August Bournonville Research Articles

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part nine

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part nine

New light on Bournonville

Although much research has been done on August Bournonville in recent years, especially in preparation for the centenary of his death in 1979, there still remains to be investigated a body of important material that can shed new light on significant, but thus far unexplored, aspects of the great choreographer's work. This material, preserved in various libraries, museums, and archives in Denmark and Sweden, has in many cases remained unnoticed and unexplored, as it has only been partially catalogued. But it contains many documents that will make it possible to study his work in far greater detail than heretofore. The main part of this unfamiliar material is preserved in the Library of the Royal Theatre and in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.1 The study of Bournonville's work occupies a significant position in dance research because it is possible to confront the historical material with the unique living ballet tradition maintained in Copenhagen. Although the roots of this tradition can be traced to the eighteenth century, it is based primarily on the work of Bournonville, who created both the repertory and the style that remain the foundation of the Royal Danish Ballet. This body of source material on Bournonville and his theatre can be divided into four main groups. The first, preserved in the Library of the Royal Theatre, consists of documents relating to the actual staging of the ballets. Here are the old stage-director's records,

My Theatre Life by August Bournonville. Translated from Danish and annotated by Patricia N. McAndrew. 1979. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. 709 pp., illustrated. $37.50 cloth

My Theatre Life by August Bournonville. Translated from Danish and annotated by Patricia N. McAndrew. 1979. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. 709 pp., illustrated. $37.50 cloth

The Bournonville style

The special style of classical ballet that August Bournonville left to the dance world and that the Royal Danish Ballet preserves has been made more accessible for study through the publication in 1979, the centenary year of his death, of the Bournonville School;' the series of classroom exercises and enchafnments organized by Hans Beck into an established selection for each day of the week. Further intensive exposure to Bournonville's work during a week of centenary celebrations in Copenhagen in November 1979, plus rehearsals, lectures and demonstrations, provided an opportunity to gain an intimate understanding of the man's choreographic thinking and to gauge what is different, what is special, about his approach, his arrangement and presentation of the vocabulary of classical steps, and his inventive use of specific variations on the established material.

The ballet poems of August Bournonville the complete scenarios, part six

The ballet poems of August Bournonville the complete scenarios, part six

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part four

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part four

Salute to Bournonville

The King's Ballet Master is first book-length biography in English of life and career of Danish choreographer August Bournonville. Since we are in midst of an international Bournonville boomlet (if not an actual boom), publication of any work about ballet master is certain to arouse interest. For several years, critics have been stressing need for book that will provide comprehensive view of Boumonville as man and artist and also supplement (in some instances, even explain) what he says in his own writings. Judged by this standard, Walter Terry's attractive little book may seem disappointing. But considering author's intention, and also how few books on subject are available to critics, scholars, and dance lovers do not read Danish, I feel that some of criticism this book has received has been unduly harsh. In his foreword, Terry states that it would be presumptuous of him, as non-Dane, to attempt a detailed and definitive biography of Danish national treasure. That task he leaves to his Danish colleagues, who have already done exhaustive and immensely valuable research ... on various areas of Bournonville's life and career. The King's Ballet Master is rather the tribute of... longtime

