MEMENTO - DUTCH NATIONAL BALLET
Memento is made in a time, in which the world was put "on hold" due to pandemic Covid-19.
It is our nature to move freely and flow like a river.. but all of a sudden free movement between people has been limited due to the lockdowns. As if the world has lost its natural flow.
Wubkje choose the titel Memento, as this creation will always remind her of these times. And Memento refers to the expression "memento mori". It is precisely this connection with the inevitability of death that reminds us, to live: "memento vivere"
Music is the moving third song from Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. A song that reflects and expresses deep sadness and loss, but in which we can also feel deep love through the voice.
For stage design Wubkje chose a light space to create a sense of light and hope as counterpoint to the dark times.
Memento is not literally meant to tell a story, it is simply a shared moment in dance and time and memento of this period.
Concept and Choreography, Visual Concept, Stage and Costume design: Wubkje Kuindersma
Film Director, Cinematographer and Editor: Mathieu Gremillet
Music: Henryk Górecki – Symphony no.3 Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, op. 36, part 3 Lento – cantabile simplice
Dancers Dutch National Ballet : Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo, Sandra Quintyn, Manu Kumar, Dingkai Bai, Bastiaan Stoop Lighting Designs and projections: Wijnand van der Horst
Duration: 18min
Location: Stage of Muziektheater Amsterdam
Director:Ted Brandsen
Associate Artistic Director: Rachel Beaujean
Artistic Coordinator Junior Company: Ernst Meisner
Camera assistant: Kenneth van Bochove
Senior lighting managers : Michel van Reijn, Angela Leuthold
Premiere online: 20 May 2021
photos by Hans Gerritsen
on photo above : Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo, Sandra Quintyn,
photo below: Wendeline Wijkstra, Dingkai Bai, Manu Kumar
It is our nature to move freely and flow like a river.. but all of a sudden free movement between people has been limited due to the lockdowns. As if the world has lost its natural flow.
Wubkje choose the titel Memento, as this creation will always remind her of these times. And Memento refers to the expression "memento mori". It is precisely this connection with the inevitability of death that reminds us, to live: "memento vivere"
Music is the moving third song from Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. A song that reflects and expresses deep sadness and loss, but in which we can also feel deep love through the voice.
For stage design Wubkje chose a light space to create a sense of light and hope as counterpoint to the dark times.
Memento is not literally meant to tell a story, it is simply a shared moment in dance and time and memento of this period.
Concept and Choreography, Visual Concept, Stage and Costume design: Wubkje Kuindersma
Film Director, Cinematographer and Editor: Mathieu Gremillet
Music: Henryk Górecki – Symphony no.3 Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, op. 36, part 3 Lento – cantabile simplice
Dancers Dutch National Ballet : Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo, Sandra Quintyn, Manu Kumar, Dingkai Bai, Bastiaan Stoop Lighting Designs and projections: Wijnand van der Horst
Duration: 18min
Location: Stage of Muziektheater Amsterdam
Director:Ted Brandsen
Associate Artistic Director: Rachel Beaujean
Artistic Coordinator Junior Company: Ernst Meisner
Camera assistant: Kenneth van Bochove
Senior lighting managers : Michel van Reijn, Angela Leuthold
Premiere online: 20 May 2021
photos by Hans Gerritsen
on photo above : Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo, Sandra Quintyn,
photo below: Wendeline Wijkstra, Dingkai Bai, Manu Kumar
REVIEWS
When lines become emotions: Memento
by Ana Baigorri
(translated from Spanish)
The Dutch National Ballet (Het Nationale Ballet), currently directed by Ted Brandsen and Ernst Meisner, who directs the Young Company, has been one of the institutions that has been able to adapt to these new and challenging times of pandemic in an exemplary way. Not only have the training sessions at home entertained those of us who wanted to keep fit with good exercises, but they have also shared their work adapted to the video dance format, making it possible for the whole world to appreciate the quality of this historic company.
In the streaming premiered on Thursday, May 20, 2021, at 8:15 p.m., the artistic and technical team of the HET have once again dazzled those who have peeked out of the new stage window offered by the popular YouTube platform. A new reality in the development of the performing arts that has given us the premiere of one of the latest creations, the work of the versatile resident choreographer Wubkje Kuindersma.
Just as the pandemic has forced us to realize the importance of the present moment, Kuindersma deals with this concept with Memento, a Latin expression associated with Memento Mori (remember that you have to die), which invites humility in the awareness that we are all perishable. This work is a space in which we can focus on visually and sensorially enjoying beauty. With a musical selection that makes more and more sense as the piece progresses, made up of fragments of Symphony no.3, op. 36 by Henryk Górecki (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs and Lento Cantabile-semplice), we appreciate a new neoclassicism, which relies on intuition and emotions as the creative engine. Which allows the aesthetic lines of classical dance, so purely worked in this company, to be enjoyed even without understanding them.
