, the black and the white swan, the mother and the magician is quite unclear,” says Ek. “In different versions of the performance, it often ends differently – everyone drowns, or the prince gets away with a mere fright or the sorcerer is defeated, and in becomes a happy ending.”

In Mats Ek’s version, Swan Lake becomes a story about human growth through encounter with hardship, about a schism that too difficult to be bear. The prince is appalled by the world he encounters on his travels, a world that threatens his dream of purity. He seeks refuge, an inner exile at the shores of his swan lake, perhaps a point of departure for renewal. Among the wild creatures there he might find a new beginning.Tchaikovsky’s own misfortune and his longing to break free from a life forced upon him is a recurrent theme in the music and, perhaps unconsciously, in the story of the young prince too.

Marie-Louise Ekman, in her eighth collaboration with Ek, designed the sets.

Music:
Peter Tchaikovsky: Opus 20
The Grand Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio and TV
Conductor: Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
and Jewish folk music

In Two was presented as part of the program Tripp, an evening of short works by Johan Inger. As a transition piece, it featured dancers Vanessa de Lignière and Alexandra Campbell dancing between, beside and beneath the changing the technical crew preparing for the next work.

Phases marked the first series of creations by Johan Inger for Cullberg Ballet after his appointment as artistic director. Inger chose the four performers, none of whom had worked together before, in order to underline the central theme of the work, the meeting of strangers. In Phases we encounter a landscape of tables covered in suede carpet, an unearthly grass garden of sorts, in which the four strangers meet, if only fleetingly, before falling, shifting of sliding away or between one another and the puzzle work of tables. In so doing, the neat and ordered ecosystem breaks apart, changes form and facilitates or hinders their encounters further.

Phases premiered as part of the program Tripp, which featured three new short works by Johan Inger. The title is borrowed from the music of the same name by composer Steve Reich, to which the piece is danced.

The piece was danced by: Charlotte Broom, Daniel Sjökvist, Tilman O’Donnell and Shintaro Oue. Costumes were designed by Mylla Ek

Solo For Two began as the short work Rök (Smoke) produced for television by SVT (Swedish National Television). Rök awarded an Emmy in 1996.“A chamber piece full of longing that winds its way into the viewer’s senses,” wrote Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish National newspaper) wrote about the television work.

Solo For Two was adapted from television for the stage. It is a melancholy love duet embodying desire and joy that can so quickly turn to sadness and anxiety. Solo For Two is about the aged old theme of man and woman as mirror images of one another.

Music:
Arvo Pärt: For Alina, For Arinuschka
Mirror

Johan Inger created Home and Home for the Cullberg Ballet in 2002.

In 2003, Johan Inger was appointed artistic director of the company, a position he held until the spring of 2008.

“For Within Now, my point of departure has been the Cullberg Ballet’s versatility, its identity is today. The piece takes place in a landscape somewhere between history and the future.” said choreographer Johan Inger Within Now was created six months after beginning his tenure artistic director of the Cullberg Ballet.

Johan Inger created Pneuma for Nederlands Dans Theater on the occasion of his mother’s passing. The work is about coming to the realization that life and time are finite. Pneuma entered the repertoire of Cullberg Ballet as part of one of Inger’s first programs after being appointed artistic director in 2003.

“Sore Core is a study in ecstatic desperation. For this work I have utilized an extreme movement vocabulary. I was interested in the abandonment of control, to see if it might open up new possibilities.”

– Choreographer Stijn Celis on Sore Core

The Cullberg Ballet celebrated three decades at the forefront of contemporary dance with the premiere of Mats Ek’s interpretation of the classic ballet Törnrosa (The Sleeping Beauty). Since its inception Cullberg Ballet has stood for excellence, innovation and a reflection of our common contemporary condition. The company continues to mine the unexplored in the fields of contemporary dance and art both in Sweden and abroad.

Eks Törnrosa was created for the Hamburg Ballet in June 1996. The Swedish premiere followed in February of 1997, danced by Cullberg Ballet at Dansens Hus, Stockholm. The performance was described as “an ingenious work with fresh takes on the old story, with depth and with ironic imagery. Poetic, richly creative and playful. A modern tale of man searching, of the fear of the unknown. In Mats Ek’s depiction, The Sleeping Beauty is a wounded young woman of our time. “

This young woman is at the center of the piece, rebelling as she does against her parents. She does not prick her finger as in the original fairy telling, but rather injects herself with drugs for the first time, entering an altogether different kind of slumber.

Mats Eks Törnrosa was danced by a total of twenty dancers.

Mats Ek about Törnrosa

While fairy tales and allegories appear like a cute finished little cottage, they exist in fact to be mined for their various meanings. Meanings that change according to the time and manner in which they are read.

Most fairytales have something in common: princesses, witches, kings and queens, good and evil. But each one also contains something unique, almost inexplicable. In Sleeping Beauty, this mysterious moment occurs when the young princess falls into a deep sleep after pricking her finger. What could this mean? What might follow?

