a Birthday Gift from VESTRIS

[Katharine Kanter]

The founder of "VESTRIS" is 75 years old today - the "four score years and ten" cut-off point encroaches at speed !

As a birthday gift from us to you - might we perhaps wish to study this combination from the Wednesday School n° 19, danced in 1981 by Bjarne Hecht at 24 mins. approx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPqb2r-ZHYw

and compare to how we dance this today, at much faster tempi, muscling through at considerable strain to every limb. There are several current versions of that combination on the Internet, including the 2005 version filmed in Copenhagen.

We are not to compare the dancers, but the dance.

Here's what I've just written to friends:

"Bjarne (who must have been about 18 at the time) dancing on a stage the size of a bath-tub in 1981. Leaving aside the advantages Bjarne had, namely ideal proportions and an elegant figure - we are NOT comparing dancers but the dance here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPqb2r-ZHYw

"In 1981 with the slower tempi, there is time to give savour to each step - eg the tiny ballonnés as a little piece of irony, the pas courus as a droll interlude rather than a run-up, the pas de bourrées marking a proper pause, and giving each distinct port de bras its value so that we have time to admire the plastique. The whole thing looks terribly light and easy. Also, I'm forgetting the "appuis" - the slower tempi give  one time to almost "lower" the foot properly to the floor  and be deliberate into the next step. 

Of course Bjarne was magnificent even as a youngster, but that's not the point."

It's all there - the "abandon", the "aisance", the mental space to know precisely what one intends to express,

WITHOUT being in physical pain and tension.

So there we have it.

God Speed!


And Bjarne's own article on Nora Kiss and Vera Volkova
https://www.augustevestris.fr/spip.php?article237