Intricate steps afoot for student dancers in Danish ballet
The Bournonville ballet style, a hallmark of the Royal Danish Ballet, shown here, will be featured in an Imagine Ballet Theatre program June 18 at Peery's Egyptian Theater.
Chamber Orchestra Ogden will provide live music for "Konservatoriet," a ballet excerpt playing June 18 at Peery's Egyptian Theater.
OGDEN — The footwork remains authentic in the 167-year-old ballet young Utah dancers are rehearsing at Peery’s Egyptian Theater this week.
“We are dancing to the same steps they were dancing in 1849 when the ballet ‘Konservatoriet’ was created,” says Dinna Bjorn, a Danish choreographer who is visiting Ogden to stage the production.
An excerpt from “Konservatoriet” — choreographed by Danish ballet master August Bournonville — will be presented Saturday, June 18, by a group of 32 students.
The dancers, ranging in age from 8 to 24, come from Ogden’s Imagine Ballet Theatre, Ballet West and throughout the country and are studying Bournonville’s methods of ballet instruction during a week-long workshop.
The June 18 performance will highlight a sampling of techniques the students have learned in the workshop, Bjorn said.
“(The technique) should look easy but there’s a lot of work behind it,” said the Danish ballet dancer and choreographer who specializes in Bournonville’s instructional method.
PREVIEW
• WHAT: ”Konservatoriet: An Evening with Bournonville”
• WHEN: 7 p.m. June 18
• WHERE: Peery’s Egyptian Theater, 2415 Washington Blvd., Ogden
• ADMISSION: $15; free/18-under but tickets required; 12-under must be accompanied by an adult. Buy tickets at 801-689-8700 or on the website
The dancers will also present an excerpt from “Konservatoriet,” a ballet that is an homage to Bournonville’s youth, Bjorn said. Bournonville set the ballet in a dancing class at the Paris Opera School where he studied himself in the early 1800s.
“It’s a ballet about a ballet class,” explained Raymond Van Mason, artistic director of Imagine Ballet Theatre, who added the setting is akin to the famous ballet paintings of Edgar Degas.
The Bournonville workshop is a unique opportunity for Ogden and Utah dancers, Bjorn said. Although such courses are offered in Europe and Denmark — where the choreographer’s works are a specialty of the Royal Danish Ballet — they are not as common elsewhere, she said.
“The only place in the United States you have a workshop with Bournonville is here, in Ogden,” Bjorn, former artistic director of the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo, said.
Van Mason’s interest in the technique is the reason for that, she added. Bjorn said she was also in Ogden last summer to conduct a similar but smaller workshop.
Live music for the performance will be provided by Chamber Orchestra Ogden.Van Mason said other guest artists assisting Bjorn include Diana Cuni Mancini and Henning Albrechtsen, both formerly of the Royal Danish Ballet, and Eric Viudes, who worked with Bjorn in Norway.
The art of ballet is taught through various methods of instruction, such as the Italian method or the Russian method. The Bournonville style is influenced by early French ballet and, according to the website bournonville.com, is known for its emphasis on the positive — “its purpose to elevate and help us to be harmonious beings.”
“The Bournonville dancing, really it should be joy — (to) dance because one wanted to express joy,” Bjorn said.
As the dancers perform, the hope is that the audience will “be caught by the joy,” she said.
The style is also known for its use of mime, or facial expressions and gestures, Bjorn said, which students will demonstrate during the program.
“Konservatoriet” — also known as “Le Conservatoire” — is the story of a ballet director looking for love and placing an advertisement in a newspaper for a wife. Other characters include the ballet master, a violinist, a housekeeper and ballerinas.
Bjorn said the Bournonville workshop is important because it’s a way to pass on the traditions of ballet to a new generation. When young dancers know the roots of their art, they are able to develop “in all directions,” she said.
“The base is in the classical and part of the classical ballet tradition is actually the Bournonville tradition,” Bjorn said.
Contact reporter Becky Cairns at 801-625-4276 or bcairns@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @bccairns or like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SEbeckycairns.