I have a desire to tell stories. We are all bearers, mediators and in some sense victims of a great cultural heritage – myths, legends, allegories and fairy tales. They become so familiar that we are no longer able to see them clearly. To read them again closely, perhaps discover there the obvious, the ability to deconstruct them, to sabotage even, and to recreate them – that is for me a way to take them seriously, and is a valuable creative act.

– Mats Ek

Törnrosa was performed by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal 2009 and of the Gothenburg Opera Ballet in 2010. Each time is it was reworked and updated.

Renowned Swedish theater director Linus Tunström is no stranger to the world of dance and performance. Already in 1996 he was commissioned to create his first dance piece for the Cullberg Ballet titled Över bord (Over Board).

Dödsbo (2005) was his second work for the company and had as its thematic undercurrent our human contempt for weakness, for the other and for ourselves. In Swedish the name Dödsbo could be translated as death house, or house of death. It refers to an apartment or home vacated after the death of its occupant. Ulla Kassius, a long time collaborator of Tunströms, created the set and costume design which evoked a small, vacated mid century Swedish apartment.

Rikard Borggård, composer and at the time artistic director of Teater Giljotin in Stockholm, composed the music.

Music:
Rikard Borggård, specially composed for the Culberg Ballet, 35 minuter
Trad. So Lang Der Alte Peter-Grosse Gaudi In Münchener Hofbräuhaus, 3,03 minuter
German drinking songs

Publisher: EPM Musique 995212

Trad. Quanti martiri ha potuto passare, 3,08 minuter
Sicily, Music of the Holy Week
Auvidis-Unesco D 8210

Trad. Bella Ciao, 3,06 minuter
Cabaret Modern-Magic Mirror Tent

Publisher: Winter & Winter 910101-2

FLUKE is the name of one section of the music (composed by Fläskkvartetten) and became the name of the piece. A series of events, situations and scenes are set against a backdrop of two large, black cubes.

The juxtaposition of these abstract, relentless forms gives heightened clarity to the soft and mobile bodies. A tenuous marriage we all live in with houses, laws, beliefs and assurances. A fellowship that when combined with the music, provided the concepts and events for the piece, which could just as easily have been performed in reverse order – and yet not.

– Mats Ek

In the Spring of 2006, three of the Cullberg Ballet’s dancers were chosen to create their own choreographies in Växtverk. The project was conceived as a means to support the burgeoning choreographic talent in the Cullberg Ballet at the time, while remaining outside the current repertoire of the company.

Choreographers:

Thomas Zamolo was born in France and educated at the School of Madame Floriane Vergères in Geneva. Thomas has danced in Badishes Staatstheater, Gothenburg Opera Ballet and Ballet Freiburg. Thomas came to the Cullberg Ballet in the summer of 2005. Like Shintaro and Alexander, Thomas has choreographic experience from workshops at the companies he has danced in. He has also choreographed for independent dance projects in France and Italy.

Shintaro O-ue was educated in Japan and at the Hamburg State Opera Ballet School. He worked as a dancer at the Hamburg Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theater II and as a freelancer before joining the Cullberg Ballet in 2003. He had previously created choreographies for several workshops and for companies in the Netherlands, Norway and Japan. Shintaro has won awards for his choreography at competitions in Hannover and Kuopi.

Alexander Ekman was educated at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet Ballet from 2001-2002 and then in the Nederlands Dans Theater II from 2002-2005 before joining the Cullberg Ballet in the summer of 2005. Alexander has choreographed for workshops with the companies he has danced with, but has also been invited to create works for other companies in the Netherlands and internationally.

Okänd Art?

Idea, choreography and scenography: Alexander Ekman
Costume: Alexander Ekman, Nina Stenmark, Karin Fahlberg
Candles: Alexander Ekman and Peter Lundin
Music: Alexander Ekman, J. S. Bach, Charles Trenet.
Dancer: The Leader: Lisa Drake The Inseminator: Tilman O’Donnell
Thinker: Jermaine Spivey Flock members: 1. Carolina Armenta 2. Carl Inger 3. Åsa Lundvik Gustafson 4. Izumi Shuto.

between a and B

Idea and choreography: Shintaro O-ue in collaboration with dancers
Alexandra Campbell, Hlín Diego Hjálmarsdóttir, Mats Jansson, Lindh, Åsa Lundvik Gustafson, Banning Roberts, Izumi Shuto, Rei Watanabe

Hado

Choreography, scenography and lighting design: Thomas Zamolo
Text and costumes: Irene Joyce and Thomas Zamolo
Music: Ralf Freudenberger. The music is composed for the Cullberg Ballet and is performed live in Stockholm and Malmö.
Dancers: Alexandra Campbell, Lisa Drake, Sandra Marín, Tilman O’Donnell, Rafi Sadi, Eytan Sivak, Daniel Sjökvist, Jermaine Spivey, Rei Watanabe

In 1997 The Holland Dance Festival presented a survey of Mats Ek work. The festival celebrated its 50th anniversary that year, having established itself as one of Europe’s most creative platforms for innovation in dance, theater, music and opera. Ek created En Slags for Nederlands Dans Theater and premiered the work alongside an array of existing works from his repertoire.