This piece, therefore open to all audiences, connoisseurs of dance or not, transmits hope. It is a breath of fresh air, a respite from the fear and stress that has engulfed our days for more than a year. From the beginning, the lights designed by Wubjke herself, together with Wijnand van de Horst, they create a magical atmosphere. On a clean and spacious stage, inhabited by the three female performers (Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo and Sandra Quiintyn), a light transition takes us from darkness to the blue box that the stage has become. A black rectangle projected on the background cyclorama floats over the dancers, evoking a melancholic state in which they breathe, searching for wings to take flight in a simple but always powerful bourré. Through which the interpreters, beings covered in blue in a simple but sophisticated costume designed by Wubjke Kuindersma, begin to explore the space together.
The elegance and refined work of this piece, in which group movements abound, does not prevent the viewer from discovering the individuality of each of the cast members. Another characteristic of this choreographer's work, which stands out for her ability to bring out the best in each dancer in particular, without losing the cleanliness of the ensemble, which complements the male and female cast (Manu Kumar, Dingkai Bai and Bastian Stoop). The honesty of the work shows the vulnerability of the interpreter, who, far from hiding his tiredness, turns it into a spring with which to go deeper into intensity throughout the choreography. Performed with dedication for these young people and at the same time mature dancers, these reveal without claim your enjoyment by means of looks of fullness and complicity among them. Especially in the movements that involve the steps of two together.
In a constant evolution where body and choreography proclaim openness, Memento fluidly traverses and transits geometric spatial formations full of technical challenges. Clean compositions that continually transmute and move the dancers to a new position. A simple but brilliant zig zag in canon brings us closer to the end, reaffirming what seems to be the message of this piece: we must continue, with openness, coexisting and sharing, searching. We must continue heading towards clarity, going through all those spaces that touch our fiber.
Despite the risk that the two-dimensional format of the video can present, this production manages to play with some camera movements, merit of the assistant Kenneth van Bochove and the film director Mathieu Gremillet, who dance with the viewer navigating within the choreography.
When this work ends, we are given a moment of great beauty in which we can contemplate the dancers celebrating the piece with the choreographer. Something that very probably, in a face-to-face show model, would have been left only for the members of the theater behind the curtain. Which leads me to recognize that not everything is bad in this new way of presenting and experiencing dance works. Wubkje Kuindersma, an experienced choreographer who stands out for her versatility and for knowing how to adapt to the spaces in which she works, makes wise use of resources. That although they are apparently simple, they build eighteen minutes in which light, costumes and scenery, work of the choreographer; They work together to make you lose track of time.
by Ana Baigorri
(translated from Spanish)
The Dutch National Ballet (Het Nationale Ballet), currently directed by Ted Brandsen and Ernst Meisner, who directs the Young Company, has been one of the institutions that has been able to adapt to these new and challenging times of pandemic in an exemplary way. Not only have the training sessions at home entertained those of us who wanted to keep fit with good exercises, but they have also shared their work adapted to the video dance format, making it possible for the whole world to appreciate the quality of this historic company.
In the streaming premiered on Thursday, May 20, 2021, at 8:15 p.m., the artistic and technical team of the HET have once again dazzled those who have peeked out of the new stage window offered by the popular YouTube platform. A new reality in the development of the performing arts that has given us the premiere of one of the latest creations, the work of the versatile resident choreographer Wubkje Kuindersma.
Just as the pandemic has forced us to realize the importance of the present moment, Kuindersma deals with this concept with Memento, a Latin expression associated with Memento Mori (remember that you have to die), which invites humility in the awareness that we are all perishable. This work is a space in which we can focus on visually and sensorially enjoying beauty. With a musical selection that makes more and more sense as the piece progresses, made up of fragments of Symphony no.3, op. 36 by Henryk Górecki (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs and Lento Cantabile-semplice), we appreciate a new neoclassicism, which relies on intuition and emotions as the creative engine. Which allows the aesthetic lines of classical dance, so purely worked in this company, to be enjoyed even without understanding them.
