Published on Sep 14, 2017

Rating:

Genre: NCPA

Dates: October 27-29, 2017

Times: 7:30pm

Venue: Opera House of NCPA

Prices: 100, 180, 280, 400, 460, 520, 580, 680

Features: Nederlands Dans Theater 1 is one of the world’s leading contemporary dance companies. From October 27-29, NDT1 will presents the classical shows at opera house of NCPA in Beijing.

PROFRAMME

Oct. 27th-28th
Safe as Houses
In the Event
Shoot The Moon

Oct. 29th
Shoot the Moon
Safe as Houses
Shutters Shut
Woke up Blind

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

Nederlands Dans Theater 1
Nederlands Dans Theater 1 (NDT 1) is one of the world’s leading contemporary dance companies, under artistic guidance of Paul Lightfoot. The Dutch troupe is based in The Hague, but performs for over 115.000 visitors in Europe as well as in the USA, Asia and Australia. Since its founding in 1959, the top company has built a rich repertoire of 600 ballets by master choreographers Jirí Kylián and Hans van Manen, renowned house choreographers Sol León & Paul Lightfoot, associate choreographers Crystal Pite, Johan Inger, Alexander Ekman and Marco Goecke and high-profile guests such as Gabriela Carrizo, Hofesh Shechter and Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar.

The multi-national company consists of 28 phenomenal dancers from all over the world, varying in age between 24 and 40 years. Each one of them excels in their solo qualities. The dancers of NDT are renowned for their virtuosity, astonishing technique and unparalleled expression. The company contributes to various art forms by involving visual art, music composition, and innovative light and set designs, all the while developing new talent. At NDT's home base, all this comes together daily in surroundings that are regarded as a breeding ground, constantly moving ahead to let the future of dance take shape.

SYNOPSIS

Folksongs in Hakka, the oldest among the existing Chinese dialects, and operatic arias from the West, as well as the rustling of grain, soughing of wind and pealing of thunder recorded on-site, complete the soundscape.

A cinematographer spent two years on location capturing the cultivation of rice: flooding, sprouting, harvesting and burning of the field. These video images – of clouds reflected in the water, rice swaying in the wind, and fire ravaging the fields – have become the essential visual elements of the production. Immersed in this landscape, the formidable Cloud Gate dancers, trained in Qi Gong and Internal Martial Arts, enact a human drama parallel to the life cycle of rice. A work about death and rebirth, devastation and resurrection.

Safe as Houses by Sol León & Paul Lightfoot
Safe as Houses is inspired by the Chinese Book of Changes and created to Bach’s scores. The work reflects on the reliance to the physical environment and ultimately on the survivability of the soul.

In the Event by Crystal Pite
Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite integrates movement, original music, text, and rich visual design. She then assembles it with recklessness and rigour by balancing sharp exactitude with irreverence and risk. Pite’s distinctive choreographic language – a mix of classical movementsand improvisation – is marked by a sense of theatricality, inventiveness and humour. Although her work often portrays a strong story, it is not necessary to understand the associations and references in the work in which the silent language of the body is often performed with ferocious intensity.

Shoot the Moon by Sol León & Paul Lightfoot
Shoot the Moon revolves around a higher level of expression in relationships. It is about the one thing that can create or change it: the emotions hidden inside. Revolving walls with striking black-and-white wallpaper create three separate rooms, each containing its own love story. The door to the other room always seems to be open and through the window a new world beckons.
Shoot the Moon earned León and Lightfoot the Swan Award (the most important Dutch dance prize) for best dance production 2005/2006. “Lightfoot and León demonstrate how powerfully and subtly a good choreography and good dance can communicate,” VSCD dance jury comments.

Shutters Shut by Sol León & Paul Lightfoot
Shutters Shut (2003) is a remarkable piece of four minutes during which the dancers visualize the words of Gertrude Stein reciting her poem If I told him. Set to spoken words instead of music makes this dance all the more interesting. The body language blends seamlessly into the poem, sweeping you away in sheer beauty.

Woke up Blind by Marco Goecke
The songs You and I and The Way Young Lovers Do by Jeff Buckley, who died tragically and young, deal with love in different ways: the first is slow, with very stretched-out vocals; the second has fast, almost hectic guitar accompaniment. Both songs form the basis for Marco Goecke’s latest choreography Woke up Blind. The two female and five male dancers are drawn into an acoustic world in which they excel in contesting with Buckley’s vocal power and his frenetic guitar sounds. Like young lovers, they throw themselves into the unknown regardless of the consequences, driven purely by longing. In Woke up Blind, Goecke has once again managed to reach the core of human emotions through pure, highly complex movement.

Tickets for Nederlands Dans Theater 1 Shoot the Moon are Available now!