(In addition, he commissioned choreographers Stijn Celis and Jens Östberg to create works for the festival.)

En Slags premiered with the Cullberg Ballet on February 26, 1998 at Dansens Hus in Stockholm. En Slags is a large scale piece for sixteen dancers, set to music by Henryk M. Góreckí: Kleines Requiem für eine Polka and Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra, OP. 44

“A man wakes up, or does he fall asleep? He makes a journey into the depths and, once there, different events take place. He moves into -A Sort Of- reality – or is it a dream? Afterwards, he is forever changed.”

– Mats Ek

For the 2006 edition of the annual Nobel Banquet at Stockholm City Hall, artistic director of Dansens Hus Kenneth Kvarnström was asked to curate the various performances. Among other invited artists, The Cullberg Ballet’sartistic director at the time Johan Inger created a new choreography with members of the company.

In the same program, Kenneth Kvarnström, Dorte Olesen, Örjan Andersson, Virpi Pahkinen presented works. Cristina Caprioli presented a new choreography for the Royal Swedish Ballet’s offshoot Stockholm 59 North.

The group Bounce presented a new work as well.

Blanco depcits the pursuit of an illusion, a quest for a world that is not yet tainted by human experience. The piece describes the constant attempts we make to step into situations or events that remain inaccessible to us.

Blanco premiered on the 25th of August, 2006 at the Gothenburg Dance and Theater Festival.

Music:
Specially written music by Stefan Levin, about 45 minutes.
Erno Rapee / Lew Pollack
Song: Charmaine, 3 minutes
Album: The very best of Mantovani
Publisher: Decca
460039-2

In the winter of 2007, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Cullberg Ballet, a celebratory series of performances were organized at Dansens Hus in Stockholm. A survey of works by Birgit Cullberg and Mats Ek were presented alongside new works expressly created for the occasion by Johan Inger and Alexander Ekman. The program was extremely popular, a queue forming each night at the box office of hopeful spectators looking to procure a ticket to the sold out performances.

“We turn 40 and are celebrating our anniversary with eight performances. A unique evening with a line up of festive surprises featuring both a look back and forward with historical repertoire and new works. This time we not only take the stage but also fill the foyer with exhibitions, installations and with ourselves. Come and celebrate with us!

Greetings,
Cullberg Ballet ”

The works in the foyer were created by Cullberg dancers Tilman O’Donnell, Thomas Zamolo and Daniel Sjökvist, in collaboration with Bernard Cauchard and Yvan Auzely. The installations included specially curated archival footage from the history of the company. In addition, a film was presented between each segment of the onstage performances featuring interviews with wellknown figures from Swedish sports, business and culture speaking about their impressions of the Cullberg Ballet through the years.

Sveriges Radio

About the Cullberg Ballet 2007

In its fifth decade, the Cullberg Ballet is today a world-renowned dance company. The ensemble has danced in roughly forty countries and is an important element in the international presentation of Swedish cultural life. In the last ten years, the Cullberg Ballet has given as many performances abroad as in Sweden to much acclaim the world over. Through its annual tours within the country, the Cullberg Ballet also reaches our nation with the best of Swedish dance has to offer. The ensemble’s members have been of an international mix since the beginning, and Cullberg Ballet’s twenty dancers are its greatest strength. The dancers’ strong stage personalities and technical strength have always been the hallmark of the Cullberg Ballet.

The Cullberg Ballet was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg. She has had a strong influence on contemporary Swedish and international dance since the 1950’s when her work Miss Julie premiered. It went on to become one of the world’s most performed dance pieces. The Cullberg Ballet’s first ensemble consisted of eight hand-picked international dancers. The original idea that all of them should be considered soloists still applies today.

In 1982, Birgit Cullberg was succeeded by Mats Ek, who remained the Cullberg Ballet’s artistic director until 1993. With their outstanding works, the two have left their personal mark on the Cullberg Ballet and contributed to it being one of the world’s foremost ensembles.

Carolyn Carlson took over the artistic management after Mats Ek in 1993, and was succeeded in 1995 by Lena Wennergren-Juras and Margareta Lidström. Since the summer of 2003, Johan Inger has been the artistic director of the Cullberg Ballet. He has garnered attention both in Sweden and abroad for his strong choreographic works, and has received several awards, including the 2006 Birgit Cullberg Scholarship from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

End comprised the second piece on a double bill with Johan Inger’s Blanco. It premiered at the Dance and Theater Festival in Gothenburg on the 25th August, 2006. It was one of the first commissioned works by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who has gone on to an illustrious career in choreography for both dance, circus and broadway.

End depicts a group of nomads that gather together at a border, beneath the shadow of a large concrete wall.

Music: Traditional music from Georgia with Hamlet Gonashvili