Belinda
/ 4. september 2009 12:55
At Skånesdansteater, we have a dancer who has assumed the role of "resident blogger"! Peder Nilsson has been updating the blog on a very regular basis, and so you've probably seen what we've been up to. Since it has all been in Swedish, I thought I would give you a little update in English in case you haven't been following!
The new season started in August, and since then we have been really busy. We started by performing in Sommarscen in Pildamsparken and showed extracts of a variety of pieces.
Here we are doing Berlin choreographed by Hofesh Shechter. (photo Nelson Rodriguez-Smith) From left to right we have Anette, Allyson, Belinda, Jonas Jing Yi, Vidar, Adel and Sara. Allyson, Jing-Yi and Adel are three new dancers that have joined us this season. Adel is Swedish, Allyson is half French and half Swedish and Jing-Yi is Chinese.
Here we are doing an extract from Halliburton Freedom choreographed by Fredrik "benke" Rydman. (photo Nelson Rodriguez-Smith) From left to right we see Belinda, Sam and Jonas. Sam is a new dancer who is English.
Again Halliburton Freedom. (photo Nelson Rodriguez-Smith) Here we see Belinda, Hazuki, Jonas and Sam. Hazuki is a new dancer joining us and she is from Japan.
This is a piece that was choreographed by Toan Cao Duc and is entitled Hai Mat. (photo Nelson Rodriguez-Smith) The four dancers are Hang, Toan, Luong and Tanh. These four dancers are members of the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet and are guesting with us for the next few months. They will be a part of our new production Black Silk. This piece Hai Mat will feature in Black Silk, so we were given a sneak preview in Sommarscen!
Adel, Jing Yi, Hazuki and Allyson take their bow after the show!
Adel's little brother wants to join him on the stage!
We also performed an extract from fragile/entity choreographed by Susanna Leinonan which was part of our production Interference, and Heart of Silk choreographed by Pontus Lidberg which will be part of our Black Silk production. It was really fun to perform outdoors and to so many people. There was a huge audience both days, and it felt great!
The week after that we performed in Copenhagen as part of the Copenhagen Summerdans festival held in Politigården - an outdoor amphitheatre in the Police Headquarters. We performed Berlin again, and really enjoyed being part of that festival - it is such a beautiful stage and the atmosphere there is very special.
We performed together with Danish Dance Theatre, The Finnish National Ballet and Unge Dansekompaniet. (our ex-director Marie Brolin-Tani's new company) That was also where I danced in my last performance as I will have a baby in December!
So, now we are working on our new production Black Silk. It will premier on 10 October, and will run until 31 October. It will be showing at the Malmö Opera and will have a live orchestra. There will be three pieces included in the evening. The first is Hai Mat - the one that was previewed at Sommarscen choreographed by Toan Cao Duc and danced by the Vietnamiese dancers. There will be a new creation by Jorma Uotinen which is called Black Water. The third piece in the evening is Heart of Silk choreographed originally for the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet by Pontus Lidberg.
This is the picture that is used in the poster and in the advertisements for this production. It is Rumiko Otsuka in the picture, who has returned to guest with us for this production. If you can see - she is under water in this picture! This photo is the result of a whole day's work, which entailed quite a lot! It took place at Aq-va-kul swimming pool here in Malmö.
It started with Rumiko having a "make over"! She had a make up artist doing her make up, and a wig was attached to her head.
The photographer Peo Olsson then had to be geared up in a diving suit so that he could set up the camera underwater to take the pictures.
Rumiko then jumped in the water in her fancy outfit! Jonas - our very own dancer is also a diver! He was there at the photo shoot, to help Rumiko under the water.
And action! Rumiko had many trips under the water to take the pictures. It was quite tricky for her to stay there, so Jonas was holding her by the legs to keep her down a few seconds so that they could take a few shots. She was exhausted afterwards, but it was worth it - look how fantastic she looks in the end result!
So, at the moment the dancers are rehearsing for Black Silk. Jorma Uotinen has been here this week working on his piece, and inbetween they are rehearsing Heart of Silk.
As I can not dance that much at the moment, I take class every day , and then I help out in the marketing department! It has been really fun to experience another side of the company, and it's very been very eye-opening as I see how much they have to do, and how much time it takes to do all these small things. This week I was working on the web-site, and have added new pictures to each dancer's profile page - check them out!
So - that's it from me today -I will try to keep you updated about what is going on! Until then I have no doubt that Peder will fill you in :-)