The Dancer’s springboard
Print Edition
AFTER 16 years as principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, Copenhagen-born Nikolaj Hübbe bid his farewell with one last performance at NYCB in 2008 and returned to his home country as the artistic director of the Royal Danish Ballet.
This June, the Royal Danish Ballet is touring to China for two weeks in Shanghai and Beijing with two of the company’s most acclaimed ballets: “Napoli” and “La Sylphide,” both adaptations of August Bournonville’s (1805-79) choreography by Hübbe and Sorella Englund.
“If you grow up in a tradition and you are steeped in that tradition, I think it is important to use it as a springboard rather than a weight on your shoulders,” said Hübbe, who started his dance trainings at the age of 10 at the Royal Danish Ballet School. He joined the company in 1984 and was named principal dancer four years later.
Founded in 1771 under French dancer Pierre Laurent, the Royal Danish Ballet is the world’s third-oldest company after the Paris Opera Ballet and Imperial Russian Ballet (today’s Mariinsky Ballet).
Bournonville was a ballet master and world famous choreographer who created around 50 ballets for the company including “La Sylphide,” and devised a ballet technique called “the Bournonville method.”
The Danish school maintains the standards of the romantic ballet. Bournonville’s romantic-era ballets are very musical, and to attain the right kind of fluidity, dancers must possess superb ballet technique.
“I would say that Bournonville is very much a dancer’s choreographer. His steps are intricate, but I find that they are always very in tune with the music and with whatever story he tells. He rarely dances for the sake of dancing. There is always a dramatic, descriptive purpose,” Hübbe explained.
Except “La Sylphide,” Bournonville’s works usually end with a “love conquers all” moral. Hübbe described him as the “apollonian choreographer.”
The past, in his opinion, is a wonderful base to reinvestigate, reconfigure and reinvigorate the dances, and it is the luxury and obligation of staging the old masters.
“It’s theater, not a museum gallery. The dances have to live evening after evening. If we just repeat what has been done for generations and call it authentic, we are locking ourselves into a frame that stalls our imagination and creativity,” he said.
Hübbe is leading the Royal Danish Ballet with an open mind, keeping the traditions and legacy of Bournonville while embracing modernism. For him, it is important for both dancers and audiences to dance and experience living choreographers whose works can reflect the time they were revealed in.
“It is fantastic to keep reading Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen and William Shakespeare, but new authors and new interpretations are of dire importance to a company that wants to be a reflection and touch on its own time,” he said.
The young people today grow up in a very different cultural environment, and to get them to appreciate and love ballet, the old ballets have to be rejuvenated, he said.
“I don’t deliberately go against Bournonville’s point of view, but I believe that as with any work — choreographic, literary or otherwise — the interpretation and the imagination that it sparks in you is important, not least to attract a new audience of young people,” he said.
Hübbe is excited about the company’s upcoming tour in China, as the Chinese theater goers have another approach to ballet due to their very different cultural background.
“It teaches the company something about China, but it also teaches each and every one of us in the company something about ourselves as human beings,” he said.
Hübbe first applied for the position he currently holds in 1999, when he was dancing with the New York City Ballet, but he didn’t get it.
“In hindsight it was good that I didn’t get it. I was very young, but I applied because I had a strong opinion about the Royal Danish Ballet, what the company needed and what it was about,” he recalled. “I thought I had an understanding of the tradition and the company. For those same reasons I applied 10 years later and got the position.”
As a dancer who has danced in both European and American companies, Hübbe hopes to combine the energies of both companies and make the dancers more equipped for all situations.
When he returned to Denmark in 2008, he saw changes in the company, including dancers from diverse backgrounds, making the Royal Danish Ballet less homogenous.
“Today, I am not sure homogeny is necessary for a ballet company. For Swan Lake, Giselle and La Sylphide there has to be some kind of communal ethic or value of how to move together, but more importantly, if treated correctly, different cultures can add and lend to each other,” he said.
From a principal dancer to artistic director, Hübbe described managing such a big ballet company “like baking, it’s always a delicate balance.”
“I am in constant contact with the dancers, and they are constantly in contact with their stage craft and the audience. The never ending stream of performances propels us forward. It is challenging and deeply humbling.”
Though after living in New York for 17 years, coming back to Denmark wasn’t easy. Hübbe actually experienced a sort of culture shock when he came back home, and it took him a while to re-adjust, he said.
After eight years leading the Royal Danish Ballet, Hübbe quoted Italian novelist Liuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa when he was asked what other changes he would like to make:
“For everything to stay the same, everything has to change,” he said. “I don’t want to change anything for the sake of change. But in order to keep the ballet alive, it is inevitable and natural that there will be changes.”
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