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Winter 1999-2000 Newsletter from the East Asia
by Kevin Ng
After watching in November the splendid performances of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Macau and the Bolshoi Ballet in Hong Kong, where I am based for most of the year, I cannot help thinking "What Next?" when writing a preview for this newsletter for December.
PREVIEW
December is inevitably somewhat less exciting in comparison. On 10 December, the Hong Kong Ballet is to start its annual run of "The Nutcracker" for about 2 weeks at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. This production of "The Nutcracker", which is quite faithful to the Ivanov/Petipa choreography, is by the company's artistic director Stephen Jefferies, and was premiered two years ago. In previous years the production has had guest appearances, notably by Tetsuya Kumakawa (formerly a Royal Ballet principal) last December, and Chan Hon Goh (a principal of the National Ballet of Canada) in December 1997. This Christmas season, however, there are no guest artists in the production.
Instead, Chan Hon Goh will guest this month with the Singapore Dance Theatre in its production of "Giselle" from 9 to 11 December at the Kallang Theatre in Singapore. The ballet public is lucky in Singapore!
On 28 and 29 January 2000, the Hong Kong Ballet will present a choreographic workshop at the small City Hall Theatre in Hong Kong. Stephen Jefferies and some of the company's dancers will be responsible for the choreography of the six new works to be presented.
Excitement will pick up again in February. The annual four-week long Hong Kong Arts Festival will commence in mid-February after the Chinese New Year. The dance offerings this year are more substantial than in previous years. And Grace Lang, the Festival's Programme Director joked to me at the press conference that it is like a "mini dance festival". Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, which received excellent reviews during its London Sadler's Wells season in April, will perform at the APA Lyric Theatre on 18-20 February. The company will present a new work entitled "Burning The Pine Branches" choreographed by its founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min. This work will actually be premiered in Taipei on New Year's Eve, and is intended to be Lin's farewell to this millennium.
Following the Taiwanese company, Belgian choreographer Alain Patel's modern dance company "Les Ballets C de la B" will perform at the same Hong Kong venue from 23-27 February a full-length work titled "lets op Bach", commemorating the 250th anniversary of Bach's death. This Bach work won a London "Time Out" award in 1998.
In March, French/Vietnamese choreographer Ea Sola's company will perform at the City Hall on 6 and 7 March her latest work "Voila Voila". The City Contemporary Dance Theatre, the leading modern dance company in Hong Kong, which is to perform at the Peacock Theatre in London in February, will premiere a dance-theatre work entitled "Plaza X" choreographed by Hong Kong choreographer Helen Lai.
At the Hong Kong Cultural Centre 3-6 March, La Cuadra de Sevilla will present a spectacular production of "Carmen" combining flamenco music and dance. Perhaps the highlight of the Hong Kong Arts Festival 2000 is David Bintley's "Edward II" to be performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Cultural Centre from 9-12 March, accompanied by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.
OCT./NOV. ROUNDUP
In October, the Bolshoi Ballet gave 24 performances of several full-length ballets in various cities in Japan, following its successful season at the London Coliseum in July.
Meanwhile, the Kirov Ballet, the Bolshoi's rival, embarked on a historic first-time tour to China in early November. They gave 8 performances of its incomparable Sergeyev production of "Swan Lake" - the greatest production of this immortal classic in the world in my opinion - in Beijing and Shanghai. Heading the first cast were Uliana Lopatkina and Igor Zelensky. The Chinese President Jiang, back from his State Visit to Britain and other European countries, attended the last performance in Beijing. The Kirov is currently in Australia touring with its Vainonen production of "The Nutcracker", which they performed at the London Coliseum 3 winters ago.
In November, Japanese audiences were lucky to be able to see Sylvie Guillem touring in various venues. Nicolas Le Riche and Laurent Hilaire from the Paris Opera Ballet took turns to partner Guillem in "La Bayadere" and other works.
K Ballet, founded by ex-Royal Ballet principal Tetsuya Kumakawa a year ago, gave a lot of performances in Japan as well. Viviana Durante was a guest ballerina with the company, and interestingly Durante performed with Kumakawa in Sir Frederick Ashton's "Symphonic Variations".
I, however, couldn't complain in Hong Kong. I saw two of the three performances of the Bolshoi Ballet's Gorsky production of "Don Quixote", which was highly acclaimed in London. Unfortunately, its prima ballerina Nina Ananiashvili had flu and couldn't come to Hong Kong. The first cast was led instead by Galina Stepanenko and Yuri Klevtsov. It was ages since I had last heard such loud cheering and thunderous applause from a Hong Kong ballet audience as that on the Bolshoi's first night.
I, however, preferred the second cast headed by the Bolshoi's sensational 20-year-old star Svetlana Lunkina, whose Giselle at the London Coliseum in July is still imprinted in my memory. Lunkina was partnered by the noble Andrei Uvarov, a stylish virtuoso dancer.
The week before, at the magnificent new Cultural Centre in Macau, the Portuguese colony, which is to revert back to Chinese rule in less than a fortnight, Paul Taylor Dance Company started its Asia-Pacific tour which also included Auckland and Jakarta. Paul Taylor wasn't on this tour, and the company was led instead by its former dancer and now Rehearsal Director Bettie de Jong, who has been "Taylor's right arm for the past 24 years".
The company was in splendid form. The six works comprising the two programmes were - "Esplanade" (1975), "The Word" (1998), "Syzygy" (1987), "Arden Court" (1981), "Eventide" (1997), and "Piazzolla Caldera" (1997). In Macau, I found out from John Tomlinson, the company's Director of Operations, that the company will make a long overdue return to the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London in November 2000.
Finally, I like to wish everyone of you a very Merry Christmas!