This piece, therefore open to all audiences, connoisseurs of dance or not, transmits hope. It is a breath of fresh air, a respite from the fear and stress that has engulfed our days for more than a year. From the beginning, the lights designed by Wubjke herself, together with Wijnand van de Horst, they create a magical atmosphere. On a clean and spacious stage, inhabited by the three female performers (Wendeline Wijkstra, Laura Rosillo and Sandra Quiintyn), a light transition takes us from darkness to the blue box that the stage has become. A black rectangle projected on the background cyclorama floats over the dancers, evoking a melancholic state in which they breathe, searching for wings to take flight in a simple but always powerful bourré. Through which the interpreters, beings covered in blue in a simple but sophisticated costume designed by Wubjke Kuindersma, begin to explore the space together.
The elegance and refined work of this piece, in which group movements abound, does not prevent the viewer from discovering the individuality of each of the cast members. Another characteristic of this choreographer's work, which stands out for her ability to bring out the best in each dancer in particular, without losing the cleanliness of the ensemble, which complements the male and female cast (Manu Kumar, Dingkai Bai and Bastian Stoop). The honesty of the work shows the vulnerability of the interpreter, who, far from hiding his tiredness, turns it into a spring with which to go deeper into intensity throughout the choreography. Performed with dedication for these young people and at the same time mature dancers, these reveal without claim your enjoyment by means of looks of fullness and complicity among them. Especially in the movements that involve the steps of two together.
In a constant evolution where body and choreography proclaim openness, Memento fluidly traverses and transits geometric spatial formations full of technical challenges. Clean compositions that continually transmute and move the dancers to a new position. A simple but brilliant zig zag in canon brings us closer to the end, reaffirming what seems to be the message of this piece: we must continue, with openness, coexisting and sharing, searching. We must continue heading towards clarity, going through all those spaces that touch our fiber.
Despite the risk that the two-dimensional format of the video can present, this production manages to play with some camera movements, merit of the assistant Kenneth van Bochove and the film director Mathieu Gremillet, who dance with the viewer navigating within the choreography.
When this work ends, we are given a moment of great beauty in which we can contemplate the dancers celebrating the piece with the choreographer. Something that very probably, in a face-to-face show model, would have been left only for the members of the theater behind the curtain. Which leads me to recognize that not everything is bad in this new way of presenting and experiencing dance works. Wubkje Kuindersma, an experienced choreographer who stands out for her versatility and for knowing how to adapt to the spaces in which she works, makes wise use of resources. That although they are apparently simple, they build eighteen minutes in which light, costumes and scenery, work of the choreographer; They work together to make you lose track of time.
Memento - By Brian Peterman
(posted on Facebook)
I will encourage all serious new choreographers to turn off everything, stop the distractions and watch this new ballet by one of our jurists Wub Quin Wukje Kuindersma with Dutch National Ballet. Particularly Mariana Sotomayor Cuellar , Anivdelab Ponce De León Rueda, Bryan Basantes, Justine Fraser. This is you, your dancers soul.
The style is rooted in August Bournonville ( 1805-1879) from the source of ballet; Jean Georges Noverre ( 1727- 1810). It developed largely in isolation from the rigid brutality of Cicchetti and the overt emotionalism of the Russians. It's unique, intoxicating, simple in elegance, refined and overwhelmingly beautiful. I believe Wubkje is channeling this purity of movement in her work.
What an honor to have her with us. I cannot encourage our young choreographers enough to watch and see what contemporary ballet can be at it's highest level.
No one rolling around on the floor, or being weird just for the sake of being weird. Instead, pure and deeply moving beauty.
Choreographers, also please take note of the structural perfection of her use of the stage, lyrical lines, organic relationships of the dancers, powerful impact of music and the complete commitment of the dancers. This is our profession at the highest level, that I am hoping you all aspire to become.
(posted on Facebook)
I will encourage all serious new choreographers to turn off everything, stop the distractions and watch this new ballet by one of our jurists Wub Quin Wukje Kuindersma with Dutch National Ballet. Particularly Mariana Sotomayor Cuellar , Anivdelab Ponce De León Rueda, Bryan Basantes, Justine Fraser. This is you, your dancers soul.
The style is rooted in August Bournonville ( 1805-1879) from the source of ballet; Jean Georges Noverre ( 1727- 1810). It developed largely in isolation from the rigid brutality of Cicchetti and the overt emotionalism of the Russians. It's unique, intoxicating, simple in elegance, refined and overwhelmingly beautiful. I believe Wubkje is channeling this purity of movement in her work.
What an honor to have her with us. I cannot encourage our young choreographers enough to watch and see what contemporary ballet can be at it's highest level.
No one rolling around on the floor, or being weird just for the sake of being weird. Instead, pure and deeply moving beauty.
Choreographers, also please take note of the structural perfection of her use of the stage, lyrical lines, organic relationships of the dancers, powerful impact of music and the complete commitment of the dancers. This is our profession at the highest level, that I am hoping you all aspire to become.