The Ballet poems of August Bournonville the complete scenarios, part five

The Ballet poems of August Bournonville the complete scenarios, part five

August Bournonville, 1805–1879

August Bournonville, 1805–1879

Bournonville: Citizen and artist

In an essay dealing with August Bournonville's relationship to several of the leading Danish writers of his day, Erik Aschengreen remarks that can dance Boumonville without knowing anything about the man who during the last century lived within the ramparts of Copenhagen. But, he goes on to say, if one takes the trouble to acquire some historical knowledge of the man and his times, can get closer to the core of his art.1 The present article is an attempt to understand that art more fully by shedding some light on a relatively unexplored area: the ballet master's political sympathies. An awareness of this aspect of Boumonville's thought and the way in which it colored his attitude toward life and art is important if one wants to appreciate fully his place in nineteenth-century Danish social and artistic life. Boumonville's political beliefs were as sacred and vital to him as his religious convictions; they are revealed not only in his diaries and memoirs, but in his ballet scenarios and in his views on the role of the theatre as an institution-an expression of what is best in a people and an important element in the spiritual development of nations.2 It should be said at the outset that August Boumonville was not a politician. As an artist, he deliberately held aloof from political demonstrations,3 and unlike men such as France's Victor Hugo and Alphonse de Lamartine, he did not aspire to political office when the constitutional era dawned. Bournonville might better be described as politically aware and socially active. He belonged to a number of civic societies and charitable organizations. He was an astute observer of everything happening around him and intensely interested in the effect the revolutionary times in which he lived would have on his country and on his art. He was, in

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part three

(1982). The ballet poems of August Bournonville the complete scenarios, appendix two. Dance Chronicle: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 52-78.

Russian influences on the Danish Ballet, 1915–1932

THE ROYAL DANISH BALLET is recognized today as the world's only ballet company with a continuous living tradition of style, technique, and repertoire dating from the early nineteenth century. This tradition can be traced back to 1829 when August Bournonville returned from Paris to his native Copenhagen and became ballet master at the Royal Theatre there. As a teacher, he imparted to the company the French classical style and technique he had studied with Auguste Vestris, but his choreography reflected a more Danish sensibility. Whereas most French romantic ballet stressed erotic, exotic, or demonic elements, Bournonville emphasized the bourgeois aspects of Danish romanticism: warmth, charm, domestic harmonyart to elevate the mind and refresh the senses. Bournonville ballets still have this uniquely Danish flavor, and a major reason for their survival through several crises in the last century has surely been the Danish public's identification with the tradition and pride in it. But while it has preserved its nineteenth-century heritage into the twentieth century, the Royal Danish Ballet has grown into a company of international stature, with a repertoire of works by foreign as well as Danish choreographers and the versatility to perform them. One of the most persistent and clearly traceable factors in the transformation of the ballet from Denmark's home team into the international company that it is today has been the influence, both technical and aesthetic, of the Russian ballet. Recently there has been much discussion about the effect of the introduction of Russian training-and especially the influence of the great Russian teacher Vera Volkova-on the purity of the Bournonville style. But there had already been an earlier Russian influence: the impact of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and the works of Michel Fokine and George Balanchine in particular.

The great world and the small: Reflections on the Bournonville festival

One thing that students of dance history are often unable to study is choreography itself. Although research can reveal much about the music, decor, and dramatic significance of a choreographic work, the evanescence of dance may make it impossible for us to know how that work lived and moved upon a stage. Therefore the Royal Danish Ballet's Bournonville Centenary Festival in Copenhagen (November 24-30, 1979) was one of the most important dance events of recent years. Honoring the great Danish choreographer August Bournonville, who died in 1879, it offered, on the Old Stage of the Royal Theatre, nine works that are considered authentically Bournonville in their choreography. Except for the William Tell Variations and a few miscellaneous bits and pieces (for instance, such trifles as the Polka Militaire and the Jockey Dance, presented in America by the touring ensemble of Royal Danish Ballet soloists), that is just about all the Bournonville that has survived, and one of those nine items is merely a pas de deux. But Bournonville choreographed more than fifty works, and so one can only wonder what treasures have been lost. However, since we have no ballets at all by Noverre or Vigano, and since Giselle, our sole surviving ballet by Perrot, is a collaboration with another choreographer, we should feel lucky to possess nine works. Come to think of it, how many more ballets have survived by Petipa? And, surely, only a few more ballets by Fokine are now revivable-even though Fokine was a choreographer of our own century. Boumonville's nine ballets are therefore quite a lot. As most dance lovers know, they survived simply because Denmark in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was isolated

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part two

The ballet poems of August Bournonville: The complete scenarios, part two